Global Warming: 33 million Pakistanis were affected by the recent flash floods, which were mostly caused by global warming and the resulting climate change and resulted in losses of over $30 billion.
Unfortunately, we are trying to externalize the problem by saying that other countries are the only ones responsible for the harms by using the justification that we emit less than 1% of greenhouse gases (GHG). Even 1% is not really a figure we should be proud of; rather, it is merely an indicator of how far behind those other countries’ industrial progress we are. These other nations are already making corrections, whereas we don’t seem to have learned anything from their experiments and errors.
Global Warming
It is necessary to define some of the terminology mentioned above, including greenhouse gases, in order to move on. It is common practice to grow plants in regulated settings. Such structures are referred to as greenhouses, where the plants and air are heated by solar rays and the majority of that heat is trapped inside the building, keeping it warm to the necessary temperature for the plants’ growth. The same idea applies to the earth’s atmosphere; during the day, the sun heats it, and at night, as the earth cools, the heat is radiated back into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb the aforementioned heat, keeping the earth’s surface warm and livable.
Over 79%, 16%, and 6% of all emissions that are created by people worldwide are carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, respectively. Their ability to harm varies, though. Methane survives in the atmosphere for just a little over 10 years, but 40% of carbon dioxide does after 100 years. However, methane has a 25 times greater global warming impact than carbon dioxide over the same period of time. In actuality, nitrous oxide has a 300-fold increase. The warmth already brought on by GHG emissions is increased because these gases also contribute to global warming and warmer air carries more water vapours, which has the effect of increasing the capacity of those vapours to absorb and hold heat.
The aforementioned phenomena have caused an increase in global average temperature of 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial times. Heat waves, floods, a rise in sea levels due to glaciers melting, an increase in ocean temperatures, etc. are all effects of the resulting global warming. The temperature mentioned here might reach 2.4 degrees Celsius by 2100 if uncontrolled.
Political parties and fully developed green movements were beginning to form by the middle and end of the 1960s. From 1998 through 2005, the German Green Party even remained a coalition partner. Since the Stockholm UN Conference on Human Environment in 1972, environmental conservation has been more prominent as a result of this knowledge. Following the conference, the UN drafted an international environmental treaty at the Earth Summit in Brazil in June 1992. The ensuing Kyoto Protocol, which went into effect in 2005, established legally bound emission targets for 37 industrialised nations.
The Paris Agreement replaced the protocol in 2015 with the primary objective of keeping global warming, ideally, to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
Pakistan is facing an existential dilemma that calls for extensive relevant expertise, experience, and leadership capacity. Pakistan must quickly hand over control of this to experts in order to effectively address the threat because the window for action is now closed.
Pakistan wants to switch to 60% clean renewable energy by 2030, increasing hydel capacity by over 50%, employing 30% electric vehicles, and banning all imports of coal while concentrating on gasifying and liquefying domestic coal.
The largest concern is not a lack of funding; rather, it is the absence of the professional competence to organise and carry out the aforementioned major transition. The structures that drive such transformations in other nations are completely absent here. The World Economic Forum’s Global Energy Transition Index, which ranks Pakistan 104th out of 115 countries with a score of 49, best captures our woeful readiness for the switch to renewable energy.
