Climate Change

Climate change means a long-term alteration of temperature, weather patterns and variability of phenomenon of a given place.

Climate change is not a new phenomenon. Earth’s climate has constantly been changing, even long before humans came into the picture which included long cooling and warming phases.

Climate Change: Causes

Natural:

• Volcanic eruptions releasing lava, ashes and pyroclastic material. For example, Mount Pinatuba eruption 1991 released aerosols which formed a global layer of sulfuric acid haze. As a result, global temperatures dropped by about 0.5 °C in the years 1991–1993.
• Changes in the orbit of the Earth which are known as ‘Milankovitch cycles’. The eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth’s orbit affects the amount of solar heat that reaches the Earth’s surface.
• Plate tectonics and the resultant continental drift leads to changes in landmass and oceans which further determine the ocean currents and wind patterns.
• Changes in Solar Cycle such as “Little Ice Age” occurred over parts of Earth during the Maunder Minimum (period of near zero sunspot activity) had direct impact on temperature of earth.

Man-Made:

• Increased use of fossil fuels in electricity, transport and industries is increasing Green House Gases in the atmosphere resulting in global warming.
• Deforestation is one of the major causes of climate change as trees keep the balance of CO2 and O2 maintained by acting as carbon sinks.
• Unplanned urbanization resulted in excessive concretization and construction of glass buildings which leads to trapping of heat and disturbing heat budget of the earth
• Increase in demographic load caused over exploitation of resources and carrying capacity of the earth is breached.
• Anthropogenic aerosol are formed due to uses of fertilizer and burning of plant residues which are further trapping the heat.

Climate Change: Impact

• Global warming has increased weather extremities like forest fires, increased risk of floods and droughts and intensity of cyclones, tornados and storm surges.
• Sea levels have risen, melting of ice caps, heat waves are a common phenomenon because of climate change.
• Changes in rainfall patterns and intensity have impacted the cropping patterns and increased drought prone areas.
• Changing vegetation patterns which led to forcing animal species to migrate to new, cooler areas in order to survive.
• Ocean acidification has caused threat to marine life.
• Change in Ocean current patterns e.g. Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is losing its stability
• Spread of new pathogens giving rise to new, fatal diseases and. Rise in number of zoonotic diseases.
• Adverse impact on agriculture productivity and profitability due to unstable weather phenomenon.
• Overall economic losses, as per reports if no action is taken to curtail the global carbon emissions, climate change could cost 5 -20% of annual global GDP.
• Risk of submergence to small island Nations which leads to rise in climate refugees, posing a threat to internal security of various nations.

Climate Change: Steps taken

Global:

• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which is extended to Kyoto protocol and the Paris agreement as a major global climate change initiative.
• Adopting common but differentiated responsibility to protect the interests of developing countries and ensuring collaborative effort towards climate change mitigation.
• World Meteorological Organization and UNEP have founded the IPCC to provide for a mechanism to study the effects of global warming at a governmental level.
• International Solar Alliance was set up in 2015 by India to effective utilize solar energy and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
• Transformative Carbon Asset Facility is a World Bank Fund to help developing countries implement their plans to cut GHG emissions.
• European Green Deal by the European Council to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
• Mission Innovation is a global initiative of 22 countries and EU to accelerate global clean energy innovation.

National:

• India’s INDC targets to be achieved by 2030 are a) 40% of the installed capacity for electricity will be from non-fossil fuel sources, b) reduce the emissions intensity of the GDP by about a third, c) additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover.
• National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) with 8 National Missions as holistic strategy towards Climate Change.
• Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure is an international coalition to build robust infrastructure to ensure sustainable development.
• Raising the domestic renewable energy target to 450 GW by 2030.
• Shift from Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) to Bharat Stage-VI (BS-VI) emission norms to limit the vehicular pollution.
• National Hydrogen Mission to promotion generation of cleaner fuels with a view to cut down carbon emissions.
• India Climate Change Knowledge Portal is a universal platform to access all the climate change related data at global, national and regional levels in one place.