WHAT IS IN STORE FOR ALL OF US?
CONTENTS:
1 Why should we preserve/sustain our natural resources?
2 Copenhagen Summit and Rising Pollution Levels
3 A Passionate speech a youngster Yugratna Srivastava
4 What is India’s stand on climate change?
5 What is the importance of Kyoto Protocol?
6 What is the response of the corporate world? 8
7 Will the world leaders take the plunge at COP15?
8 What is in store for all of us?
9 Important glossary of words
Why should we preserve/sustain our natural resources?
The world is waiting with bated breath for an agreement at the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) being held in Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, from December 7th through 18th, 2009. The outcome of the summit is going to set the course for the future of Planet Earth – either we save it or continue to destroy our natural wonders, flora and fauna and natural resources permanently. Yes, that is, PERMANENTLY. The situation is intensely grave, the earlier we realize it the better. Don’t think this is just the opinion of a Cassandra!
Climate-warming green house gas emissions pushed Arctic temperatures in the last decade to the highest levels in at least 2,000 years. The Arctic is very sensitive to climate change. The Arctic is often called the Earth’s biggest air-conditioner and it is among the world’s biggest weather-makers. Arctic warming affects land-based glaciers; if these melt they would contribute to a global rise in sea levels. Decline in Arctic Sea ice is happening much faster than anticipated.
Crown Jewel of the Natural World
The Amazon rainforest supplies one-fourth of Earth’s total oxygen. Its area is 55 lakh sq.km., or, 140 crore acres. Sixty per cent of the rainforest is in Brazil and the rest is in Peru, Columbia, Venezuela and others. The Amazon represents half of the remaining world’s rainforests. It is home to 25 lakh insect species, tens of thousands of plants and 2,000 birds and mammals. It has got the highest diversity of plant species on Earth.
Brazil Tribes have intimate and detailed knowledge of rainforests gathered over centuries of living there
Unfortunately, the Amazon rainforest in South America continues to be destroyed by humans relentlessly. Rainforests are highly endangered and in the last 50 years more than a half have simply vanished. Every year a rainforest larger than England is burnt or cut down. Deforestation is one of the most important sources of CO2 emissions in the world.
The world is facing a major challenge. We cannot continue using fossil fuels the way we do today. Scientists have laid out the risks we face and it has become clearer than ever that now is the time to take serious action on climate change. If we do not act today, the opportunity will not only slip out of our hands but it will also become much more expensive to carry out the necessary low-carbon transition in the future.
COPHENHAGEN SUMMIT (COP15):
Participants from 192 countries representing governments, the business community, and civil society are gathering at Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, to hammer out an agreement that would usher in a new world order for preserving our Nature.
RISING POLLUTION LEVELS:
The levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere are on the rise, continuously since the 1960s and the level has reached from less than 320 ppm to more than 380 ppm in the last 50 years
A passionate speech by a youngster…to save Earth
Speech by a 13-year old Indian girl, Yugratna Srivastava, while addressing the United Nations Climate Change Summit at the United Nations, New York in September 2009:
"The Himalayas are melting, polar bears are dying, two of every five people don’t have access to clean drinking water, earth’s temperature is increasing, we are losing the untapped information and potential of plant species, Pacific’s water level has risen. Is this what we are going to hand over to our future generations? Please no!
“We need to call for an action now. We have to protect the Earth not just for us but for our future generations.
“When you all make policies sitting in air-conditioned rooms, please think of a child suffering in greenhouse heat and think of the species craving to survive.
“Mahatma Gandhi said Earth has enough to satisfy everyone’s needs but no one’s greed,” the student from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India exhorted the audience comprising of Barack Obama and Hu Jintao.
What is India’s stance on Climate Change?
India has now announced its willingness to cut its carbon intensity (the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for very unit of Gross Domestic Product) by between 20 and 25 per cent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels, India’s Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh said. “This we will do regardless of what emerges in Copenhagen Summit. If we have a successful and equitable agreement there, we are prepared to do more,” said the Minister in the Lok Sabha. However, he said, the proposed cuts would not be legally binding and India will not accept a legally binding emission cut, or a peak year of carbon emissions at the global climate talks in Copenhagen.
China and India are considered as developing countries and as such are not obligated to make compulsory reductions under the Kyoto Protocol. Only developed countries are obligated to cut their carbon emissions according to a timetable. India is world’s sixth biggest producer (5% of global emissions) of greenhouse gases. But, India is at the 66th position in the world in relation to carbon-emissions per head.
What is the stand of other big polluters?
CHINA: China a few weeks back announced its decision to cut carbon emissions by between 40 and 45 per cent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels. Recently, China has surpassed the US and became world’s biggest producer (21% of global emissions) of greenhouse gases ahead of the US. However, China is at the 30th position in the world in relation to carbon-emissions per head. It wants rich countries to reduce their emissions by 40 per cent. And it is seeking low-carbon technology from the West.
