The green issues of tomorrow

Synopsis: While the world is gathered at Glasgow for COP26 meeting and finalizing the climate action roadmap for the coming years, new threats to environment have already come up. Countries need to start thinking about solutions to these issues right away. Otherwise, a decade down the line, they will find that they are in a worse mess than ever.

Introduction

The COP26 Climate Change Conference would debate over topics such as reducing the use of fossil fuels, cutting down greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing the world’s carbon sinks.

Even while these efforts are underway, new threats to the environment are cropping up. Some of these have not received the attention they should have gotten.

What are the new threats for the environment?

Giant data centres:

As the world gets increasingly digitised, data centres and server farms are proliferating, that consume energy and generate heat.

Millions of litres of water are often required to keep them cool, particularly if the data centres are not set up in extremely cold regions.

Many regions where big data centres are located are already water stressed and their problems could get worse.

The carbon footprint of solar:

The sharp fall in prices of solar panels has played a role in the popularity of solar power.

But, most of the world’s cheap solar panels come from China where companies have largely depended on thermal power for manufacturing solar panels.

Producing solar panels using cleaner energy sources also increases their costs, thus creating a dilemma for policy makers.

The recycling problem:

The recycling issue of discarded solar panels, wind turbines and an increasing mountain of electronic waste is a major issue.

The average lifespan of a solar panel is 25 years, but their efficiency starts declining much earlier. Quite often they are replaced after a decade and a half. This was not a problem a decade ago when solar panels were not being installed at such a rapid pace. Over the next decade, it will become a major headache for all countries that have installed large solar power farms.

Earlier, rich countries would send their e-wastes to poorer countries but now increasingly the latter are declining to become dump yards for e-waste

Source: This post is based on the article “The green issues of tomorrow” published in “Times Of India” on 02 November, 2021.