Whether it is the disappearing winter days in North India or
the scary floods in Tamilnadu, or it is the cyclone tormenting coastal Odisha
and Seemandhra we have been putting the blame on ‘global warming’, but do we
really understand this much used term? Global Warming is the increase of
Earth's average surface temperature due to effect of greenhouse gases, such as
carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, which trap heat that would
otherwise escape from Earth. This in turn results in a type of greenhouse
effect. Greenhouse gases, which include water vapor and carbon dioxide, absorb
heat in the lower atmosphere and reflect it back to the Earth, thus heating it
up.
The most significant greenhouse gas is actually water vapor,
not something produced directly by humankind in significant amounts. Water
vapor can easily condense or evaporate, depending on local conditions and do
not bother us. The second greenhouse gas is Carbon dioxide (CO2) and even
slight increases in atmospheric levels of CO2 can cause a substantial increase
in temperature. Trees utilize CO2 and deforestation further adds on to the
total CO2 pool, which tends to remain in the atmosphere for a very long time
(time scales in the hundreds of years). Human beings have increased the CO2
concentration in the atmosphere by about thirty percent, which is an extremely
significant increase, even on inter-glacial timescales. This we have done by
burning fossil fuel for electricity generation, transportation, and heating,
and also the manufacture of cement and a host of other products essential for
development. The total worldwide emission of about 22 billion tons of carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere each year is alarming. About a third of this comes
from electricity generation, and another third from transportation, and a third
from all other sources. Before the late 18th century, the concentration of CO2
in the atmosphere was about 280 parts per million and currently, it’s
approximately 390 parts per million. And this is causing global warming.
Naturally the next question is what does the global warming
do to us and our planet. Many of the following "harbingers" and
"fingerprints" of global warming are now well under way:
1. Rising Seas -
inundation of fresh water marshlands (the everglades), low-lying cities, and
islands with seawater.
2. Changes in
rainfall patterns - droughts and fires in some areas, flooding in other areas.
3. Increased
likelihood of extreme events - such as flooding, hurricanes, etc.
4. Melting of the
ice caps - loss of habitat near the poles. Polar bears are now thought to be
greatly endangered by the shortening of their feeding season due to dwindling
ice packs.
5. Melting
glaciers - significant melting of old glaciers is already observed.
6. Widespread
vanishing of animal populations – following widespread habitat loss.
7. Spread of
disease - migration of diseases such as malaria to new, now warmer, regions.
8. Bleaching of
Coral Reefs due to warming seas and acidification due to carbonic acid
formation - One third of coral reefs now appear to have been severely damaged
by warming seas.
9. Loss of
Plankton due to warming seas - The enormous (900 mile long) Aleutian island
ecosystems of orcas (killer whales), sea lions, sea otters, sea urchins, kelp
beds, and fish populations, appears to have collapsed due to loss of plankton,
leading to loss of sea lions, leading orcas to eat too many sea otters, leading
to urchin explosions, leading to loss of kelp beds and their associated fish
populations.
So does that mean that Greenhouse gases are out and out bad?
On the contrary Greenhouse gases are important. Without them, the Earth would
lose heat too quickly and life as we know it would be impossible to sustain.
But too much of them would heat up the earth and cause the same effect. So a
delicate balance needs to be maintained.
Now that the Earth is heating up is there any way of
reducing global warming? The problem is so big that there is no one
technological silver bullet for fixing things. We must reduce our energy usage,
increase the efficiency of the energy we do use, look for alternate source of
energy other than fossil fuel and look at solutions like carbon capture and
storage. We are currently investigating the safety and viability of capturing
CO2 emissions from power plants and storing them deep underground as this is
one of the only options that would allow us to continue using fossil fuels.
Solar energy, Wind energy, and Nuclear energy are costly alternatives of fossil
fuel energy, but time has come to bite the bullet and take stock of the ‘cost’
holistically and not simply in terms of Rupees, Dollars, Pounds and Yen.
Clearly, a coal-based development strategy, that has helped
the industry rich western world to get rich all these years, is incompatible
with the green growth agenda. Today they are prepared to change course to a
costlier energy model and they expect the developing world to do the same. This
is where the two worlds do not see eye to eye. Those responsible for polluting
the atmosphere are today preaching developing nations to go green, when it is
the latter’s turn to get developed. Why should villages in the developing world
remain dark without electricity, when they now have an opportunity to brighten
up their lives? The developed world must recognize that they have to atone for
the historical carbon emissions that they have been putting out in the
atmosphere for over 150 years in their search for prosperity. The entire
prosperity of the world has been built on cheap energy. And suddenly we are
being forced into higher cost energy. That's grossly unfair. India has been
insisting on a common but differentiated responsibility based on equity that
calls upon developed nations to scale up mitigation and allow developing
nations to grow. The demand of developing nations is for an equitable and
balanced agreement that takes into account their huge development needs
including access to funds and technology. This is the only way to ‘Climate
justice’.
India is expected to grow at such a rapid rate over the next
two decades that it could build approximately 80 percent of the physical
assets—including infrastructure, commercial and residential real estate,
vehicle stock, and industrial capacity—that will constitute the India of 2030.
Growth of this magnitude will bring tremendous benefits, but it also poses many
challenges, particularly regarding sustainability. We will need to expand our
capacity to generate electricity to meet increasing industrial and residential
demand, which will impel a corresponding increase in greenhouse-gas emissions.
Renewable energy sources are more expensive than coal and so moving away from
coal-fired electricity will incur both economic costs, and political
resistance.
India’s remarkable growth record, so far, has already been
clouded by a degrading environment and growing scarcity of natural resources.
Mirroring the size and diversity of our economy, environmental risks are wide
ranging and are driven by both prosperity and poverty. 13 of the 20 most
polluted cities are in India with a wide range of health hazards for its
citizens. Simultaneously, poverty remains both a cause and consequence of
resource degradation: agricultural yields are lower on degraded lands, and
forests and grasslands are depleted as livelihood resources decline. To
subsist, the poor are compelled to mine and overuse the limited resources
available to them, creating a downward spiral of impoverishment and
environmental degradation.
With cost of environmental degradation, environment could
become a major constraint in sustaining future economic growth. Further, it may
be impossible or prohibitively expensive to clean up later. So, though we have
to chart a much more difficult and costly development model than our western
counterparts, climate justice demands that our path to progress is aided by the
true polluters of this Earth. We, on our part should not consider this
challenge as a handicap but an opportunity to innovate and become a world
leader in alternate sources of energy.
No comments:
Post a Comment