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Outcome of COP 26: Green or grey?

Published : Saturday, 27 November, 2021 at 12:00 AM  Count : 708

Outcome of COP 26: Green or grey?

Outcome of COP 26: Green or grey?

It is half a century since the club of Rome compiled The Limits to Growth, Paul Ehrlich wrote The population Bomb, Rachel Carson told us about the Silent Spring, E.F Schumacher wrote Small is Beautiful, James Lovelock came up with the theory of Gaia, Ecologist magazine drafted A Blueprint for Survival, Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos co-wrote Only One Earth and the first Earth Summit held in 1972. By then, our conscience becomes clear that we shall have to save our planet. We have signed the Paris climate agreement in 2015.

In sequel to that agreement the third United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) held in Glasgow this year has brought together more than hundred world leaders and 25 thousand representatives of government, business and civil society. Question is whether we made good progress on some key dimensions: Nationally determined contributions (NDCs), climate finance, phasing out coal, looking at nature based solutions to climate change and the overarching goal of net zero. The simple answer is 'no', but we are progressing with a mixture of green and grey solution.

Since the last ice age around 12000 years ago, human species did not face any major catastrophe and hence we have colonised most of the planet. We began planting, cultivating, hunting and domestication of animals. Environmental history also suggests that more than 90000 years ago human set fire some forest in East Africa and destroyed the large part of ecosystem. Our actions in the past also led to environmental catastrophe. After last ice age we flourish but again started facing five big challenges. They are: protect and restore nature, clean our air, revive our ocean, build a waste free world and fix our climate.

Considering the above mentioned five big challenges I think about Bangladesh, which has one of the smallest carbon footprints per capita, but the country is one of the worst affected by climate change. Its population is increasingly at risk from climate disasters. In order to fix our climate the goal of reaching net zero emissions globally by 2050 is important and the degree of commitment is quite promising on that front but the modalities of achieving such goal is not clear.

Carbon offsetting is one of the seductive concepts embedded within the COP 26 climate deal, Paris agreement and other documents. It is approximately cost three pound per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent and this approach will encourage emission. Some technical help such as for solar energy and tree planting will help reducing net zero but real offsetting is to remove carbon dioxide from atmosphere. However, this requires technology for extraction and storage of carbon dioxide.

In June 2019 the UK government amended the climate change act 2008 to commit to net zero emission by 2050. But it is only possible if we realise that individual action matter most. Some of the personal initiatives could be powerful, such as individual can change their pension fund to more sustainable fossil fuel free option; individual can switch their bank account to a bank that use ethical lending policy; individual can move their insurance policy to provider who has a clear interest in contributing to a net zero future.

Individual company can setup a business that contributes to net zero emission. For example Greggs, a fast food company based in UK has recently introduced a vegan sausage roll and customer picked up the product, not only because it is a cheaper option but also it demonstrates that it has been produced using less carbon footprint.

Another important issue on the discussion is that we need to make sure that both the cost and benefit of zero emission are shared fairly across the country. For example, a rich household would be able to replace their boiler with air source heat pump, but a poor household would not be able to invest money to replace their energy facility. So, this imbalance needs to be addressed in order to achieve net zero emission.

Economist Nicholas Stern mentioned that 'we need a new for m of economic growth that breaks the destructive relationship between economic activity and the environment.' However, Stern argued that 'We have to think about how we bring forward the big changes, not only in technology but in systems management. Cities, energy, transport, land; these are the areas where economists need to look very closely and intensely at rapid change.'

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called for 'proper regulatory oversight' of climate oriented funds. We need to think how we will deal with the problem in hand. For example, it is impossible to make wind turbines without steel or solar panels without rare earths and other critical metals. Now the industries that supply those materials are remained as unsustainable within the chain of renewable energy. So, how to develop an eco-matrix addressing all those issues in the production process? How this will be financed knowing the fact that they are unsustainable. Regulation in this area is essential; it is not just focusing on penalties that would be meaningful. The question here is-is it purely green or there are some grey component in it?

Above all, Noam Chomsky, a Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology maintains that there is always room for Gramsci's 'optimism of the will'. The reason for such optimism is the fact that, as Chomsky suggests there are still options available range from 'simple initiatives that are easily undertaken like weatherizing homes, to entirely new forms of energy, perhaps fusion, perhaps new means of exploiting solar energy outside the Earth's atmosphere, to methods of decarbonisation that might conceivably, even reverse some of the enormous damage already inflicted on the planet.'

However, Chomsky also warned that 'if current tendencies persist, the outcome will be disastrous before too long. Large parts of the world will become barely habitable, affecting hundreds of millions of people, along with other disasters that we can barely contemplate.' So, we should increase the speed and scale of our carbon management process and to identify where the grey components lie in the process. We should realise that at the end it is the emission not the decisions made in the conference matter most.
Dr Kanan Purkayastha is a
UK based Academic, Chartered
Scientist and Environmentalist, Columnist and Author










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