Our planet continues to warm. A recent series of reports anticipates a 4-degree (Celsius) rise in global temperatures by 2100 — twice the target that nations adopted in 2010 as the maximum allowable range for avoiding dangerous changes that will include the loss of coastal communities, the spread of deserts, extreme weather, and food and water shortages.
This warming process goes on amid repeated attempts at the global level to cap the greenhouse emissions that drive climate change. The most recent effort demonstrated once again the inability of leaders to make the hard choices needed to stave off a warmer future.
It is hard to escape the irony of nations holding the latest round of climate talks in Qatar, a country that relies on the production of a resource that creates greenhouse emissions, and that has used its riches to become the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses per capita. Behind the seeming poke at the very intent of an attempt to limit such emissions was a recognition that eventual success of the fight against global warming depends on cooperation from fossil fuel producers, as well as from "consumers" — developed and developing economies.