CLIMATE : HOW MUCH CHANGE 

by Prof. Michael Akerib, PhD

Anthropogenic change

To understand the climate, and of course climate change, we need long term data that shows observable change and that indicates previous climate warming episodes developed very differently and in any case much slower than what we are experiencing at present – differences are momentous. Continents, among other issues, were not in the present position affecting parameters such as currents. Anthropologists are showing that some of the early hominoids living 2 million years ago, evolved stronger teeth to be able to chew harder plants as climatic change caused major changes in the plant cover.

Nevertheless, we can say that since the 1880s, the average global temperature has risen by 11° Celsius. During that period, 2.5 trillion tons of CO2 were released in the atmosphere.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening but this does not exclude that its effects may be compounded by a natural phenomenon.

One of the major problems in writing on climatic change is that it is a scientific as well as a political issue and that the two do not always agree. Also, all the factors are closely tied and therefore the system is difficult to model particularly as it is constantly evolving. Predictive models are inaccurate as data and assumptions are often partial and in many cases unreliable. This makes it difficult to predict the eventual results of different degrees of climatic warming.

Hence, some scientists believe we will inevitably reach a temperature higher by 1.5°, while others view it more like 2°, and scientists bank on an increase of 3°.

One of the numerous unknowns is what happens if the temperature rises to a tipping point at which earth is hardly habitable any more.

Energy demand is rising and is essentially met by fossil fuel infrastructure. That will change when renewable energy sources will be cheaper and that there finally is political will to further the change.

As the planet warms there is an increased climatic instability which leads to a greater use of either heating or air conditioning, both major emissions culprits.

Historical references

We can reflect upon the past and see if it helps us in our analysis.

Climatic changes, and warming in particular, have been a common feature of the planet's history. The spin and position of the planet, solar cycles and volcanic eruptions have been major factors in temperature increase. However, those changes took place at a much slower pace than the present warming.

In the Permian period, global warming wiped out 96% of all marine life and probably also of terrestrial species due to oxygen deprivation exacerbated by higher water temperatures. There is an increasing number of voices that are warning that we are going down that road now.

Several undertakings by humans contributed in a major way to alter the climate – such as deforestation to transform forests into grassland and burning wood to heat and cook.

Several civilisations collapsed due to climatic changes such as the Maya civilisation and, for many historians, that was one of the leading causes of the collapse of the Roman empire.

Several climatologists believe we are reliving the same events. Since the industrial revolution the carbon released has been absorbed by the oceans which, as a consequence, has lost measurable amounts of oxygen. This would be due to a large extent on population growth and higher standards of living. Today the main contributors to the continued increase in temperatures are the developing countries.

Now as then the geographical distribution of the effects of climate change will be uneven with extreme events taking place in different countries. In all cases, however, agriculture will be disrupted.

Greenhouse gases are trapping the sun's heat, disturbing the hydrological cycle. The main changes which will occur are droughts, floods, reducing water availability and the spreading of tropical diseases.

Greenhouse gases

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen 40% since pre-industrial times and so have methane and nitrous oxide and is now the highest it has been for 450 000 years, perhaps even longer. There is general agreement that climate warming will inescapably be of 2°C if not 4°C above pre-industrial level. The present level is of 40 gigatons and should be reduced to net zero which means that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere should be reduced by 7.6% per year from now until 2030 to prevent a temperature increase of 4 to 5% by the end of the century.

The carbon emissions vary considerably from country to country with China and the US being the worst polluters, and while China plans to be carbon neutral by 2060, there is no such move from the US .

The EU has established a target of an 80-95% reduction compared to the 1990 levels with even greater reductions for the energy industry. Central and Eastern European countries disagree. In their energy mix they burn a higher percentage of coal and less petroleum and nuclear energy, thus releasing higher amounts of carbon dioxide. Making the switch would be a very expensive exercise. A solution would be developing a cheap and efficient technology to reduce emissions when burning coal – carbon capture in other words.

There is a discussion as to the countries to which emissions should be assigned – should it be in the country in which they are produced or in the country in which they are consumed ?

