Global Warming And Climate Change - Humanity At The Crossroads
Author: LawSphereX
Category: Environmental Law
Published:
Updated:
GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE: HUMANITY
AT THE CROSSROADS Ritika S, Government Law College, Salem Harinidevi S, Government Law College, Salem
INTRODUCTION
Earth’s average temperature, which had been constant over a long period because of the size and heat absorption capacity of the oceans, has increased to about 2° Fahrenheit (F) or 1° Celsius (C) since the pre-industrial era (1850–1900) due to the emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs). This may seem like a small number, but it has caused climate change. And the rate of global warming since 1981 is more than twice as fast, that is, about 0. 32° F (0. 18° C) per decade. It is the beginning of a different era. Scientists describe this as the Anthropocene Epoch, which in geological time is defined as the period when human activities have significant impacts on the Planet’s climate and ecosystems. Everything that we have done for human progress, increased well-being and wealth generation has breached the national as well as planetary boundaries.
RISKY CHANGES The rising global temperatures that cause a phenomenon known as climate change lead to a multitude of effects on Earth, including more frequent and intense extreme weather events, rising sea levels and changes in ecosystems. Significantly, climate change is a slow-moving crisis. To be more precise, it is a very fastmoving crisis from the perspective of geological epochs, but very slow from the point of view of daily events and the political calendar. If the climate change crisis were going to culminate in a single event in a year, humanity would undoubtedly get itself organised to prevent or adapt to the crisis. Yet the climate changes underway will play out over decades, not months. CURRENT HUMIDITY Our situation is a bit like the proverbial frog that is put in water that is very slowly heated.
The story has it that a frog in gradually warming water will never jump out and will eventually be boiled alive. Perhaps humanity will be the same. The changes witnessed year to year may be gradual to provoke large-scale actions, and yet the cumulative effects could prove devastating, or we may wake up to the reality when it is simply too late to change the course decisively. One of our big problems is that we have evolved our quick reflexes. When a bear appears in front of our cave, we either fight or run. We do not sit there and say, “Now, what is the possibility of another bear appearing? ” How often does this occur? Is this a new trend? There are so many bears a decade ago, so how many are there now? We hardly use our slow reflex when we need to react swiftly, but now, as global warming accelerates, we fail to solve the future.
CENSUS The year 2024 was the warmest on record globally, with an average global temperature of 1. 60°C above the pre-industrial average (1850–1900). According to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), 2024 was the first calendar year with a global average temperature “clearly exceeding 1. 5°C above the pre-industrial level”; 11 months of the year saw the global average surface air temperature above the threshold. The year 2024 has surpassed 2023 as the warmest year on record globally. The six years made the past decade (2015 to 2024), the warmest 10 years in the 175-year observational record. It indicates that global warming has remained unchecked. Under the Paris Agreement in 2015, the world pledged to hold the rise in average temperature well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to mount efforts to limit warming to 1. 5°C.
The latter is the threshold beyond which climate change would worsen and its impacts become irreversible. An analysis of data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) — which has been recording global temperatures since 1940 — shows that the world has crossed the 1. 5°C threshold on 20 occasions or days during the entire year of 2023 and at least 279 occasions in the past 63 years. Crossing the threshold of individual months or years does not imply a rise in the planet’s long-term global average temperature. However, the repeated crossings bring the planet closer to those critical barriers. If we look back to the past, the period between the mid-2010s and the early 2020s also had evidence of warmer temperatures. The evidence goes to show that long-term average global warming has been more than 1. 5°C.
It is often mentioned that the recorded high temperature in 2024 could have been because of El Niño and ENSO. But the global climate records have been breached so frequently in 2024 that none of them can serve as a benchmark. For consecutive 16 months since June 2023, the global temperature likely exceeded anything recorded before. The unprecedented warming fuelled extreme weather events, including heat waves, floods, typhoons, wildfires, and including economic and societal worldwide. GOVERNMENT STEPS TO OVERCOME THOSE PROBLEMS In 2024, the world experienced a significant number of natural disasters, with the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) recording as many as 593 natural hazard-related events that resulted in 16,758 fatalities and affected millions globally. Some of the most impacted disasters are mentioned below:
1. The western coast of Florida (USA) was battered by one of the strongest Atlantic
storms — hurricane Milton in September 2024. Around the same time, the strongest Hurricane Helene hit Florida’s Big Bend region, causing 250 deaths and over $78 billion in damages.
