GS Paper III
Source: The Hindu
Syllabus : Environment (Conservation-related issues.)
Directions: The article highlights the flaws in current climate mitigation strategies. Go through it once, you can use it for value addition.
Context: A study published in the journal Science said earth may have already passed through five dangerous tipping points due to the 1.1°C of global heating caused by humanity to date.
Issues with current climate mitigation strategies
- Technology not yet developed: Technology at the required scale is unprepared to deal with the climate challenge.
- Limited sources for renewables: electricity (non-emitting electricity generated by hydropower, renewables or nuclear fission), carbon capture and storage (CCS) or
- The total demand for those resources required by the plans discussed at COP26 cannot be met by 2050.
- Ignores forest economies: Tech-centric mitigation conversations leave forest economies and their conservation.
- Vague pledge:g. Countries may easily attempt to achieve their ‘net zero deforestation goals’ through monoculture farming. But this won’t be of much help.
What does the research say?
- In 2003, Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution found that the world would need a nuclear plant’s worth of clean-energy capacity every day between 2000 and 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Why we need a forest led- mitigation effort:
- Absorption of CO2: Forests absorb a net 6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 a year.
- Cooling: A new study has found that their biophysical aspects have a tendency to cool the earth by an additional 0.5%.
- More effective: The conservation of forests, along with other nature-based solutions, can provide up to 37% of the emissions reductions needed to tackle climate change.
- Scientists, in a commentary in Nature, have stated that naturally preserved forests are 40% more effective than planted ones.
- Cheaper: green infrastructure (salt marshes and mangroves) is 2-5 times cheaper
What are the other measures that can be taken?
- The IPCC Land Report estimates that land serves as a large CO2 sink.
- Preserving earth’s cyclical processes by protecting terrestrial ecosystems and natural sinks and transformative agricultural practices under the leadership of indigenous people and local communities.
Thus, Technology, at best, can assist us, not lead us, on the pathway to a sustainable, regenerative and equitable world.
Insta Links:
Prelims link:
Mains Links:
Q. Discuss the measures required to realize the climate change targets that India had declared to achieve by 2070.