US: Under Kyoto Protocol, the US was obligated to effect carbon reductions. But it never ratified the Protocol even though it signed it. It is the world’s second biggest producer (16% of global emissions) of greenhouse gases. In terms of emissions per head, it is fifth in the world. It maintains it will cut emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. The US insists China, India, Brazil and South Africa must commit to slow growth of emissions.
As of now, there are several differences between the West and the developing countries, led by China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
What are the contours of an international agreement at Copenhagen?
The four essentials calling for an international agreement in Copenhagen are:
1. How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases?
2. How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions?
3. How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed?
4. How is that money going to be managed?
There is a strong need to get something signed and agreed in Copenhagen, but it will be very challenging to get every final, small detail of a whole new treaty done. The new climate treaty will be replacing the Kyoto Protocol which was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 and entered into force on February 16, 2005.
What is the importance of Kyoto Protocol?
The Kyoto Protocol which sets binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions has been signed and ratified by 184 parties of the UN Climate Convention. One notable exception is the United States, which never ratified it even though it signed the Protocol. The then US president Bill Clinton signed the agreement in 1997, but the US Senate refused to ratify it, citing potential damage to the US economy required by compliance.
The Kyoto mechanisms: Under the Treaty, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the Kyoto Protocol offers them an additional means of meeting their targets by way of three market-based mechanisms. The Kyoto mechanisms are:
• Emissions trading – known as “the carbon market"
• Clean development mechanism (CDM)
• Joint implementation (JI).
KYOTO PROTOCOL:
The concept of carbon credits came into existence as a result of increasing awareness of the need for pollution control. It was formalized in the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement. The genesis of Kyoto Protocol can be traced back to December 1997, when about 160 countries met in Kyoto, Japan and decided to reduce emissions of green house gases (GHGs), like, carbon dioxide. This was done with a view to bringing down the level of GHSs so that issues like global warming and climate change can be tackled in a better way. Many industrialized countries and European countries are now legally bound to reduce their combined emissions of six major GHGs. India ratified the Kyoto Protocol on August 26, 2002.
The Kyoto Protocol set quotas on the amount of greenhouse gases countries can produce. Countries, in turn, set quotas on the emissions of businesses. Businesses that are over their quotas must buy carbon credits for their excess emissions, while businesses that are below their quotas can sell their remaining credits.
To Know more about Kyoto Protocol, carbon credits (CERs), and clean development mechanism (CDR), just click (one pager only):
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20735699
What is the Road Ahead?
The Kyoto Protocol is generally seen as an important first step towards a truly global emission reduction regime that will stabilize GHG emissions, and provides the essential architecture for any future international agreement on climate change. By the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, a new international framework needs to have been negotiated and ratified that can deliver the stringent emission reductions the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has clearly indicated are needed. China and India, with high rates of economic growth, are big emitters (euphemism for polluters) of carbon emissions and are under pressure from the West to make significant commitments to substantial carbon reductions.
What is Climate Change?:
Carbon emissions have been rising in the atmosphere and this has caused temperature increases across the globe. As more and more fossil fuels are burnt by industries, automobiles and human activity; the Earth is facing the prospect of steep rise in temperature leading to flash floods, melting of glaciers and concomitant rise in sea levels threatening to submerge several coastal cities and islands, like, Maldives, in the next few decades. Rising population, especially, in the developing countries is also contributing to more carbon emissions. Ozone layer has been depleting continuously.
Sea levels are likely to rise by about 1.4m (4ft 6in) globally by 2100 as polar ice melts, according to a major review of climate change in Antarctica. Conducted by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), it says that warming seas are accelerating melting in the west of the continent. Ozone loss has cooled the region, it says, shielding it from global warming.
What is the response of Corporate World?
Japanese carmakers, Toyota, Honda and Nissan have been developing low-emitting and highly fuel-efficient green cars for more than a decade. They have developed compact cars and cars based on hybrid fuels. On the other hand, the giant carmakers in the US, General Motors and Ford lagged behind depending on gas-guzzlers. Now, they too want to play catch-up, but they’re way behind Japanese carmakers and have lost considerable market share in the US. The US automakers have to do a lot for the promotion of greener and compact vehicles.
In India, we’re having our own kind of challenges, be it public transport versus private vehicles or development versus environment. We need to get our priorities right. While Delhi boasts of a good public transport in the form of Metro Rail, Bombay suffers from a woeful lack of public transport forcing the denizens of Bombay to use their own cars or hired cars for office/business travel choking the roads and polluting the city further. There is a strong need to develop public transport in a big way. For that, Governments should take several bold measures and implement them in a shorter timeframe so that India would not exacerbate the global warming. Industry has to adopt green technologies more rapidly.