Countries using coal for energy production have been particularly criticized.

India, for instance, is a major coal user of a low-quality highly-polluting variety, and the open-pit mining from which it is extracted is, in itself, polluting. Yet, the government is showing no sign of attempting to limit its use. It has been accused to be the world's largest polluter. Ironically, India itself would be the first country to suffer with irreparable damage.

China has doubled its reliance on coal for its energy industry.

President Trump has decided to roll-down a number of regulations which will lead to a significant increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Effects of climatic warming

There are numerous effects of climatic warming. A steep increase in temperatures would lead to a catastrophic change in our environment with a disruption of both atmospheric and ocean circulation leading to changes in rainfall and increases in sea levels and other catastrophic climatic events. Several of these impacts set in place reinforcing mechanisms leading to further increases in temperature. Such is the case, for instance, with the melting of the Arctic ice cover which will increase reflectivity and thus lead to temperature increases.

Excessive temperatures lead to numerous deaths, but those are unaccounted for  in statistics.

These changes will lead to major migration due to chronic famine.

A 3°C temperature increase would create droughts in many areas of the world and 30% of species would be at risk of extinction.

There would be a run for resources ensuing into wars, particular between developing countries.

In fact, one of the most important effects of climatic change will be extensive droughts, food and water shortages, wildfires, mass migrations and conflicts for resources.

People

Heat, particularly in the afternoon, may turn to be unbearable for older persons. It increases hypertension and mental health problems, and is believed to limit the effectiveness of certain medication. At high temperatures it leads to organ failure.

The spread of communicable diseases is inevitable as the vectors spread north as warmer temperatures will favor them. Malaria is the world's biggest killer. And its spread northwards will no doubt be accompanied by that of dengue. This will increase health care costs massively.

There is increasing evidence that the body size of animals is decreasing and therefore may be doing so on humans as well. Smaller animals are known to have less offspring and thus certain species may disappear particularly as they will be less able to capture prey and may themselves fall victims to predators.

Historically, whenever human groups have had issues with harmful environmental change, they have migrated and therefore mass migrations, with already an estimated  250 million climatic refugees, are to be expected and could concern, in the worst scenarios, 2 billion persons. Civil wars could also erupt for access to food sources. Europe is not ready for a massive African migration. Rivalry between members of the EU may tear it apart.

Migration into Europe has been a driver to increased visibility of extreme right groups.

Animals

Several endangered species are doomed to disappear as their habitats are destroyed. This is particularly worrying since it has been found that warm temperatures facilitate the birth of females, hence further putting pressure on population groups. This may also be taking place in the human population as well.

Other species, such as some fish, do the reverse, producing more males. The result is the same and can even be considered to be worse as a small number of males can fertilise a sufficient number of females and maintain the species, but the reverse is not true.

Agriculture

Agriculture is a net emitter of CO2 as well as methane and nitrous oxide. A larger population and increased meat consumption are expected to increase these emissions by up to 20% by 2950.

Cattle is one of the world's biggest methane emitters.

While a temperature increase will at first increase food production, particularly in countries such as Canada and Russia, it will decline significantly once the temperature increase reaches 3°C with a consequent increase in prices.  In fact, plant growth has already declined meaningfully and the worsening of the situation means 500 million small farmers worldwide will be unable to make a living.

Crops may have to be changed as temperatures may not allow European farmers to produce crops such as wheat. Food production in Europe may have to move to the edge of the Arctic as well as to Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, on condition that irrigation is well developed in these last four countries,

Africa and Asia will be particularly affected, requiring more irrigation and thus depleting aquifers.

Many plants will simply disappear.

Fish will move northwards in search of cooler water.

Soil

As the soil warms, the bacterial decomposition of half rotten vegetable matter increases, and releases more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. At 3°C the carbon cycle is reversed with soil releasing CO2. Plants no longer grow.

Forests

Even though today the African forests and the Amazon are carbon sinks, they will die. With high temperatures, trees will release carbon rather than absorb it and the world's temperature would spiral out of control.

Forests have been proven to be the originators of what has been called 'flying rivers', in other words, large aerial humidity, generated by tree transpiration, creates currents that travel very large distances. They represent more water than that in land rivers.

