Global Climate Change - Essay Example

? THE CHALLENGES THAT GLOBAL WARMING PRESENTS TO BOTH GOVERMENTS AND BUSINESS by Global climatechange is found to be the greatest danger that humanity has ever faced with. Global warming, as it is proven by the latest research, is caused by human activities. Awareness of this situation’s seriousness gradually penetrates into the world public opinion. It is all possessed by the world’s attention. The media and politicians are more increasingly talk about global warming. A big amount of scientific researches and feature films describe the challenges of global climate change in full measure. It is still possible to mitigate, avoiding the worst. The scientific community has offered specific recommendations to governments, but the question is whether politics are going to listen to the recommendations of scientists. Thus, we are going to discuss the challenges that global warming presents to both governments and businesses. First of all, it is necessary to mention that global warming is a tremendous challenge to the whole humanity. To date, the global scientific community has received the irrefutable proofs of the secular trend of global warming, which serves as an indicator of climate changes on the Earth. The surface temperature of the atmosphere has increased by 0, 74 ?C over the past century. Average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were higher than in any 50-year period in the last 500 years during the second half of the twentieth century, and probably is the highest in the last 1300 years. Thinking about consequences of global warming, Weart (2003) stated that widespread phenomena, such as rising sea levels, melting glaciers and polar ice sheets (particularly in the Arctic), the reduction of snow and ice covered areas of the earth’s surface, the increase in rainfall in some regions (the eastern part of North and South America, Northern Europe, North and Central Asia ) and a decrease in others, the expansion arid zones (Africa, South Asia, part), more frequent tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic, etc. are connected with global warming. Global warming and climate change affect the condition of many natural ecosystems in some ways, and thus, they have an impact on climate conditions in the biosphere as a whole, the biosphere conditions of human existence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes up to 2500 experts from 130 countries, stated in the Fourth Assessment Report, which was presented in 2007, that global warming is an undeniable and already irreversible fact. The IPCC projected that by the end of the XXI century, if current trends continue to develop, surface temperature can rise to the most accurate estimate on 1,8-4,0 ? C (different scenarios), but likely, a greater value will have a place - from 2,9 to 6,4 ? C. This will entail an increase in climatic ‘shocks’ and disasters, such as more frequent and extensive flooding, flooding of low-lying coastal areas in one regions, drought and desertification in others. The changes, in turn, will lead to a reduction in agricultural productivity, especially in arid zones, water resources depletion, a dramatic reduction of biodiversity, and a spread of dangerous infectious diseases due to worsening conditions of the existence of a huge mass of people, especially in the poorest countries and to general regression in human development throughout the XXI century. Arguing the problem of global warming some researchers declared that the Industrial Revolution has changed the lives of mankind for the better, but the annual emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that cause a greenhouse effect, has grown considerably at its very beginning. Billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases accumulate in the thin protective layer of the Earth. Nowadays, the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere are half as much again as before the Industrial Revolution. Discussing the challenges that global warming presents to both governments and business, it is important to emphasize that we cannot allow the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to increase significantly beside their current number. This goal is attainable at a sufficiently moderate cost. This will significantly reduce the risk of abrupt changes in the Earth’s temperature. To achieve these goals by 2050, the world should reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% from current levels, and then continue to reduce emissions, while this figure is reduced by at least 80% from current levels. This will help to stabilize the situation. The main reason why governments, business and humanity as a whole are challenged by forthcoming problems of global warming is a large-scale human use of hydrocarbons as the energy sources. As it was previously mentioned, the increase in CO2 emissions is strongly correlated with the growth in GDP per capita from the middle of the XIX century. These data leave no grounds for doubts and skepticism. The government of any country understand that various attempts to deny a crucial role of an anthropogenic factor is untenable because it not only violates the existing natural balance between natural emissions of greenhouse gases and their absorption, but also acts as a ‘trigger’ to increase natural emissions (e.g., from melting permafrost). In addition, it leads to reduce the absorption capacity of the earth’s surface (due to deforestation, pollution of the oceans, etc.). Therefore, we can talk about the joint actions of both factors, among which the leading role belongs to the anthropogenic factor. Observing the problem of global warming from various sides it is necessary