Brigadier-general (ret.) Professor Mircea UDRESCU, Ph.D*
Colonel (ret.) Professor Engineer Eugen SITEANU, Ph.D**
Abstract: The COP 26 climate change conference in Glasgow ended with one major hope: it managed to keep alive the six-year-old goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Firm commitments are missing, and major powers such as the US, China, India and Australia rejected most of the pledges. The conference was postponed by a day, only for everyone to agree on the wording in the final agreement to “phase down coal production” to replace the wording “phase out coal”. Alongside the shocking vision of the Trump administration – global warming is not a US problem – even since the Glasgow meeting, the illusion has been maintained, supported by the highly industrialized countries, that global warming can be controlled through insignificant adjustments to the lifestyle of all the planet’s inhabitants, as well as through economic measures that further involve poor countries. Rich countries applaud any measure that punishes countries that own forests if they cut down trees, but they oppose any measures that would force them to respect the emissions targets they have committed to. The climate crisis is the result of excessive, irresponsible and insensitive exploitation of nature by man, and now nature is demanding its rights back. Humanity’s economic greed is beginning to be punished by nature, and the punishment comes through dramatic complications that accompany the numerous economic crises that humanity has to face. Economic crises and returns to certain stages of behavioral equilibrium usually require several years, but those related to specific natural events are becoming increasingly complex and repeated at shorter intervals of years. Strategies to address climate change that emphasize only the management of carbon dioxide emissions and not its absorption are considered immoral and unfair, especially by poor or developing countries, which have large areas of forests. Rich countries increasingly support that these poor and developing countries become responsible for reducing the areas registered with forests, but to postpone any transfer of their own wealth to these countries through financial subsidies for carbon absorption. Beyond the imperfections found in the global plans to reduce carbon emissions, the transition from energy systems based on hydrocarbons to systems based on green energy, it is certain that the prices of energy resources will continue to be volatile, which is predictable to be reflected in new and new economic crises especially for poor countries or in the development race. For them, the energy factor will constitute, in the short and medium term, the major component in triggering increasingly acute economic crises. In the European effort to achieve a transition to an economy with a reasonable carbon content, there will be many losers in Romania: households and companies. Because low-income families are the most vulnerable, the Romanian state has decided to draw up a list of vulnerable consumers to whom it will open a line of subsidizing limited consumption. Consumers currently considered invulnerable will have to adapt to the new living conditions, reduce consumption, make energy improvements to their homes, or pay more, until they too will have to resort to public mercy.
Keywords: crisis, climate, economic, energy, global, European, national, costs, prices, balance, imbalance, warming, climate, carbon, greenhouse, emission, responsibility.
DOI 10.56082/annalsarscimilit.2025.1.60
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* Academy of Romanian Scientists, email: udrescumircea@yahoo.com
** Academy of Romanian Scientists, email: esiteanu@yahoo.com
PUBLISHED in Annals Academy of Romanian Scientists Series on Military Sciences, Volume 17 no 1, 2025
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