If global warming is a reality why is Antarctic ice growing? Scientist thinks she has an answer

One hates to be skeptical, particularly about international cooperation, particularly about addressing a problem that will drastically alter life on earth.

The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is seen in this undated NASA image

But really. Another international meeting on climate change? Wasn’t there just one in New York in September? And wasn’t there one last November in Poland and the year before that in Qatar? And in each of the 17 previous years in some other city? There was Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 which produced a protocol that the United States wouldn’t sign. There was the Copenhagen Accord of 2009, which said basically that yup, climate change was still a big problem.

Is this really the best that the international community can do to preserve the planet?

We’re now on Big International Meeting No. 20, in Lima, Peru, the main point of which seems to be getting things ready for next year’s big international meeting in Paris.

By then another 10 billion metric tons of carbon from fossil fuels will have been pumped into the atmosphere. We’re already halfway to the trillion tons of carbon that scientists figure will warm the planet by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over where it was in 1880, when the Industrial Age began getting into full swing.

Since 1995, when the United Nations began holding its annual Conferences of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, carbon emissions have grown by roughly 50 percent.

You’d almost think the world has no intention of fixing this problem. You would be at least partially correct.

If the world could fix its greenhouse gas problems painlessly, it would have been done long ago. But this is a problem that — if you address it seriously — would require significant lifestyle changes on the part of most people living in even modestly developed nations.

No politician who wants to keep his or her job is going to do that by preaching sacrifice. Some, like President Barack Obama and leaders in northern European nations, will preach conservation, alternative fuels and more regulation.

Some, like Chinese President Xi Jinping, will agree that at some point in the future — in China’s case, 2030 — their nations will start reducing fossil fuel emissions. This will be hailed as progress, as it was last month when Obama and Xi announced a climate agreement.

But by 2030, when China hopes to reach peak carbon, the 3.6-degree ballgame could be all but over.

If you’re a politician in a developing nation, Brazil or India, say, you don’t want to tell your people they can’t have a western lifestyle because western nations already ruined things for everyone else and aren’t willing to cut back.

And if you’re Republicans in the U.S. Senate, you would prefer to deny the science of global warming because of (a) jobs and (b) campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry. From your personal point of view, you’re entirely correct to do so; there are no votes and no money in sacrifice.

Meanwhile, down in Lima, at the 20th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change they’re busy trying to sign nations up for what each is willing to pledge in the way of greenhouse gas reductions.

Going in, it was hoped that last month’s U.S.-China agreement would create some momentum. China had never before expressed any willingness to change, so even the modest agreement to start cutting back in 2030 was hailed as a big deal.

Meanwhile, Obama committed the United States to further reductions in the next five years. The GOP Congress, of course, will try to make these pledges worthless. Short term, this is good politics. Long term, it’s disastrous.

Nations that were serious about mitigating global warming would have slapped a big tax on carbon and used the proceeds to arm themselves against the worst effects of global warming.

It may well be too late to forestall that 3.6 degree rise, but in the long term, our children and grandchildren will thank us for whatever we can do — while cursing us for not doing more.