Floods in Europe sign of things to come

In Poland, the government is struggling to keep River Oder within its banks, and in Hungary authorities are keeping a watch over the water levels in River Danube. In Czechia, the floodwaters are receding in some parts, while rivers in other regions like South Bohemia are on the rise.

It is felt that the damage caused by the floods would run into billions of dollars. Hungary has already asked for financial aid from Brussels, the European Union (EU) headquarters. In Poland, prices of food items are on the rise, and the government is thinking of bringing in price controls. People and armed forces have been pressed into service to build the embankments of the overflowing rivers to keep the villages and towns safe. It is reckoned that this is the worst flood situation in two decades. Europe has also experienced a heat wave this summer and shortage of water, and drought in parts of Spain. Governments are in an emergency mode and people are shocked by the situation getting out of hand.

Climatologists argue that this is indeed the sign of things to come because of the ever deepening climate crisis, due to the unrelenting emission of greenhouse gas emissions, especially of CO2, which is contributing to rising levels of global temperature, rising sea levels and deforestation due to human intervention. Climate policymakers in international organisations like the United Nations have been raising the alarm for decades now.

The European Union has been one of the few organisations that has been working steadily to keep the goals on climate change on the agenda, and it has been pursuing a green agenda to a great extent unlike the United States, which is the highest CO2 emitter. But EU leaders have been fighting shy of doing enough of sharing technology and giving financial assistance to poor and developing countries to make the green transition and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

EU wants countries like India, one of the major emerging markets, to pay the green bill as it were. The attitude of the EU, and of European governments in general, appears to be that EU is doing its part, and it is time other countries owned responsibility as well. It is an unhelpful attitude because the havoc and destruction that climate change brings will be experienced by all the countries irrespective of whether they belong to the advanced economies or the developing ones. And the human suffering it unleashes is the same for the common people everywhere.

A major issue facing the Conference of Parties 29 (COP29) at Baku, in Azerbaijan in November is the issue of who will pay for meeting the climate goals. It would be rather futile to wrangle over this and look for finer points of logic apportioning responsibility. The common sense logic should be that those governments and countries that can pay should pay for the common cause because ultimately you are paying for your safety and not just for the safety of others. There is no charity involved here.

Advanced economies like the EU might believe that they have taken the necessary measures to fight climate change and they cannot be expected to pay for others. But it would not help. The global village is not a pious slogan. It is a reality, at least in terms of climate. When there is a climate change tipping point, the whole globe, all the countries and all the people, would be affected by it. So, every country should pay as much as it can which would mean that those who can pay more should pay more. Climate crisis involves every country, and not just a few.