to identify three key elements of governmental policies to effectively respond to the challenges of global warming. The first one includes the cost of regulating carbon emissions through taxation, emissions trading and regulations. This will help to put the corresponding social costs on people who are responsible for environmental pollution. The second element is the costs of innovations, introductions of technologies that minimize carbon emissions. The third element consists of the elimination of barriers to energy efficiency, the implementation of appropriate programs to inform, educate and conviction the population to be more attentive to the environment. The government, developing a policy, must take into account a fact that one third of all emissions in the atmosphere is not connected with the activities of the energy industry. Thus, a specific attention should be paid to the problem of deforestation in the nearest future. Gore (2009) mentioned that different researches show that an effective action to minimize emissions will reduce spending on the consequences of the pollution about 1% of global GDP each year. It is very important to remember that the global economy can continue to evolve as a transition to technologies that provide low carbon emissions and create new business opportunities due to the growth in demand for new products and financial services. Their total cost would be hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The challenges that global warming presents to business demonstrate that it is almost impossible to continue business conduct ‘as usual’. Vasche (2009) found that “Steps to address global warming can have significant implications for individual industries and businesses, depending on the inputs they use and the demand markets they service. There will be both winners and losers. Thus, business forecasters will increasingly need to identify how their firms' input and output prices, labor costs, product demands, outputs, and employment might be affected in the future” If mankind does not take appropriate measures to minimize the risks associated with climate changes, the world average temperature will rise by more than five degrees. This number reflects the difference between the current climate and climate during the glacial period. As a result, humanity will face with unprecedented challenges. The risk of irreversible environmental changes and growth of various types of disasters will greatly change with the increase in average temperatures. As a result, the territory of Russia, for example, can be changed beyond recognition. The rest of the world is waiting for the similar effects. The forced migration of the population of the Earth will lead to the deterioration of life’s quality. Historically, the bulk of the emissions is accounted on the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution - the countries of Europe and North America. Currently, however, energy consumption on average increases sufficiently slowly in these countries. In the nearest future, the largest amount of emissions will be accounted by countries with rapidly growing economies and large populations, such as China and India. Ambitious goals will stimulate the formation of new markets, and it will lead to the beginning of active financing of large-scale investment programs in the private sector by different companies aimed at developing technologies that reduce carbon emissions in these countries. To sum up, due to the increasing costs of developing countries to fight with climate change and global warming, the developed countries decided to double the amount of financial aid by 2010. These commitments were made during a meeting in Monterrey in 2002, as well as at the summit of the Group of Eight in Gleneagles in 2005. If we take a decisive action today and coordinate them at the international level, we can achieve a significant reduction in risks at moderate costs. However, if we do not take active steps within the next 10-20 years then it will increase not only the risks but also the costs of combating climate change. Thus, taking everything into consideration it is possible to conclude that global warming is irreversible, but it is still possible to keep it within limits to avoid the worst. Everything is possible to change if observe the whole world as one country and as an integral part of any country. A problem of ‘burden sharing’, which shall conform to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, has its place due to an unequal status of many countries. In this paper we have proved that both governments and business are faced with big varieties of the global warming challenges and the world community is faced with some need to change a course, override the framework of the market in order to overcome a dominant type of economic development so far - in favor of the model of the sustainable development. In this case the speech is going about the changes in the basic value orientations, ways of thinking and motivations of human action. Countries, where the level of the material progress and welfare has been already existed, should replace a concern about the increasing production and consumption towards the principles of adequacy, moderation, self-restraint, changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, increasing the role of non-economic, non-monetary component of the public interest. References: Gore, Al. (2009) Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, Rodale Books. Vasche, J. D. (2009) Forecasting the Effects on Business of Global Warming Policies, The Journal of Business Forecasting, Vol. 28, 2009. Weart, S. (2003) The Discovery of Global Warming, Harvard University Press. Read More