2. In December 2024, intense tropical cyclone Chido obliterated shantytowns on one of
the main island territory of Mayotte. The cyclone was the strongest storm to hit Mayotte in at least 90 years.
3. In October and November of 2024, in the span of two weeks, a catastrophic flood which
has been dubbed as one of the deadliest disasters in decades, hit eastern and southeaster Spain and killed more than 200 people.
4. The Sahara Desert, one of the most arid landscapes on the planet, experienced an
unexpected transformation following a powerful extratropical cyclone that swept through north western Africa on 7 & 8 September 2024.
5. India has seen more frequent and intense extreme weather events in 2024 compared to
the previous two years, according to an assessment by the Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Down To Earth (DTE). One of the devastating impacts was the massive landslides in Wayanad (Kerala) in July 2024, killing more than 200 people. WORLD METROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION The rising global temperatures have a tremendous impact on our health. Higher temperatures lead to increased stroke, heat exhaustion, and cardiovascular problems among outdoor workers. Extreme heat events, like those experienced in many regions of the world, can cause premature deaths and further aggravate a wide range of existing health issues. Warmer temperatures and changing rainfall patterns can expand the geographic range of disease vectors like mosquitoes, leading to increased transmission of diseases like malaria, dengue fever, and zika.
Drought and changes in precipitation patterns lead to water shortage and affect water quality, increasing the risk of water-borne diseases. Climate change worsens air pollution from wildfires and industrial emissions, leading to respiratory problems and cardiovascular disease. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that climate change added 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, impacting human health and ecosystems. These impacts disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, and some studies project that climate change could lead to 30 million annual deaths by 2100. CLIMATE CHANGES The World Migration Report 2024 compiled by the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration points out that slow-onset events because of climate change cause displacements.
In 2024, the effects of global warming significantly influenced human migration patterns, intensifying both internal and cross-border displacement worldwide. The World Migration Report 2024 released by the UN estimates that over 216 million people across six continents could be compelled to move within their countries by 2050 due to climate change. Climate change has severe economic costs as it affects individual and household income, sectors of the economy, energy markets, innovation, and rising public debts, among other things. The climate change triggered by the relentless increase of global warming has potentially increased inflation and the debt-to-GDP ratio, resulting in economic uncertainty and tighter fiscal and monetary policy. As the old saying has it in Tennessee, “If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, it is highly likely that it did not get there by itself.
” And now we are seeing turtles on every other fence post in every field in the world. They did not get there on their own. It is now abundantly obvious that all the extreme temperatures and the extreme weather events associated with them are like turtles on a fence post. They did not happen without human activities, as climate scientists had mentioned earlier.
GREENHOUSE EFFECTS
It deserves mention that global warming and all other global environmental problems have a new character, the key aspect is the irrelevance of the national character of the problem. Consider some countries where they are burning fossil fuels. The CO2 goes into the atmosphere. Does it stay over there? A CO2 molecule does not know the political boundaries. It has not heard of a passport. It has no brain. So it does not understand the idea of political sovereignty. It’s just blown by the winds, moved by the general circulation of the planet. The planet is a unit. No one nation can solve the global warming vis-à-vis climate change problem alone. We are all in the Greenhouse together. But as a trustee of the planet, we could hardly disown our duties. John F. Kennedy once advised: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
” For our purpose let us paraphrase it in this way: “Ask not what our biosphere can do for us, but what we can do for our biosphere. ” To make our planet liveable, each of us should adopt a responsible Earth ethic, such as accepting moral duty and obligation as a responsible citizen of the world to protect our biosphere. We should subscribe to what Al Gore, the Nobel Peace Laureate, said: “I cannot stand the thought of leaving my children with a degraded earth and dismissed future. ”