Large-scale human economic activities are emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs) like carbon dioxide, methane (CFC-11, also depletes ozone) and nitrous oxide. They absorb infrared radiation in the atmosphere and prevent heat from the earth escaping into space, increasing global average temperatures.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), through agreements and action plans at Kyoto (1997), Doha (2012) and Paris (2015), aim to stabilise atmospheric GHGs below 230-480 ppm by the end of this century so that global temperature increase is contained below 2 degrees C to facilitate humans and ecosystems to adapt naturally.
The UN intergovernmental panel on climate change reports that the small window available for curative measures is alarmingly narrowing with current GHG levels already above 400 ppm. Some insights from UN reports, Elsevier’s One Earth (2019) and The Economist are summarised below.
Four sectors of excessive carbon emission are transport, energy, agriculture and industrial infrastructure with their associated supply chains. The global transport industry alone accounted for about 25% of atmospheric GHG in 2016.
Technological solutions toward zero-emission require huge investments and rarer natural resources. For instance, fuel cell transport requires a Platinum Group of Metals (PMGs) whose supplies may last only for the next 100 years. Search for alternative technological solutions should therefore continue. This year’s chemistry Nobel Prize for Lithium-Ion battery technology points to future technological priorities.
The IPCC report (2018) also warns that the current rates of fossil fuel consumption are perilous. But the governments which commissioned the special report are hesitant to accept the proposed solutions as they are contrary to their free-market economy and profits. Such contradictions distort the targets set by the Paris Agreement. In the coming decades, agriculture will be challenged by increased climatic variation. Efforts are on to enhance sustainable production in a high atmospheric GHG regime. Royal Botanical Garden (UK) estimates that among the 4,00,000 vascular plant species known, 31,000 are used by humans. Plant geneticists have already begun searches for high GHG resilient plant varieties, particularly three major crops —rice, wheat, and maize —accounting for 50% of the calories consumed by humans annually.
The financial sector has a key role in transitioning towards low carbon/ carbon resilient infrastructure development. Huge global investments of about $90 trillion on industrial infrastructure are expected by 2050. The industry urgently needs scientific inputs to green its functional framework.
Supply chains are at the heart of efficient GHG management as they link all the high emission sectors in a functional loop. Efforts for a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy systems are hindered by technology bottlenecks.
High-income countries are evading accountability by using a loophole in Paris Agreement - they displace emissions by outsourcing industrial production to developing countries.
Carbon accounting is attributed to the country where the emissions are produced. Such production-based accountability is heavily loaded against developing countries. Associated depletion of natural resources demonstrates yet another exploitative dimension seldom discussed.
Precise emission inventories are needed to build a global consensus against such unethical international trade practices. For this purpose, GHG emissions need to be attributed to particular sources such as an industry or a manufacturer (climate information). Lat-long based, satellite monitoring – OCO2 (NASA), TanSat (China), GOSAT (Japan) and EU’s upcoming SCARBO project show the way forward.
Two options should be considered: First, a policy package of carbon pricing, carbon offset, cap and trade and carbon tax proposed by economists. Presently, 54 carbon pricing policies are in place globally. However, they need to quickly expand from the current 70 countries to make a substantial contribution to the Paris targets set, by 2050.
Pivotal role
Second, a pivotal role played by physical sciences, offering cost-effective technological solutions for decarbonizing endeavors. However, effective solutions would emerge only by total carbon elimination technologies rather than those that displace/convert.
Climate emergency calls upon science and scientists to adopt a new policy beyond conventional goals and evolve a collaborative network of all knowledge systems to build interdisciplinary action platforms.
Climate change is intertwined with 16 other sustainable development (SD) goals including food security, water resources, urbanisation, environmental pollution, biodiversity loss, melting of polar ice and poverty to pose a super grand challenge. These also need to be addressed in a stiff time frame set by UN conventions.
Unfortunately, developing countries like India are woefully short of stakeholder awareness, commitment and resolve to translate the global priorities into effective solutions and outcomes.
The choice before our generation is clear: fulfill the obligations of the Paris Agreement and other SD goals or be overwhelmed by environmental catastrophes, hundreds of times more severe and disastrous than the smog engulfing Delhi.
(The writer is former Registrar, Bangalore University)