Flattening the climate curve

Context: Not enough has been done and is being done to tackle climate change. Cooperation is demanded among the leaders to pursue a common challenge of climate change.

Upward trend in Climate Change:

• Rising GHG emissions:

• Before the 1850s: For past million years, CO2 levels never exceeded 280-300 ppm.
• After the 1850s: visible disruptions started with human intervention through the burning of coal and oil to fuel industrial revolution and expanding agriculture.

• From 0.2 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions in 1850, annual emissions increased to 36 billion tonnes by 2018 (407 ppm in 2018).

• Rising Temperature:

• From 1975 onwards: distinct, upward trend in the temperature rise.
• By 2015: the globe had heated by a degree Celsius relative to a hundred years previously.
• Years 2015-19: Warmest years on record (March 2020 was the 2nd warmest March on record.)

• Other Side-effects: Rising sea levels, melting glaciers, frequent severe hurricanes, heat waves or droughts.

• Recent instances include Amazon forest fires and Australian bush fires in 2019-2020.

• Future Predictions: Average summer temperatures would rise by 4?C in most States in India if the current trend continues (Climate Impact Lab at the University of Chicago).

Tackling Climate Crises:

• International Efforts:

• Paris Agreement: commitments under it, would keep average global temperature rise below 2?C compared to preindustrial levels. 
• Funding: Wealthy nations are spending over $500 billion each year internally on projects aimed at reducing emissions. 

• Funding Challenges: 

• Fear of wrecking the economy: restricts funding into climate change.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: estimates an annual investment of only 2.5 % of global GDP in more efficient energy systems is needed to keep warming below the 1.5?C by 2035.
• Inadequate funding: As opposed to $100 Billion aid annually proposed through UN Climate Conference (2009) by 2020, only $71 billion had been provided in 2017.
• Unbalanced distribution: Only 20% is spent on adaptation, majority towards mitigation.
• Mis-allocation of funding: through development funds or in the forms of loans to be repaid rather than through dedicated climate fund.

• Harebrained technological schemes:  to regulate solar radiation by geo-engineering acts as a shortcut. There are no substitutes for reducing GHG emissions.
• Make or break moment: a paradigm shift in the structure and functioning of societies once the pandemic subsides. 

• On one hand, a brief respite has been provided with halt GHG emissions.
• On the other hand, Nature has been already strained and will not be able to hold climate rise below 2 degrees Celsius.

Way Forward:

• Cooperation: among technologists, economists, and social scientists to plan for a sustainable planet based on the principles of equity and climate justice within and across nations. 
• Responsibility of leaders: to show the same alacrity towards climates as seen in COVID-19 crisis management.