According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record.

Because of this the WMO once again issued a Red Alert warning against: “The sheer pace of climate change increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere in a single generation.”  

In this context, the world, under the auspices of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, once again gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan, as the Conference of the Parties to “focus” on stopping climate change.

This international gathering, like the previous COPs, failed to make progress on stopping the emissions of fossil fuels (greenhouse gases), the cause of global warming.

Instead, it focused on the health impacts of our overheating planet.

COP29 had two strong messages for Santa Barbara County: spend significant energy and resources preparing to deal with the health impacts of climate change, and you’re on your own regarding reducing fossil fuel emissions. 

“Human health and climate change are fundamentally linked,” COP29 announced. “Our agenda reflects the cross-cutting nature of health as an issue that touches all aspects of human life.

“We urge future presidencies to consider how they will account for health at future COPs.”

Specifically, it recommended creating, “Public-private partnerships and innovative financing mechanisms to sustain health resilience against climate change.”

This is not to say that addressing the health impacts of climate change is in any way unimportant. It is important.

Climate change increases the risks of respiratory and cardiovascular disease. It causes premature deaths related to extreme weather events, changes infectious diseases and threatens mental health.

However, focusing on climate-related health impacts is a mitigation, not a direct attack on reducing the fossil fuel emissions overheating our planet.

The California Department of Public Health developed a county-specific Climate Change & Health Profile Report to help Santa Barbara County respond to climate change’s health impacts through adaptation planning.

According to the department, the climate health impacts affecting the county include:

• Heat waves that cause heat stroke and make existing conditions worse for the chronically ill or vulnerable
• Air quality that is worsening, leading to respiratory and cardiovascular health issues, such as asthma attacks
• Behavioral health from wildfires, sea level rise, floods and landslides, causing behavioral health challenges
• Pollen increasing due to heat and carbon dioxide causing plants that produce pollen to proliferate, producing more allergies.

While not on the department’s list, skin cancers should be added. Skin cancers from rising temperatures and exposures to stronger ultraviolet radiation are on the rise in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties, according to the National Cancer Institute. 

The fact that these international conferences have failed to reduce fossil fuel emissions should not come as a surprise. They are dominated by fossil fuel lobbyists.

Some 1,773 coal, oil and gas lobbyists attended COP29, outnumbering almost every country’s delegates.

The same overwhelming number of fossil fuel lobbyists also attended last year’s COP28 in Dubai, which also failed to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

Santa Barbara County has been an oil-producing municipality since the 19th century, with the Santa Barbara Channel having its first offshore well in Summerland in 1896.

Based on April 2023 production levels, the county has 6,800 wells on file (679 of them producing) and produced 207,700 barrels of oil.

Adding in San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties, tri-county oil production was 644,500 barrels in April 2024.

If we are ever to get a handle on climate change, we must understand that it is a “game changer,” changing everything we thought we knew about our dependence on fossil fuels.

Oil energy has the highest carbon footprint of all energy types. Greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas operations include carbon dioxide and methane emissions.

The international community is not capable of stopping this, nor will there be climate assistance from President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, which is committed to expanding oil and gas development.

That leaves it up to local municipalities and environmental organizations.

The City of Santa Barbara has a Climate Action Plan with the goal of carbon neutrality by 2035.

Santa Barbara County’s One Climate Initiative accepts leadership in addressing climate change.

Local environmental organizations are committed to stopping global warming.

The Community Environmental Council’s programs directly impact climate change. The local Sierra Club chapter is working to stop oil production in the tri-counties, and the local chapter of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby is galvanizing local support for a national carbon tax.

All of these need to be galvanized into one cohesive campaign. Individual actions are no longer a viable option.

Santa Barbara is no stranger to dealing with the impacts of oil development. It created the modern environmental movement as a result of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill.

No matter how one looks at it, the tri-counties and our local environmentalists find themselves with the task of leading in developing both climate health protocols and developing strategies to stop climate change from the grassroots up, i.e., from the local level.

Given the speed at which climate change is progressing, and the lack of international and national action, the only other option is to stick our heads in the sand and let the climate-caused wildfires, “bomb cyclone” storms and sea level rise overtake us.

Let’s hope they’re/we’re up to it.