Climate Change: whose responsibility to solve?

The biggest catastrophe happened in 2019 and 2020? Everyone will remember these years as a year of coronavirus pandemic. However, the pandemic brought our human life and our movements to a standstill and gave it a complete stop.

Never stopping, the holocaust of natural disaster has taken its vengeance on human life.

As per the statistics, Natural Disasters kills an average of 60,000 people per year globally. The natural disaster was the sole responsibility for 0.1% of death over the past decade globally.

Maybe the death toll has declined over the past decade. But the number of natural disaster events have increased at a faster pace. 

 Suppose we consider India there has been a relative change of +81% deaths due to natural disasters between 2016 and 2019.

Despite the tremendous growth of the human population over the period, significant success has been seen in the decline in the global end.

Effective response systems, resilient infrastructure and improvement in living standards are the major factors for it.

At the same time, the population who live in extreme poverty or low score of HDI has been more vulnerable to get affected by natural disasters.  

Is climate change real?

This results in us asking why such an increase in the number of natural disaster events globally is happening? It will take us down to two main factors (i). Climate Change (ii). Human intervention with Nature. 

The global climate is already changing and will continue to change over the coming decades and centuries. Maybe in this decade HDI, GDP or Happiness Index of the world may not have seen a great hike.

But our Earth has seen a 1.2o degree increase in its temperature. As per the world meteorological organization, 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record.

Greenland lost 152 gigatons of ice between 2019 and 2020. An increase in ocean level is recorded at the same rate; the ocean’s temperature also rose. 80% of the ocean area has experienced heat waves costing marine life.

So, learning about climate change becomes essential, including global warming, caused by the emission of greenhouse gases and the resulting shift in weather patterns.

Since the mid of 20th century, there has been an unprecedented impact on Earth’s climate system.

Deniers of Climate Change

But do you believe in global warming? 

This data from Statista, source YouGov show that around 19% of people from the U.S. do not believe climate change is real.

It is essential to understand this because we have seen America holding meetings at the global level to cut carbon emissions. At the same time, 5% of Americans denied that climate change was happening at all.

Around 16% of Indians do not believe that climate change is real and we humans are responsible for it. It shows how fake news and the spread of conspiracy leads people to live in denial of happening. 

History of Industrial Revolution

In the 18th century, Britain discovered a cheap alternative energy source to woods, i.e., coal. It boosted industrialization all over the western nations leading to the emission of carbon footprints into the atmosphere.

Slowly and steadily, other developed countries used the same path leading to the crisis of Climate Change.

Now it resulted in cleaning them. It is noted that western nations extensively used fossil fuel to develop their economy through industrialization.

But today, in the blame game, developing countries are questioned for their actions. As we know, climate change is not instantaneous, and the developed world is a morally historical reason for the cause today.

Maybe today chart looks something like this

But as we said, climate change is not instantaneous; it is the cause of the period. Today China and India have seen an increase of 370% and 336% during 1990 and 2019.

Still, it is nothing compared to historical emission by the U.S. of 25% and E.U. (including Britain) of 22%, while China stands today at 13% and India just at 3%.

But they are now blaming developing nations for global warming. Is it morally right to do so?

On the other hand, throughout 1990 and the current, the production in the developing nations has increased with the relatively no change in consumption rate.

The steadily developed world has de-industrialized itself and put all the dirty work on the developing countries. 

As per the Global Carbon Project, America accounts for 5.77 billion tons of consumption-based CO2 emissions, and their annual CO2 emissions are 5.42 emissions.

Here we can see the consumption-based emission is significantly higher than consumption-based emission.

Paris Agreement

In March 2021, president Biden invited 40 world leaders to the Leader’s Summit on Climate.

Here countries announced their ambitious new climate targets, ensuring that nations accounting for half of the world economy have now committed to the emission reduction.

But we remember Former President Donald Trump of the USA, who back out of the Paris agreement.

Who will take responsibility that no such events will take place? Who will take responsibility if a new administration in any nation will not back of from the Paris agreement?

At Summit, India reiterated its target of 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030. It announced the launch of the “U.S.-India 2030 Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership” to mobilize finance and speed clean energy innovation and deployment this decade.

India’s Performance

 India is doing its part to curb emissions. On the global performance index on climate action, India ranked 7th above America and France, the leaders of climate actions. 

• India pledged to cut emissions by 33-35% by 2030, and in 2021, India has achieved 21% of its target. 

• India pledged to ramp up non-fossil fuel electricity to 40% by 2030, and India has already achieved 38%, just 2% short of the target.

• But on the third component, much more work is needed to achieve 2.5 to 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in forest cover by 2030.

India is becoming one of the few countries on track to meet its Paris target. India has some of the lowest solar tariffs globally, resulting in a decline of 9% dependent on thermal capacity. 

While the expectation is high, India excepts aggressive steps against carbon emission from developed countries.

India has emphasized that India is making substantial progress on its climate commitments even though the developed countries have not.

“We’ve gone well beyond. Why don’t you ask the countries lecturing us to mend their ways instead? None of the developed countries is Paris Agreement compliant,” said Minister Javadekar.   

Concluding, delaying climate action is no longer an option for the world. As the world emerges from covid-19, there will be a need to invest in green technology and commit to greater climate ambitions for a sustainable future.