Climate change demands new strategies - Don

Climate change calls on humanity to adopt a new culture of innovation that favours sustainability over profitability, Director, Centre for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Prof. Dr Christian Borgemeister told the third Ruhuna International Science and Technology Conference (RISTCON), in Matara recently.

Prof. Borgeimister themed his speech on 'Facing Future Challenges: Assessing the Role of Science and Technology in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation'. RISTCON 2016 was organised by the Faculty of Science of the University of Ruhuna.

Excerpts:

"Climate change has become a dramatic and often bitter reality in many places. The period between 2011-2015 was the warmest five years on record. According to the WMO world temperature has reached a symbolic 1°C above the mean temperature of the pre industrial era. The warming of the planet has resulted in many disasters in the recent past.

In May and June 2015, India and Pakistan were struck by heat waves while the California mega drought reached historic proportions. The 20 million megapolis city of Sao Paulo faced its worst drought crisis in 80 years.

At the same time heavy precipitation and flooding posed serious problems to many societies and their economies. In January last year, Malawi in South East Africa was hit by heavy floods while in July, Myanmar and Bangladesh suffered from flooding and landslides. Apart from the direct loss of human lives, these extreme weather conditions manifest as increased poverty, temporary displacement and the heightened likeliness of the outbreak of epidemics.

It is known that anthropogenic climate change and weather extremes are closely connected. This means that the extreme weather events the world has seen in the last few years may just be a preview of future catastrophes. There should be no doubt that Anthropogenic climate change is among the greatest challenges that humanity faces in the 21st Century.

Climate catastrophe

The looming climate catastrophe is reminiscent of the threat of nuclear apocalypse in the era of the Cold War. In a business as usual scenario, containing greenhouse gas emissions at present levels will lead to a situation where large parts of the planet may become virtually uninhabitable by the end of the century.

What is more worrying is that scenarios based on state-of-the-art computer modelling indicate that with current emission levels, it will be hard to keep mean temperature below 2°C above pre-industrial times. Not only would climate change devastate whole regions and according to a host of geographers, economists and political scientists, it would increase the conflicts over vital resources such as water or arable land by large degrees.

It takes political will to reverse these trends. The good news is that the international community has understood the dangers of climate change and nations have agreed to a new treaty effective from 2020, at the COP 21 climate summit held in Paris in December 2015. The Paris agreement has met harsh criticism and enthusiastic support.

Whatever the outcome of COP 21 may be, it is clear that science and technology have a key role in paving the way. The political ecology approach is based on one essential question Who profits and who looses out from interactions between humans and nature? A number of scholars worry about the potential of climate change to destabilise societies and cause conflicts over natural resources.

The conflict and peace studies community are engaged in serious debate whether the link between climate change and conflict is valid and straightforward, and which factors play into the equation".

The climate change mitigation and adaptation measures also have the potential to cause conflict on a massive scale. Hydro electric mega dams, nuclear power, carbon capture and storage (CCS), biofuels and genetically modified organisms are a few examples.

Construction of dams was often associated with displacement and forced resettlement of local populations which made them highly conflictual to begin with. It is true that the operation of hydro electric power plants unlike coal power plants does not result in the emission of carbon dioxide but the flooding of forests lead to an anaerobic process and the release of large amounts of methane which is an extremely potent green house gas.

The nuclear disasters in Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 have shown that accidents do occur and that nuclear energy is not the way out. Nuclear waste disposal is another problem we face. Building nuclear power plants and the implementation of Carbon Capture and Storage is extremely costly. Even the promotion of biofuels as a possible alternative to fossil fuels has been subjected to heavy criticism from environmentalists and advocacy groups.

Nuclear power, large dams, biofuels, like fossil fuel are part of an outdated economic model. They symbolise the pathways of accelerated modernity that created the situation the world is in today. It is preferable to phase out the use of these technologies instead of presenting slightly modified, newer versions as solutions to climate change.

The alternative, however, is not a de-industrialisation or an end to technological development. There is no going back to an allegedly better past. Without the progress humanity has made in agriculture, medicine, engineering and transportation technology over the past centuries, the world would be a much bleaker place and many millions more would be threatened by death through starvation and disease.

Humanity must shed thoughtless megalomania and adapt smart technologies that are cost effective and energy effective, easy to maintain and repair and to deconstruct and built to scale." - Text and pic: Priyan de Silva, Matara Cor.