“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken” is a famous quote by Leo Tolstoy which is quite relatable in contemporary time when not only the temperature all around the world is increasing year by year, but also the ignorance of humans towards even accepting the climate change’s existence.
Climate change can simply be defined as the change in global or regional climate patterns, it is a natural phenomenon that is getting triggered by increasing human activities which results in more greenhouse effect.
In 2018 an inter-governmental body of United Nation(UN) whose report are often used as inputs in UNFCCC (United Nation Framework Convention On Climate Change) rang an alarm among governments around the world and climate change activists after publishing a “Special Report on Global Warming Of 1.5 Degrees Celsius” (SR15) in which it demanded heavy cuts in overall carbon emission around the world till 2030 to achieve the required 1.5 degrees global warming target. Quite impossible it sounds, seeing the current negative attitude of global leaders in even accepting the existence of the climate change. But do reforms and laws regulating emissions does even make a difference?
The above data clearly depicts that The Montreal Protocol, followed by Hydropower projects World-wide has significantly reduced the emission more than the addition of rest policies/actions. So we can conclude that the policies/actions, even on a national scale can indeed tone down the net emmisions significantly if not eliminate them fully.
Cost of the Switch
The main excuse one generally discovers coming from the mouth of big pocket capitalists and governments around the world against transitioning to a greener way of production is related to the initial costs of installing the required infrastructure, but the thing which they ignore is examining the social and economical good it will do to the society as a whole in long run. A recent report in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s “The economic benefits of clean recovery”, says that spending on energy efficiency creates more jobs per $10 million than spending on fossil fuels. Energy efficient projects also take less time to be fully setted up for creation purposes compared to large infrastructure projects.
The Way Ahead
With the growing number of developed countries pledging of becoming net-zero emissions namely China, Japan by 2060, and 2050 respectively, the pressure is building upon the United States to reconsider its move of backing out from the “Paris Agreement” and reduce the emission level. Developing Countries like India are also investing ambitiously in green energy projects. Recently India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Asia’s Largest solar project in the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh. The recent slump in the fossil fuel market because of the COVID-19 crisis also showed that it has vulnerabilities, so it would not be a bad time to look for alternatives and build a more resilient and greener economy.
Reference Articles —
https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/ — NASA
https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/10/08/the-right-kind-of-recovery — The right kind of recovery
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/10/26/japan-net-zero-emissions-pledge-puts-coal-spotlight/
