Are We Ever Going to Overcome Climate Change

Is it just me or it looks like climate news is a heart breaker. It looks like anytime we look at the news, comparing the previous year to the current year, one always gets angry just as the claim of the earth getting hot or red all the time.

The news of glacier melting more rapidly, or forest burning coming up like it is never going to end, and then it keeps people like me at the edge thinking if the world is going to end anytime soon as there is no goof news when it comes to climate change.

Image Flickr

For a while now, we know that greenhouse gasses are responsible for climate change, I guess every college student should know this at this point in time, but it looks like we are emitting them more in recent times than before. So it begs the question why we cannot the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2?

When we talk about CO2 emission, then we have to talk about increased population growth, economic growth which looks like it is dependent on carbon one way or the other, the energy intensity, and the emissions released per this energy.

With our population size comes high demand for basic amenities as well as non-basic ones that we just need for the purpose of being part of the class. Since we release CO2 as a waste product after we take in oxygen, it means that the higher the population, the more CO2 is emitted. I guess this is simple arithmetic. If this growth continues then there will surely be more CO2 emission in the atmosphere but this can be reduced if there is improved healthcare especially in third world countries where there is no access to good health, and education on the use of contraceptive but this is not a magic solution as it would take time.

Image theowp

Although our population might be one of the reason we emit CO2, we must say that innovation, and development especially with the industrial revolution has brought about increased CO2 emissions. With the increase in the world's wealth, CO2 emission keeps increasing. Some countries are talking about zero emission but we are still waiting to see this come to full actualization.

Coming u more efficient ways to live our lives through innovation is another way that we can reduce CO2 emissions but we might suffer from direct rebound effect, and it can lead to an opposite effect instead of what it is supposed to do. Our global carbon footprint is high currently and this is thanks to coal and oil which is needed to generate a large portion of our electricity, and perform industrial activities. To reduce CO2 emissions, nuclear power plants would be an option but it is surprising how so many of them are being closed down in years now. Another would be using renewable energy as a substitute and create incentives for using them.

Addressing climate change is undeniably complex. We've built our lives around carbon, making a sudden eradication unrealistic. Yet, with gradual transitions and concerted efforts, there's hope for a sustainable future. It won't be easy, but it's a challenge we must face head-on.

Reference

^{https://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/11/1783/2019/
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#emissions-by-world-region
https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/04/1062332
https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Highlights.pdf
https://www.thelancet.com/journals
https://www.europarl.europa.eu
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-electricity-production?country=FRA+BRA
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-energy-source-and-its-not-even-close
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6957485/
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab466e/pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920303603
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Projected-CO-2-emissions-from-international-aviation_fig1_311746640
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247152314_A_Definition_of_Carbon_Footprint}