By Sumaira Manzoor
Humans across the world are being affected by the consequences of climate change. All continents and oceanic areas are currently experiencing effects, although low-latitude, less developed regions are at the greatest danger.
The climate has undergone significant alteration during the duration of the Earth’s 4.5-billion-year existence. This is real. However, natural warming and cooling cycles cannot account for the current rate of warming. Changes that often take hundreds of thousands of years to occur are now occurring within a few decades. We all know that Climate change is ~ evidence by hundreds of fires happening from Europe to America, Middle East, SouthEast Asia ~flooding in different part of the world-drought in different part of the world (e.g. drought in Europe) according to one report 47 percent of Europe can be suffer from drought like condition. (EL NINO` phenomenon must be studied for better understanding).
As we move further we know that every coming year is hottest than before (Pakistan and India had faced severe heat waves in the near past)-all these things indicate that climate change is a real and established fact.
What is the current debate on climate change?
Policy makers and scientists all around the world are saying that we need to transition to cleaner fuel i.e. energy transition ~we need to shift on renewables so that emission could be decreased and can save the environment but there are some problems that we should highlight. Developed countries are consuming much energy as compared to developing or underdeveloped so the solution for them might not be the same-as it is not easy to switch to renewables for them.
For example, in the case of Pakistan, one of the countries most affected by climate change, can it shift to renewables? The answer is NO because there are some issues and limitations of renewables:
– I) Power density – It means which land is used for it? When there is a high shortage of land then how will you manage agriculture, food security and renewables on the same land?
– II) Scalability of technology – For example CCUS (carbon capture usage and storage) is a technology that can capture and make effective use of high concentration of the carbon, but due exponential growth of carbon emission all around the globe this technology sounds inefficient. Several reports show that despite having all these technologies we have captured only a few amounts of carbon because we are not focused on ways of living and improving. According to “NET-ZERO 2050” report of the International Energy Agency -a lot of carbon emission is required to be confined to 1.5 degree Celsius, but we are done is negligible ~so we can say that these technologies are not the solution for it. What I discussed above is just for developed countries; developing and underdeveloped countries need more struggle as we are having shortage of funds, technology as well as management.
According to scientist after ANTHROPOCENE, human activities started to have significant impact on climate that is evident from William J. Bernstein’s book “The Birth of Plenty” states that after 1820 living standards improved in all aspects e.g. health, morality, fertility. Education, electricity, food and so on…. Another date of 1950’s “The era of great acceleration ” is also considered in this regard, but all these looping individuals into one scope that is not the case. The handful of countries who ruled the world are the ones who exploited nature.
We can keep the example of Pakistan, its contribution of Pakistan in global carbon emission is only 0.49 percent but on the other hand China and US accounts for 43 to 44 percent of global emission. 100 companies in the world are responsible for 71 percent of global emission so one can see the clear asymmetry of carbon emissions. Take another example of this injustice; a round 170 million people (that make only 1 percent of wealthiest people on the globe) are responsible for 15 percent of the global emission but on the other hand bottom 50 percent accounts for only negligible amount, so the concern is that while formulating policies and posing its very much important to focus on these nodes. Scientifically it is proven that there is a direct correlation between the number of carbon emitted and economic growth, so it is obvious who should cut down carbon emission on priority basis.
What are the solutions?
– Technology could be only one option.
– “DeGrowth” has become mandatory, now that developed countries should slow down their growth -according to this theory
– Debt forgiveness to poor countries to combat climate change.
But in the end, it can be said that there is a political economy of climate change that cannot be changed. No developed country will agree to slow down its growth due the fear of internal unrest and external pressure. It’s simple to feel overburdened and that the problem of climate change is too huge to handle. But the solutions are already available; the challenge is in putting them into practice. All these solutions need robust international collaboration between nations and corporations, especially the industries that produce the greatest pollution.
Making wiser decisions regarding their sources of energy, mode of transportation, and diet can also help individuals. But collective action is the most effective approach for anybody to stop climate change. This entails putting pressure on businesses and governments to alter their policies and operational procedures.
Author: Sumaira Manzoor – Lecturer in Political Science, Govt Graduate College for women Satellite town Bahawalpur, PhD Scholar at IUB.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).
Image Credit: Fareed Khan/AP