Regional Solutions to our Global Problem?

The art shown to the right is "borrowed" from Energy and Environmental Chemistry, a journal of The Royal Society of Chemistry.  When I saw it I thought, Wow! What an artful, fully-packed summary of so many ways in which humankind is responding to the challenge of Global Warming.

Bear with me for a bit while I touch upon some features of this graphic. Notice first that carbon dioxide, CO₂, the most important greenhouse gas, is featured in a big way. Greenland is up front, to remind us of the prospects of sea level rise and climate changes resulting from melting of the glaciers. The array of orbiting satellites at the top is a reminder that we have powerful and reliable means of keeping track of many aspects of the planet’s condition.  Notice also the prominence accorded to solar panels and wind generators. And, very importantly the trees and other vegetation, and what I take to be subterranean activity, are highlighted as essential components of efforts to restore the planet to a natural, sustainable balance.

The mathematical expressions represent the modeling of air, oceans and land mass usage to ascertain what policies and actions would be most efficacious for mitigating climate change.  The figures at lower left represent the cooperative actions of scientific and governmental entities to address the challenges ahead.   
But will the governments of the world continue to fund this and a host of other scientific activities devoted to eventually mitigating global warming?  The man who currently holds the title President of the United States, a position until recently spoken of in terms of “world leader”, doesn’t show much interest in this topic. Dana Nuccitelli, writing recently in the Guardian, pointed out that he failed to mention it his 2018 State of the Union address. However, he did pick up on withdrawing from the Paris Accords, which he was apparently told was a good idea because it would help American businesses and workers. Actually, I don’t know that he was told that—it was surely what his base and the likes of Senator “snowball” James Inhofe want to hear.

Despite all the political noise, and other distractions, the work of saving humanity from colossal disruption goes on.  The issue of Energy and Environmental Science that features the cover above has an important paper by a group of authors from the UK and the US, on how CO₂ emitting power plants at the level of states or regions could cooperate to produce massive reductions in emissions.  The idea is to take advantage of situations in which parties can work together.  The authors use the example of the Clean Power Plan, enacted during the Obama administration by the EPA in August, 2015.  It ran until March 2017, when the Trump administration issued an Executive Order to review the rule so as to suspend, revise or rescind the program.  The CPP had been the Obama administration’s flagship program in climate change mitigation.

The authors have come up with what they refer to as an “emissions reduction cooperation model”.  There’s not space here to go into details; it assumes that the parties will engage in interregional cooperation by following a sophisticated optimization model, with fair sharing of dividends from cost savings. The authors predict that if the plan were enacted in the US, and if at least half of the states cooperated, the cost of electricity generation could be reduced by $41 billion per year, while CO₂ emissions would drop by 68% as compared with 2012 levels. It does not appear to require a lot of governmental participation, though individual states would need to take actions.

We know we have a global problem: the earth is warming because of an increasing atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. But humans have only recently taken charge of the planet.  We started only about 60,000 years ago, so we’ve not had much practice at solving problems at a global level. In fact, consider how recently we came upon the realization that the planet is a globe!  There doesn’t seem to be a reliable way to keep track of relative advantage in global-scale action plans.  But the “emissions reduction cooperation model” assumes that one important element in the global warming picture could be addressed on a regional level in the here and now to the mutual benefit of all participants.  From what I’ve been reading, I gather that there are other sectors where big benefits could come from taking actions at the regional or national levels that shake up the present system of allocating profits and other benefits—major shifts in agricultural practices toward regenerative methods, for example, or reforestation.  Much can be accomplished with cooperative actions that would save money and conserve the environment—to the benefit of all, except those who’ve profited inordinately from past policies and practices tailored to the wishes of just a few. 
Studying the figure at the top has caused me to feel once again a sense of pride in being a scientist. We will not work our way through the challenge of climate change without science as a guide to action.  I felt so good about being a scientist that I went to the online store of the Union of Concerned Scientists and bought a T shirt that says, "Stand up for Science".  I don't really need another T shirt.