The Hindu Business Line : Fresh warning on climate change

With the emission of greenhouse gases very high, the IPCC report warns that unless emergency measures are taken in the next couple of decades, the process of climate change will become irreversible.

The latest report prepared under the auspices of the UN apex body on world climate change once again underlines the stark fact that the situation is precarious for the survival of mankind on Earth and that the present is perhaps mankind's last `window of opportunity' to ward off that disaster. What is special about this warning is that it was voiced at a meeting (in Bangkok) where representatives from both rich and poor countries appeared to have — for the first time — joined hands in underscoring the magnitude and finality of the impending disaster.

As the chairman of the UN Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, Mr R. K. Pachauri, said from the venue of the meeting: "It's a stunning and razor-sharp report. It is a solid scientific document that clearly highlights the urgency with which the issue needs to be addressed by all countries." Among other things, the report clearly focuses on the fact that the emission of greenhouse gases has been very high in recent times, the inference being that unless emergency measures are taken within the next couple of decades, the ongoing process of climate change will become irreversible, leading to severe changes in Earth's temperatures and habitable topography, which would most certainly threaten the very survival of mankind.

Rise in emission

At the very outset, the official summary of the report says that while it is well-known and demonstrable that global greenhouse emissions have grown since pre-industrial times, there is very high agreement among the 2,000-odd scientists who worked on the report and much evidence to back the fact that the emissions have increased by around 70 per cent in the 34-year period between 1970 and 2004 (24 per cent between 1990 and 2004). The emission of different gases has grown by different amounts, that of carbon-dioxide having increased between 1970 and 2004 by as much as 80 per cent, representing 77 per cent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2004.

In terms of sectors, the largest harmful gas emissions have been generated by the energy sector (up 145 per cent), followed by transport (120 per cent), industry (65 per cent) and `land-use, land-use change, and forestry' (40 per cent) — that is, deforestation, biomass and burning, decay of biomass from logging and deforestation, decay of peat and peat fires. Between 1970 and 1990, direct emissions from farming activity grew 27 per cent and from buildings 26 per cent, the latter remainingaround the 1990 levels thereafter. However, the buildings sector has a high level of electricity use and hence the total of direct and indirect emissions in this sector is much higher (75 per cent) than direct emissions.

Power sector not included

The summary says that the direct emissions in each sector do not include that from the power sector for the electricity consumed in the building, industry and agricultural sectors or of the emissions from refinery operations supplying fuel to the transport sector. Clearly, if this addition were taken into account, it would make the picture portrayed by the figures even more dismal.

Of interest is the report's finding that though the `global energy intensity' declined by 33 per cent during 1970 to 2004, the effect on global emissions has been smaller than the combined effect of global income growth (by 77 per cent) and global population growth (by 69 per cent), both generating increasing energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions. The report also makes clear that the long-term trend of declining carbon intensity of energy supply has been reversed after 2000.

The good news is that the emission of ozone-depleting substances controlled under the Montreal Protocol, which are also greenhouse gases, have declined significantly since the 1990s, their volume by 2004 having dropped to around 20 per cent of their 1990 level. Even so — and despite the fact that a range of policies, including those on climate change, energy security and sustainable development, have been effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in different sectors and in many countries — the scale of such measures have not been enough to contain and reduce the global growth in emissions.

Approaching Doomsday

This is the danger staring mankind in the face, the loud message being that the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have to be intensified even further if the `approaching Doomsday' is to be pushed back to start with, perhaps even staved off for an indefinite period. The problem is that much of this extra effort will have to be expended in the developing world where fossil fuel is expected to maintain its dominant position in the period leading to 2030 and beyond. As the report says, between 2000 and 2030, carbon-dioxide emissions are expected to grow by 45 per cent to 110 per cent, two-thirds to three-quarters of this growth coming from the developing world.

It is not surprising that, in the past, there has been a chorus of protest from the poor world against the stark injustice involved in its having to divert precious resources away from the business of generating economic growth to controlling the polluting impact of that growth, specially in circumstances where available resources are scarce.

What has added insult to injury in a manner of speaking is that the current position regarding greenhouse gas emissions - threatening the very existence of mankind - is a direct result of the uncontrolled economic activity of the industrialized world in the 1950s, in which the poor hardly had any role to play except for providing cheap raw material to make that growth possible.

The good thing about the IPCC report is that all the protagonists have been addressed on practically the same footing. Thus, the rich have been told that they need to alter their lifestyles and the poor have been asked to make the sacrifice in terms of a lower economic growth today for a physically safer future. Of course, it remains to be seen how the action-plan will be implemented because without effective implementation there is no way in which the ongoing process of a changing climate can be halted. An increased dose of multilateral cooperation appears to be the only way out, which will not be easy to come by if the WTO Doha Round experience is any indication.

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