Causes and Mitigation of Global Warming - Essay Example

Contrary, anthropogenic causes of climate change are due to the effect of human activities. The recently increased warming and climate change observed since the mid-20th century is due to human activities. Human activities have significantly contributed to climate change by adding carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuels is the primary activity that causes increased emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There are many debates on whether global warming is taking place.

However, according to the IPCC, there is that the globe is warming. Three major global temperature model reconstructions show that the earth has warmed since 1880 (IPCC, 2014). Most of the warming occurred since 1981 with the ten warmest years occurring in the last 12 years. Shrinking of the ice sheet masses in Greenland and Antarctic is also evidence that the earth is warming fast. Data from NASA show that Greenland lost about 250 cubic kilometers of ice annually between 2002 and 2006(). Glacial retreat almost everywhere around the globe also indicates the extent to which the earth is warming.

Glacial retreat is evident in the Alps, Himalayas, Alaska, and Africa.Since global warming is already happening, the best solutions to solving the problem would be mitigation and adaptation. Carbon sequestration is gaining support among many scientists and policymakers as a possible mitigation method. However, its effectiveness remains uncertain particularly due to concerns over leakage into the ocean and the environment. According to Shaffer (2010), carbon sequestration can help reduce global warming.

However, the effectiveness of the different types of sequestration methods is not precise owing to the possible leakage back into the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration has the potential to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, there are only 18 international pilot projects underway on carbon sequestration. Thus, very little is known regarding its effectiveness in climate change mitigation. There are costs associated with carbon sequestration. The electricity cost for the process is estimated to be 50 % more than conventional power generations.

In order for sequestration to play a role in climate change mitigation, policies must ensure that it is cost-effective and scale appropriately to address the problem.The use of clean coal technologies can also help mitigate climate change. Clean coal technologies aim at utilizing coal as an energy source without contributing to climate change. Some of the technologies impose operating costs and other energy efficiency losses. Despite these costs, clean coal technologies would reduce dependency on fossil fuels, improve energy efficiency, and reduce emissions from industries and transport.

However, there are concerns over storage capabilities for carbon. There are also concerns about the variability of costs versus the benefits in different sectors (Omoju, 2015). Stabilizing the global climate requires near-zero emissions from every nation or company in the world (Sarofim, Forest, Reiner, & Reilly, 2004). Countries should be committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and follow the Kyoto agreements on emission reduction. One of the policies of the possible policies is for each country to reduce its emissions by 3 %.

Reductions in emissions also include other greenhouse gases such as methane. Nations that reduce emissions to the required levels may be rewarded and the excess, traded for another country. The standards for emission reduction would vary depending on the industrial activities of the country or business. Strict standards and measures would be set against nations with heavy industrial activities and companies that include industries.