Introduction
Climate change has been described by the UN as the defining issue of our times. Its far-reaching consequences will outlive us, and prove difficult and costly to adapt to if the drastic actions required to curb it continue to be ignored. So, let’s take a look at the systems that make climate change a difficult problem to address, the effects we have already begun to observe, and how to deal with the greatest challenge humanity currently faces.
The cost of combating climate change
We have known about climate change, its causes and its negative effects on the environment for decades. So why haven’t we done anything about it?
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 after a variety of factors pushed global warming and ozone depletion into the spotlight. That year there was severe drought across continental United States and vast fires burned the Amazon Rainforest and Yellowstone National Park.
Within a year, the world’s nations agreed on the Montreal Protocol, a landmark multilateral environmental agreement that regulated the production and consumption of man-made chemicals that were proven to harm the ozone layer.
The agreement planned to phase out the production and consumption of the powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) by 2030. It was amended in 2016 to include as one of its goals, the phasing out of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), another group of potent greenhouse gases by 2047.
Phasing out these ubiquitous substances came with a cost. It is estimated that adhering to the protocol cost nations nearly 400 billion dollars, with the wealthier nations subsidizing developing countries through a multilateral fund.
Fighting climate change is much more expensive today. A recent report by Morgan Stanley estimates a cost of 50 trillion dollars to reduce net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. We are, however, expected to offset that cost in fuel savings and reduction in operational expenses.
Several studies, including Nobel laureate William Nordhaus’s Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy (DICE) model, show that we could keep emissions at a reasonable level in accordance with the goals of the Paris Climate Accord, saving us from climate change at little, if any, cost.
Doing nothing will cost us much more. Climate change could directly cost up to 8 trillion dollars as increased drought, flooding, and crop failures hamper growth and threaten infrastructure. It is also set to hit the poorest countries the hardest, shaving 4.7% off Africa’s GDP and 5% of Russia’s GDP. Delays in mitigation are set to cost us an additional 0.6 trillion dollars annually, further stressing the need for immediate climate action. Fighting climate change now, frankly, is the cheapest option available.
Effects of climate change
According to the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risks report, climate action failure is humanity’s most impactful long-term risk and the top 5 long-term risks in terms of likelihood are all climate-related issues. Let’s examine some of the most dire impacts of climate change on the weather, ecosystems, and humans.
Weather:
As the atmosphere heats up, it collects, retains, and precipitates more water, making wet areas wetter and dry areas drier, resulting in more extreme global weather patterns. This leads to increased frequency of natural disasters like storms, floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, and droughts. These events have devastating consequences, causing out-of-control wildfires, air pollution, damage of property, and loss of life.
Rising seas:
The polar ice caps are melting at unprecedented rates. As the ice sheets melt into the seas, the oceans are set to rise one foot higher by 2050. This threatens coastal ecosystems, low-lying areas, and some of the world’s largest cities, including New York, Miami, Mumbai, and Sydney.
Threat to wildlife:
Climate change imperils a variety of ecosystems, altering seasonal behavior, and adjusting traditional migration patterns. It is likely to be the greatest cause of species extinctions this century. According to the IPCC, a 1.5°C average rise may put 20-30% of species at risk of extinction. Several endangered species live in areas that will be severely affected by climate change and may be wiped out completely very soon.
Humans:
The vulnerability of humans to climate change varies from one sector to another and has a range of impacts in different countries. The climate problem has a certain inequity to it: several of the countries that have contributed relatively little to the problem bear the vast majority of climate damages, while wealthy industrialized nations which have emitted the most CO2 and hence have benefited the most from the problem have the most resources, and so are the least vulnerable to climate damages.
The Path Ahead
Here’s the good news. In recent years, we have made significant headway in tackling the climate crisis. In 2015, nearly 200 countries committed to the Paris Climate Accord, an ambitious global plan of action to fight climate change.
The deal aims to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase this century to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels while pursuing means to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees.
America’s role in combating climate change felt unstable during the Trump presidency, but the election of Joe Biden marks America’s re-entry into the debate on climate action, in stark contrast to its previous position on climate change, i.e. denial.
Since we are already committed to some level of climate change, the measures we take now must involve a two-pronged approach:
Mitigation:
Mitigation involves reducing carbon emissions by regulating the production of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and enhancing carbon “sinks”, such as forests and the ocean, that capture these gases. The goal of mitigation, as described in the IPCC’s 2014 report on Mitigation of Climate Change, is to “stabilize greenhouse gas levels in a timeframe sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner”.
Adaptation:
Due to the sheer amount of carbon emitted by humans over the last few centuries, we will inevitably observe some impacts of climate change over the next several decades. Hence, we need to reduce our vulnerability to the harmful effects of climate change, such as extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels, and food insecurity. According to the IPCC’s 2014 report on Mitigation of Climate Change, “Adaptation is becoming embedded in some planning processes, with more limited implementation of responses. Adaptation experience is accumulating across regions in the public and private sector and within communities. Governments at various levels are starting to develop adaptation plans and policies and to integrate climate-change considerations into broader development plans”
Our biggest shared challenge is climate change. But it isn’t a problem we can solve by being good consumers. No matter how green we try to be – refusing to fly, reusing plastics, going vegan – it is impossible to achieve carbon neutrality on our own. A way we can make things much better is by being good citizens. With popular will and the correct policy measures, goals like creating new renewable energy and transportation infrastructure are set to become much more attainable, blazing a path to a green new future for us all.
Article by-
Ishan,
For the Record,
PES MUN Society
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