COP-26 and Climate Change!

Making our earth more rich and beautiful, Ecological Conversion, Sustaining living, Global warming, Climatic changes, Co-Exist together, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, Water poverty, Our Common home, Pollution, Loss of Biodiversity, Quality of Human Life, the interconnection of all the beings that inhabit our planet and work together for the protection.

 

Climate Change and COP-26

1. Introduction:

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle. Ever since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures.

Examples of greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change include carbon dioxide and methane. These come from using gasoline for driving a car or coal for heating a building, for example. Clearing land and forests can also release carbon dioxide. Landfills for garbage are a major source of methane emissions. Energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture and land use are among the main emitters.

Climate is the average weather in a place over many years. Climate change is a shift in those average conditions. The rapid climate change we are now seeing is caused by humans using oil, gas and coal for their homes, factories and transport. When these fossil fuels burn, they release greenhouse gases - mostly carbon dioxide (CO2). These gases trap the Sun's heat and cause the planet's temperature to rise. The world is now about 1.2C warmer than it was in the 19th Century.

2. Causes of climate change:

Humans are increasingly influencing the climate and the earth's temperature by burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests and farming livestock. This adds enormous amounts of greenhouse gases to those naturally occurring in the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect and global warming.

2.1 Greenhouse gases:

The main driver of climate change is the greenhouse effect. Some gases in the Earth's atmosphere act a bit like the glass in a greenhouse, trapping the sun's heat and stopping it from leaking back into space and causing global warming. Many of these greenhouse gases occur naturally, but human activity is increasing the concentrations of some of them in the atmosphere, in particular:

• carbon dioxide (CO₂)
• methane
• nitrous oxide
• fluorinated gases

CO₂ produced by human activities is the largest contributor to global warming. By 2020, its concentration in the atmosphere had risen to 48% above its pre-industrial level (before 1750). Other greenhouse gases are emitted by human activity in smaller quantities. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO₂, but has a shorter atmospheric lifetime. Nitrous oxide, like CO₂, is a long-lived greenhouse gas that accumulates in the atmosphere over decades to centuries. Natural causes, such as changes in solar radiation or volcanic activity are estimated to have contributed less than plus or minus 0.1°C to total warming between 1890 and 2010.

2.2 Causes for rising emissions:

• Burning coal, oil and gas produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
• Cutting down forests (deforestation). Trees help to regulate the climate by absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere. When they are cut down, that beneficial effect is lost and the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect.
• Increasing livestock farming. Cows and sheep produce large amounts of methane when they digest their food.
• Fertilisers containing nitrogen produce nitrous oxide emissions.
• Fluorinated gases are emitted from equipment and products that use these gases. Such emissions have a very strong warming effect, up to 23 000 times greater than CO₂.

2.3 The impact of climate change:

Extreme weather events are already more intense, threatening lives and livelihoods. With further warming, some regions could become uninhabitable, as farmland turns into desert. In other regions, the opposite is happening, with extreme rainfall causing historic flooding - as seen recently in China, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. People in poorer countries will suffer the most as they do not have the money to adapt to climate change. Many farms in developing countries already have to endure climates that are too hot and this will only get worse.

2.3 Global warming:

2011-2020 was the warmest decade recorded, with global average temperature reaching 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels in 2019. Human-induced global warming is presently increasing at a rate of 0.2°C per decade. An increase of 2°C compared to the temperature in pre-industrial times is associated with serious negative impacts on to the natural environment and human health and wellbeing, including a much higher risk that dangerous and possibly catastrophic changes in the global environment will occur. For this reason, the international community has recognized the need to keep warming well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.

