Warning on warming

 UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has not only reminded but also warned the world that if countries did not drastically reduce fossil fuel emission through use of alternative and eco-friendly energy by 2020 then the rate of global warming will witness economic and ecological catastrophe. The warning that was made last September, should be taken note and acted upon. To illustrate his point, Guterres pointed to Kerala, where the worst monsoon flooding in recent history resulted in around 500 deaths officially to almost 3,000 deaths from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017and disappearing Arctic sea ice. He also mentioned some wildfires which were so big that they send ash around the world, oceans becoming more acidic threatening food chains, and high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere threatening food security for billions of people. However, the warning is not the first as there had been so many warnings in the past. The countries that could make the big difference with little measures have ignored the danger or are paying only lip service. There is a difference between “weather” and “climate” as the former relates to conditions in the atmosphere over a short time. In the latter, it relates to how the atmosphere behaves over a longer period of time. Climate change generally means changes in long-term averages of daily levels of temperature and rainfall. In a warming world, we can expect it to get wetter. The distribution of the rainfall throughout the year could change as we experience longer, drier spells, although when rain falls it may be in intense bursts. That being so, the issue of climate change is also a factor that is related with mindless destruction of forests and precipitation of the “green house gas effect” from various chemicals and fossil fuel emissions. Scientists have warned that humans must reduce net greenhouse gases emissions to zero “well before 2040” in order to ensure global warming does not go above 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. As per records, in 2014, the top carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters were China (30%), the United States (15%), the European Union (9%), India (7%), the Russian Federation (5%), and Japan (4%). These data include CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion, as well as cement manufacturing and gas flaring. Together, these sources represent a large proportion of total global CO2 emissions. Future effects of climate change will continue through this century and beyond during which temperatures will continue to rise. Only last year in 2017, nature unleashed some catastrophic weather across the world. At the beginning of 2017, Australia experienced one of the hottest summers on record in Sydney and Brisbane, followed by a killer summer heat wave across southern Europe and wildfires triggered by heat in California. At the same time, the 2017 monsoon season brought considerable rains to the Indian subcontinent, and resulted in devastating floods in parts of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh (one of the most flood vulnerable countries in the world), causing more than 1,000 deaths. Guterres warned “If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences for people and all the natural systems that sustain us.” Like the time of Noah when he pleaded and warned people about the impending flood, everyone disbelieved him and paid the consequence.