Do you know that today how much Climate change had ruined our planet? Climate change had much influence on our lives and it proves to be a great threat to mankind.
What is climate change?
Climate change is a change in weather pattern when it lasts for an extended period of time or A change of climate that is directly or indirectly related to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere.
It is a hot issue of these days as it is affecting the world in several ways. As can be seen by changing patterns of weather in different regions of the world, the climate is changing drastically. However, in the past few years, we will find that the world was a happier and healthier place to live.
People were leading a simple life with less use of machines. Industrialization, transportation, and urbanization was not that much common. The environment and atmosphere were clean and human breath in the fresh air.
But in the world of today, where human had made a lot of progress; due to industrialization, transportation, urbanization, deforestation, and power generation, harmful emissions are entering into the atmosphere which causes greenhouse effect and global warming due to which temperature of the earth is increasing day by day.
The most recent scientific assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), estimates that the globally averaged surface temperature on earth will increase by 1 to 3.5 C by the year 2100.
Climate change is primarily a problem of too much carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air. Globally, power generation is responsible for about 23 billion tones of carbon emissions per year which is a direct cause of global warming.
Along with other greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide and methane Carbon dioxide is important in sustaining a habitual temperature for the planet: if there were absolutely no GHGs, our planet would simply be too cold. It has been estimated that without these gases, the average temperature of the Earth would be about -18 degrees Celsius.
But the thing is that, if we look at atmospheric concentrations over the past 2000 years, we see that levels were stable at 270-285 parts per million (ppm) until the 18th century. Since the industrial revolution, global CO2 concentrations have been increasing rapidly, disturbing the global carbon cycle and leading to a planetary warming impact.
CO2 sticks around, CO2 remains in the atmosphere longer than the major heat-trapping gases emitted as a result of human activities, when the pulse of CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere, 40% will remain in the atmosphere for 100 years and 20% will reside for 1000 years, while the final 10% will take 10,000 years to turn over.
There are growing global consequences that climate change is mankind’s greatest threat in modern time and is likely to have profound consequences for socio-economic sectors such as health, food production, energy consumption, and security and natural resource management.
The harmful impacts of this global warming effect are already manifesting themselves around the world in the form of extreme weather events like storms, tornadoes, floods, and droughts, all of which have been mounting in frequency and intensity.
As a result, the world suffers around 400-500 natural disasters on average in a year, up from 125 in the 1980s and is still facing the problems due to climate change like the intensity of summer and winter seasons have become more intense than past. The frequency of floods has also increased drastically. The pattern of rain is also disturbed by climate change.
Now, the number of rains per season is also decreasing due to the cutting of forests and many other environmental factors. Crop yield growth rates are declining in most parts of the world, partially as a consequence of rising temperatures.
There is also evidence of accelerating recession of most glaciers on Earth, rainfall variability which is projected to decline especially in large river basins and adversely more than a billion people by the 2050s.
Developing countries are the least responsible for climate change: The world’s least developed countries contribute only 10% of annual global carbon dioxide emission.
However, the geographical location and socio-economic fragility of most of the developing countries makes them more vulnerable to the environmental, social and economic consequence of climate change.
Pakistan also contributes to the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Pakistan’s GHG emissions have doubled in the last 2 decades. On a global scale, Pakistan ranks 135th in per capita GHG emissions in the world. The agriculture sector is a victim of abrupt climate change in a country.
Pakistan’s agriculture is affected by climate change resulting in a decrease in crop production which in turn affect food production as 65-70 of the country’s population is directly or indirectly related to agriculture.
Similarly, glacier melt in the Himalayas is projected to increase flooding will affect water resources within the next two or three decades. Freshwater availability is also projected to decrease which will lead to biodiversity loss and reduce the availability of fresh water for the population.
This literally means that the heat-trapping emissions we release today from our cars power plants and other sources are setting the climate, our children and grandchildren will inherit.
So we must adopt measures to control the excessive emissions of CO2 along with other GHGs to protect our planet, which includes less use of transportation, prefer public transport over private vehicles. Improve forest management and biodiversity conservation.
Develop such techniques of power generation that use natural gas as a fuel instead of fossil fuel (which is a source of CO2 production).
Practicing energy efficiency through changes in individual lifestyles and businesses. Apply Origin Power Process (that uses natural gas to generate electricity), if you normally generate electricity from natural gas it emits about 400 g of CO2 into the air for every kilowatt hour but with this process, that figure is – 600.
At the moment, power generation is responsible for about quarter of all CO2 emissions. If you replace all power generation with this process then you will not only eliminate all the emissions from power generation, but you would start removing emissions from other sectors as well, potentially cutting 60% of overall carbon emissions.
Pakistan has 1050-KM long coastal belt along the Arabian sea. It could use its water resources to produce electricity instead of using nuclear power plants (which are the source of adding GHG into the atmosphere). Similarly, Pakistan has blessed with a high rate of wind and long sunshine.
So, this wind speed can be used to generate electricity. Similarly, solar panels can be established to generate electricity using solar energy from sunlight. If the organic waste is properly decomposed the Biogas obtained from the decomposition of organic matter can be converted into electricity at low operating costs and it reduces GHG as well.
Hence, climate change is a serious issue and it must be resolved to safe our planet so that future generation may not suffer. If above mentioned measures are projected properly then we could control the climatic changes prevailing throughout the world.
We could no longer close our eyes or block our ears to face this situation, we “The habitants of the Earth” have this responsibility to cure the climatic change on the Earth so that this planet continues to be a suitable place to live.