2.4 The world gets affected:

Climate change has different effects in different areas of the world. Some places will warm more than others, some will receive more rainfall and others will face more droughts.If temperature rise cannot be kept within 1.5C:

• The UK and Europe will be vulnerable to flooding caused by extreme rainfall
• Countries in the Middle East will experience extreme heatwaves and farmland could turn to desert
• Island nations in the Pacific region could disappear under rising seas
• Many African nations are likely to suffer droughts and food shortages
• Drought conditions are likely in the western US, while other areas will see more intense storms
• Australia is likely to suffer extremes of heat and drought.

2.5 Individual responsibility:

Major changes need to come from every individual and communities, we can make some small changes in our lives. They are:

• Where ever possible, we can switch to renewable sources of energy (such as solar and wind energy) to power our homes and buildings, thus emitting far less heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.
• Where ever practicable, we can drive electric vehicles instead of those that burn fossil fuels; or we can use mass transit instead of driving our own cars.
• Where ever affordable, we can conserve energy by better insulating our homes and buildings, and by replacing old, failing appliances with more energy-efficient models.
• Take fewer flights
• Live car-free or use an electric car
• Buy energy efficient products, such as washing machines, when they need replacing
• Switch from a gas heating system to an electrical heating.

2.6 The COP26 agreement:

The agreement - although not legally binding - will set the global agenda on climate change for the next decade:

2.6.1 Emissions: It was agreed countries will meet next year to pledge further cuts to emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) - a greenhouse gas which causes climate change. This is to try to keep temperature rises within 1.5C - which scientists say is required to prevent a "climate catastrophe". Current pledges, if met, will only limit global warming to about 2.4C.

2.6.2 Coal: For the first time at a COP conference, there was an explicit plan to reduce use of coal - which is responsible for 40% of annual CO2 emissions. However, countries only agreed a weaker commitment to "phase down" rather than "phase out" coal after a late intervention by China and India.

2.7 Role of Developing countries:

The agreement pledged to significantly increase money to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change and make the switch to clean energy. There's also the prospect of a trillion dollar a year fund from 2025 - after a previous pledge for richer countries to provide $100bn (£72bn) a year by 2020 was missed. While some observers say the COP26 agreement represented the "start of a breakthrough", some African and Latin American countries felt not enough progress was made.

2.8 The necessity of COP26:

COP26 was the moment countries revisited climate pledges made under the 2015 Parish aggreement, Six years ago, countries were asked to make changes to keep global warming "well below" 2C - and to try to aim for 1.5C. COP stands for "Conference of the Parties", and the one in Glasgow was the 26th annual summit. Ahead of it, 200 countries were asked for their plans to cut emissions by 2030. The goal is to keep cutting emissions until they reach net zero by mid-century.

3. Seven things to know about climate change:

          1.        The world is getting warmer.

           2.        It is because of human activity

           3.      It is  sure that we are getting affected.

           4.        Ice is melting fast

           5.        Weather is wreaking havoc

            6.        Species are being disturbed

            7.        We can do something about it.

4. Conclusion:

Changing our main energy sources to clean and renewable energy is the best way to stop using fossil fuels. These include technologies like solar, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal power. Switch to sustainable transport. Petrol and diesel vehicles, planes and ships use fossil fuels. Some of the most promising ways to mitigate climate change are what we call “natural climate solutions”: the conservation, restoration, and improved management of land, in order to increase carbon storage or avoid greenhouse-gas emissions in landscapes worldwide.

Yes. While we cannot stop global warming overnight, or even over the next several decades, we can slow the rate and limit the amount of global warming by reducing human emissions of heat-trapping gases and soot (“black carbon”). ... Once this excess heat radiated out to space, Earth's temperature would stabilize.

Questions to reflect:

1. What can I do? How each individual can protect Nature?

2. Is climate change caused by humans?

3. What are the main threats of climate change?

4. How is climate change affecting animals?

5. How is climate change affecting people?

6. How is climate change affecting the ocean?

7. How is climate change affecting farms and our food? Shall we bring a change at least by way of creating awareness?

Author: Bro.Antony, Delhi. 

Montfort Resource Center (MRC).

Email: tonyindiasg@gmail.com

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