What are the after-effects of Climate Change?
Let us examine what would happen if we don’t act in time:
1. COASTAL AREAS: Coastal areas would be increasingly getting damaged due to floods and storms. This would lead to loss of population and coastal wetlands.
2. ECOSYSTEMS: Most corals would be destroyed due to poisons being washed through rivers to the oceans. Rising temperatures would increase the incidence of wildfires leading to extinction of several species of flora and fauna.
3. FOOD OUTPUT: Food production would be impacted severely due to changes in farm output. This would lead to increasing the risk of hunger by poor people.
4. HEALTH: Malnutrition and infectious diseases would increase and spread to new regions. Mortality rate would go up because of heatwaves, floods, storms, fires and droughts.
5. WATER SUPPLY: Drought conditions would increase and so are wet tropics. Decline of water stored in glaciers and snow cover will reduce supply in regions where on sixth of world population lives.
But, is it that global warming results in only harmful effects? Not necessarily, if we go by the Russian experience in Siberia. As a result of global warming, ice is Siberia has melted and this in turn paved for the Government to look for more oil and natural gas resources. The melting ice has provided a good opportunity for the Russian Government and it has been producing more oil and gas now from the Siberian region due to thawing of ice caps there.
The above example demonstrates that climate change impacts different parts of the world in myriad ways. So, political leaders, scientists and environmentalists have a Himalayan task before them to solve the problems of climate change.
Will the world leaders take the plunge at COP15?
Climate Change is the biggest challenge for the world community. Developing countries, led by, India and Brazil seem to be having upper hand at the negotiating table this time. The West does not bother much about the welfare of developing countries, rather they give more importance to protecting their own standards of living. The fact of the matter is the global warming has been affecting the developing countries and their people more severely than those in the developed world.
Let us see what happened to the victims of BHOPAL GAS DISASTER which occurred on December 3, 1984. When MIC gas leaked from the Union Carbide plant (later merged with Dow Chemicals), in Bhopal, India, more than 8,000 people died in the next three to four days. And the total deaths to date are around 15,000. Nearly six lakh people in the city were affected by the gas leak. Union Carbide paid USD 470 million compensation in 1989.
However, the Union Carbide plant is still, after all these years, leaking toxins into the ground water supply on which many people still depend. Thousands of tonnes of waste that was dumped there and covered over – it has never been cleaned up. Every time it rains it washes toxins into the ground water. For Union Carbide the matter is, in a legal sense, closed. For the people of the affected areas, it is far from closed. In 25 years, no-one has been successfully prosecuted, either for the original leak, or for the continuing groundwater contamination. That’s how the West treats precious lives and industrial disasters of such magnitude in the developing countries.
What is in store for all of us?
The most important challenge facing Planet Earth today is climate change. As the time is fast running out, we need to act with gusto to save the planet from the ill-effects of industrial pollution, carbon emissions and global warming. If quantified properly, the damage we’re doing to the environment is much more than the total loss suffered following the global financial meltdown last year.
We need to respond to climate change with vigour. The action from industrial powerhouses, like, the US should be broad-based; not just protecting some vested interests in the industrial economies. In fact, quick response to climate change would create new economic opportunities for innovative industries while throwing old and energy-inefficient out in the cold.
New initiatives are needed badly now. Billionaire George Soros has said he would invest USD one billion in clean-energy technology and create an organization to advise policy makers on environmental issues. More such funding is required to make some powerful changes.
World leaders have been expressing their intentions to protect the environment for future generations. But, they need to do ‘walk the talk.’ Let us do our bit and impress upon the leaders for a better world. Unless we respond to these challenges immediately, we may not be able to regain the lost Earth.
Important Glossary:
Carbon footprint: The amount of carbon emitted by an individual or organisation in a given period of time, or the amount of carbon emitted during the manufacture of a product.
Carbon intensity: A unit of measure – the amount of carbon emitted by a country per unit of Gross Domestic Product.
Carbon neutral: A process where there is no net release of CO2. For example, growing biomass takes CO2 out of the atmosphere, while burning it releases the gas again. The process would be carbon neutral if the amount taken out and the amount released were identical. A company or country can also achieve carbon neutrality by means of carbon offsetting.
IPCC: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific body established by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. It reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical, and socio-economic work relevant to climate change, but does not carry out its own research. The IPCC, headed by India’s RK Pachauri, was honoured with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore.
UNFCCC: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is one of a series of international agreements on global environmental issues that were adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio Janeiro. The UNFCCC aims to prevent "dangerous" human interference with the climate system. It entered into force on 21 March 1994 and has been ratified by 192 countries.
Sources: IPCC, UN, UNFCCC, COP15, etc. Photos: WWF, NASA, Google
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