What is Climate Change?

Let us talk about climate change! People are calling this the crisis of our life time and in fact, it is one! But it is easy to get lost in this story. Science is dense and often politics get in the way. World leaders are meeting in various places of the world to talk about the climate crisis and how to slow it down and thankfully after many efforts finally the politicians have come under tremendous pressure from the millions of people who have in the previous few carried out big rallies and climate strikes to draw the world's attention to this and we can surely thank Greta Thunberg a ton before thanking anyone else for really kickstarting starting all this process and agreements and when it comes to India then we can very well thank Disha Ravi for carrying the activities of Fridays For Future(FFF) in India and risking it all for us when she was sent to jail and was slapped by UAPA by the government.

So, talking about climate change, what exactly are we doing wrong and how can we fix it? okay, so we are basically going to kick start this discussion by discussing some basic science. And please do bear with me because this stuff is very important.

Now, look at this graph these are the levels of Co2 in our atmosphere Over hundreds of thousands of years but this spike in carbon dioxide at the very end? That took off during the modern industrial revolution in cold war times. We started breaking Co2 records in the 1950s and we have not stopped since. But why? 

Well, scientists say that there is a 95% chance that human activity is the cause. We have been burning more and more fossil fuels like oil and coal which release Co2 to power our homes, factory, airplanes, and cars. There are also a lot more of us when talking in sheer numbers! The global population has tripled in the past 70 years and we are consuming more products from animals that release another pollutant called methane.

So all these gases are in the air now and when the sunlight gets into the earth’s atmosphere then some of the heat from it gets trapped in the planet & hence our planet gets more warmer that's why they call it the greenhouse effect. But the concern is not that the earth is getting warmer. it's actually the speed at which it’s getting warmer. Thanks to us, we have achieved the warmest temperature on earth since the last Ice Age i.e. 10,000 years ago, the UN says that right now our world is about one degree hotter than the preindustrial times i.e. around the year 1800s, which is kind of okay in fact because the UN says if we warm our planet by 1.5 degrees before the end of the century then we should be fine. In fact, the UN also says that even a 2 degrees rise would probably be alright but again the problem is speed because right now we are on the track to hit 1.5 degrees in only 10 years and if we don't slow that warming down then it could mean catastrophe within our lifetimes and the lifetimes of our future generations too. 

We are already getting a test of what the mother nature is capable of, For Ex: increasing climate disasters like droughts, abnormally heavy rains, frequent tornadoes, frequent landslides, frequent floods, extreme weather conditions, etc., are all examples of it. Climate change is here, climate change is happening and we all may be well into the 6^th mass extinction event.

More Examples: A few years ago, sometime around the winters of 2020, Europe and the USA apparently got even way colder than the artic (extreme weather situations become more common), every year sea levels are rising above by 3 mm because seawater expands as temperatures get warmer, thanks to melting ice sheets and glaciers that add trillions of tons of freshwater into our oceans. People around the world are already losing their homes and if things carry on this way then millions more of us will have to pack up too. Entire coastal cities could be underwater within 80 years like Miami in the US or Mumbai in India or Osaka in Japan or the entire island nations like Maldives and Indonesia can completely disappear completely.

Natural disasters are becoming more and more intense and in fact more frequent too as time goes on, the consequences of this are proving out to be devastating. The dramatic impacts of droughts in different parts of the world and other events I mentioned earlier are all making this situation worse and scary at the same time. This all is a real threat to humankind and we need to do more to tackle this. But how?

Consider this example: if 99% of doctors said to you “take this medicine or you will get really sick and probably die” then surely you would take it right? I mean who wouldn't take it in their right mind, the problem is that at the moment we are still in the process of developing that medicine. 

Fortunately, there is a plan to slow all this down, back in 2016 world leaders signed the so-called Paris agreement and took the big pledge to cap the rising temperatures by 1.5 degrees or a maximum of 2 degrees before the year 2100. In fact in the recent Glasgow summit in the UK when the world leaders again met to discuss the carbon neutrality, different countries set out different goals to achieve it, for example, our country India has set a target to achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2070 which according to me is really far but since we got really big chunk of economic development to catch up with as compared to rest of the world so it kind of makes sense and just like this many other countries set their own targets on how much Co2 they will emit and by what year will they achieve carbon neutrality. Also, there were talks to create a Global Climate Fund of 100 billion dollars which would be given to developing countries like India & China and to other underdeveloped countries in Africa like Uganda and others to help them develop clean energy and better sources of energy. and develop climate-friendly infrastructure to switch to better sources of energy to make green shift without sacrificing economic growth.

But here's the thing, even after all these agreements the global Co2 levels are still going up specially after the economies have started to kickstart after the pandemic. The factories and all other economic activities are really going into a full swing to make up for all the supply crunch previously caused economic loss. Some activists and scientists claim that we have started going backwards and this can be somewhat blamed to the casual approach of developed countries when it comes to supporting the climate fund to help other developing and other underdeveloped countries to help them in their goals. Since developed countries have all the money resources in the world so it won't be much difficult for them to make this green shift but they have to bear in mind that the goal of stopping climate change won't be achieved if all the other countries in every single part of the world are not included in this plan, then the efforts done by any one country are useless. There have been many troublesome moments in the past already, like the times when Donald Trump withdrew USA from the Paris accord. 

Meanwhile, Russia and China too have been accused of not working enough and setting really low targets on purpose and then not working on them too. Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Turkey and Poland are continuing to build more and more production plants which use coal. Then there are the skeptics like Vladimir Putin who think that climate change is being caused due to some unknown solar system force. Just like him there are many other right-wing leaders in some countries who completely go on to deny climate change these can be found in Europe & as well as in Africa.

Fortunately, there's room for positive momentum and optimism since there is more awareness in the world on this issue as compared to previous times and some countries are making genuine progress like India, Morocco, and the Gambia have initiated massive renewable energy projects. These are different countries doing different things really successfully. Some other countries are for example making all public transport free in the city which is a great way to encourage people out of their cars! but experts say that we even need a bigger push than this to change everything. Like business as usual has got to change, & politics as usual has got to change in order to combat this crisis.

We have to understand That we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. And everyone can help and play their part in achieving this global goal by shifting to renewable energy, reducing the use of cars, promoting the use of trains, promoting the use of cycles, eating less meat, consume a bit more carefully.

So, where does that leave us? honestly there's only so much bike riding and a light bulb replacing you and I can do every day but the truth is that those everyday things are going to change anyway. Even coffee could run out if farmers can't grow it. Hence, the expert advice is that it's down to all of us to change our ways and shake things up or climate change is going to do it for us.