Deforestation is a big culprit both because it is mostly undertaken through burning, but also because it removes carbon sinks. Deforestation will therefore lead to a drier atmosphere with a reduction of humidity by up to 40%.

Glaciers

Most, if not all, of the Alpine glaciers are expected to melt. In the case of the Everest glaciers, which provide drinking water to the hundreds of million inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent, this will be a major issue.

Water

In total, nearly 2 billion people will be lacking water.

There will be water shortages along the Mediterranean. There are already today shortages in several major cities in the world such as Mexico City and Sao Paulo, Brasil. The African continent is expected to be the most affected as its agricultural relies on rain rather than irrigation.

Desalination will probably be used extensively.

Deserts, and particularly those in North and South America, Australia and Africa, will grow warmer. That will also apply to the Gobi Desert.

The southern United States will also suffer from both droughts and floods. The number of pests and therefore also pesticide use will increase. The need for water will deplete aquifers.

Market prices for food products will increase, if any food will be available at all. The mining industry will also be affected, in particular the iron ore mines.

As the level of sea water rises, it will cover fertile land and poison aquifers with its high salinity. It will also most likely destroy communications infrastructure.

Mass population transfer will follow with the inevitable consequence of the rise of extreme right parties and conflicts with the host population.

Rivers

Rivers in Alaska, Canada and Siberia will have a highly increased flow. The same will apply to the Yangtze and the Huang He.

Sea acidification

The sea is the biggest carbon sink storing 50 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere.

It is forecast that by 2050 parts of the Pacific and of the Southern Ocean will be too acidic to support calcareous marine life and plankton in particular, but also crabs, other shell animals and even fish thus creating food shortages.

Ocean acidification has reached a point of no-return. It is believed that it is likely to last 10 000 years and coincide with mass extinctions.

Sea level

Conservative projections are that the sea level will rise by five meters by 2100 because of the melting of the ice cover in the Arctic and of the Antarctic West sheet. The destruction brought about will be worse as tornadoes and hurricanes will increase. This would still be nothing compared to the melting of the East sheet leading to an increase of 50 meters of the sea level.

Losing ice cover has a feedback effect of creating more warming.

There are over 600 million people living worldwide in areas prone to flooding.

The increase in sea level will destroy land and therefore capital and will significantly reduce economic output. The estimated cost of protecting oneself from these developments in the US alone is estimated to be of USD 400 billion.

The Poles (Arctic and Antarctic)

The disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic in summer, which is forecast to happen by 2050, would lead to an increase of 0.5° C degrees worldwide.

The melting of the permafrost, which has a depth of around one kilometer, creates instability issues for the buildings that cover it. This is particularly true in Russia where several industrial enterprises operate in the Arctic circle. Damages caused by melting permafrost could represent 8.5% of the country's GDP.

This means a totally different climate. It will be an open ocean with frequent rain.

The Arctic covers important amounts of dead vegetation that have been under the ice sheets for centuries. As the ice cover recedes, the carbon will be released in the atmosphere.

Vegetation is now replacing snow and ice and this accelerates warming.

Wildfires

Wildfires will occur with increasing regularity particularly around the Mediterranean. As droughts occur, the trees become drier and wildfires occur.

Storms

Both the frequency and the strength of storms will intensify.

The power system

Several of the above-mentioned effects of climatic warming will drastically affect the power system as demand will increase to cool habitats and their inhabitants. Price increases will be inevitable.

At present, world power consumption is of 25'000 terawatt hours split between fossil fuels (75%) and 25% clean energy of which one third is nuclear energy. An increased use of nuclear power will be necessary and should double the existing capacity by 2040 as older plants are being retired.

Telecoms

Hurricanes and other major wind disturbances are a major threat to telephone, and more generally telecom, infrastructure.

Air travel

Due to the sharp growth of the number of passengers flying, its effect on climate warming has doubled over the last 20 years. The number of travelers is expected to continue to increase exponentially over time, thus increasing the release of both carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide. The proportions in the total amount released would also increase as other sources would be reduced.

