Environmental degradation and global warming has become a major problem in the world today, they are the major causes of climate change. What is more painful is that humans are contributing the greatest percentage to this vice un apologetically.
BY IRENE LAMUNU
Earlier this year, the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre revealed that below-normal rainfall is expected during the rainy season over the next three months. “In parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda that have been most affected by the recent drought, this could be the 6th failed consecutive rainfall season,” it stated. Drier than normal conditions have also increased in parts of Burundi, eastern Tanzania, Rwanda and western South Sudan, the centre added. More so, drought trends in the Horn of Africa are now worse than they were during the 2011 famine, in which hundreds of thousands of people died.
All these changes are being caused by what scientists have referred to as global warming, which is bringing about climate change, thus, causing the trending drought, below normal rainfall, heavy rains, prolonged dry seasons and floods in many parts of the world. Environmental degradation and global warming has become a major problem in the world today. What is more painful is that humans are contributing the greatest percentage to this vice and unapologetically destroying mother earth.
HOW WE ARE CONTRIBUTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE
In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis critiques consumerism and irresponsible development. He laments about environmental degradation and global warming. The Pope says that the real problem lies in the fact that humans no longer see God as the Creator. The Pope notes that instead of viewing humanity as having dominion over the earth, we must see that everything is interconnected and is a kind of universal family. He adds that our social and environmental crises are thus complex and must be solved holistically.
In the same breadth, United Nations climate action acknowledges that human activities are speeding up global warming through the use of fossil fuels. This is through coal, oil and gas which are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions. These are from manufacturing, mining, construction and other industrial processes that release gases into the air.
Cutting down forests to create farms or pastures, or for other reasons are also cited as causes of emissions. The UN climate action states that each year, approximately 12 million hectares of forest is destroyed. Regrettably, as greenhouse gas emissions blanket the Earth, they trap the sun’s heat, leading to global warming and climate change. Transportation is also reported as a major contributor of greenhouse gases, especially carbon-dioxide emissions. This is because most cars, trucks, ships and planes run on fossil fuels.
THE COST OF CLIMATE CHANGE
With all these activities, we are causing hotter temperatures. The UN recorded that the last decade, 2011-2020 was the warmest. Regrettably, since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one. More severe destructive storms have become intense and more frequent in many regions. As temperatures rise, more moisture evaporates, which exacerbates extreme rainfall and flooding, causing more destructive storms and increased drought.
Notably, the rate at which the ocean is warming strongly increased over the past two decades, across all depths of the ocean. On a positive note, the ocean soaks up most of the heat from global warming. However, as the ocean warms, its volume increases since water expands as it gets warmer.
Melting ice sheets also cause sea levels to rise, threatening coastal and Island communities. Changes in the climate and increases in extreme weather events are among the reasons behind a global rise in hunger and poor nutrition. Fisheries, crops and livestock may be destroyed or become less productive.
Scientists have also confirmed that climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity. This is felt through; air pollution, disease, extreme weather events and forced displacement, pressures on mental health, increased hunger and poor nutrition in places where people cannot grow or find sufficient food. Climate change has increased factors that put and keep people in poverty like floods, heat and water scarcity. In fact, in the past decade (2010–2019), weather-related events displaced an estimated 23.1 million people on average each year, leaving many more vulnerable to poverty.
BRIDGING THE GAP
The United Nations Climate change website stated that The United Nations Framework convention on climate change created the Kyoto Prototcol to help control human activities. The Kyoto Protocol operationalizes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by committing industrialized countries and economies in transition to limit and reduce greenhouse gases emissions in accordance with agreed individual targets. The Protocol only binds developed countries and places a heavier burden on them under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities.” It also sets binding emission reduction targets for 37 industrialized countries and economies in transition and the European Union.
Overall, these targets add up to an average 5 per cent emission reduction compared to 1990 levels over the five year period 2008–2012 (the first commitment period). When the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) sat in Paris France in 2015, 196 parties also adopted a document which is today known as the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change.
It entered into force on 4 th November 2016. The goal of the Paris agreement is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” However, in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century.
That’s because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heat waves and rainfall. The world is now warming faster than at any point in recorded history. Warmer temperatures over time are changing weather patterns and disrupting the usual balance of nature, which poses many risks to human beings and all other forms of life on Earth. Therefore, if nothing is done, the earth is at an uncontrollable speed to destruction.
