What is climate change?
Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Global warming is the main cause of climate change, and, despite much controversy surrounding this subject, scientists have agreed we are the main cause for climate change. Humans burn over 34 billion tonnes of fossil fuels every year, which releases large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. This then causes the ‘greenhouse effect’ to occur, which is a natural process in our earth’s atmosphere: in brief, some of the infrared radiation from the Sun passes through the atmosphere, with most being absorbed and re-emitted into the atmosphere by greenhouse gas molecules and clouds, causing the warming of the Earth’s surface. This excess CO2 increases the greenhouse effect and causes the planet to warm at an alarming rate. Many activities contribute to global warming, and we more or less all contribute to it in our daily lives, whether it is when we use transportation, buy manufactured goods, in a non-sustainable manner, or even eat food produced intensively. The meteorological effects of global warming are endless and interconnected, and we have already started to experience some of them, such as increased droughts, hurricanes, flooding, or even an important rise in sea level.
What are the consequences of climate change?
The consequences of climate change will be seen throughout every aspect of the world we live in, but its impacts will be uneven across the world. Socioeconomic inequities can make groups, who often have the highest exposure to hazards and the fewest resources to respond, more vulnerable compared to the rest. The countries that suffer the most from climate change are often the ones which have contributed the least to it. Therefore, climate change brings about many ethical issues as well as drastic environmental ones. For example, places like the islands of Kiribati, Tonga and Tuvalu are expected to be some of the first places to experience the effects of rising sea levels. However, the average CO2 emission levels per person (per capita) is 0.47 each year in Kiribati, compared to 11 tons per person in Europe. Climate change is expected to undermine the foundation of our fundamental rights, deepen inequalities and create new forms of injustice. We also forget that the earth is home to over 8 million species of animals, which don’t deserve to lose their habitat or their lives because of poor human conduct regarding the environment.
What is being done about it?
The results from the recent COP 27 show that countries reached a decision to establish a ‘loss and damage fund’ for nations most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Nevertheless, we can argue that leaders are failing to reduce emissions and getting to the root of the problem, or even succeeding in their promises from the past years. If we let climate change take its course, immeasurable losses will be caused, and this ‘loss and damage fund’ won’t be enough to cover the true, irreversible consequences. Significant action to tackle the causes of global warming is the only way we will successfully prevent its consequences.
Written in December 2022 © Your Green Footprint