A thinning of the air density due to higher temperatures would have multiple effects : more thrust would be required by the planes which could be achieved with lighter planes or longer runways.

The 2016 Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) requires airlines to buy carbon credits. Three quarters of emissions by airlines are covered by this agreement as the number of signatories has stalled at that level.

Allowing direct routes rather than following anachronistic ones used presently would also reduce fuel consumption, thus emissions. More efficient engines would yield the same result as well as eventually developing electric planes.

Airbus is developing a hydrogen-fueled plane.

The economy

Over the next century growth of the GDP of the US could be reduced by one third as productivity drops. Storms and other weather-related emergencies in 2017 cost the country 300 billion USD. A 1.5° warming would increase this cost considerably estimated at 4 times. It is already now costing over a trillion dollars per year and will escalate meaningfully with smaller countries unable to bear these costs.

Climate change adaptation costs are estimated to be of around USD 450 billion per year over the next thirty years.

Should the government decide to assist the corporations, it means the cost of climatic warming will be displaced from those responsible for the warming effect to the taxpayer. However, in most, if not all, countries, governments prefer to spend money on defense.

Even in cases where the government has raised money through various financial mechanisms, only part of it has really gone to its original purpose of combating climatic warming.

The cost to insurance companies will also be important. Real estate may lose its value if insurance premiums become unaffordable. Owners will default on their loans.

The value of oil and gas companies will collapse even though they are presently receiving annual investments of the order of USD 100 billion – nearly 2 trillion USD since the signing of the Paris agreement. Nevertheless, major investors are moving out of companies producing hydrocarbons and coal. They are also increasingly reducing their investments in companies that have no plans to take climatic warming into consideration.

BP and Shell have announced that they will be producing less oil and gas and will be increasingly moving to renewable energy production but this approach is not shared by all large oil and gas producers.

Regulatory authorities are now putting the brakes on banks that invest in projects that may increase climatic warming. In particular, in the UK, the Prudential Regulation Authority has issued guidelines enabling banks to measure exposure to climate risk. Germany has done the same. The European Banking Authority has included sustainable finance in its standards of governance.

Winter tourism is already affected.

Developing countries are unable to make the necessary investments to reduce the effects of climatic warming. Even developed countries will have to finance this major change gradually and, at least as much as possible, in a fair way so that the poor and the working poor are not overly penalised.

Investors are needed to fund the infrastructure required to transform the world so as to avoid warming. It would create a large number of jobs.

On the positive side, the development and application of new technologies to reduce climatic warming could generate an economy of several trillion dollars but would require investments of the same order just to restructure the energy system. It would create in the order of 10 million jobs with the largest number being in retrofitting buildings, retooling industry, redeploying the energy grid and its components and housing. A recent study purports that the solar industry alone can create 18 million positions by 2050, particularly as it is now the cheapest form of  energy.

The entire financial system might be destabilised as it is difficult to envisage how the financing of such a change, estimated at between 0.5 and 1.0% of GDP, could be built. The risk is also similar if corporations are hurt by the cost of climatic warming.

Objectives

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which entered into force in 1994, led developed countries to commit to provide USD 100 billion to developing countries, but that is an insufficient amount to fight climatic change. Further, this amount has still not been fully paid showing that the developed countries are more concerned with developing countries reducing their emissions rather than fighting climate change which is in great part due to emissions from developed countries.

Adopted in December 1997, the Kyoto Protocol sought to establish quantitative reductions and caps in emission through international collaboration. It also created a market for emissions trading. It planned to bring CO2 emissions back to their 1990 level.

The Kyoto Protocol reinforced the Paris agreement by establishing more precise objectives and a cap-and-trade system for emissions. However, the United States and Canada withdrew from the agreement. It is now broadly considered as a dead agreement. However, a number of corporations, cities and states, have grouped in an association representing nearly 70% of US GDP, called 'We are still in', that intends to assist the country to meet its commitments.

The Paris Agreement, which came into force in November 2016, is a commitment to keep global warming at below 2°C higher than pre-industrial levels ; but later set as an objective a temperature rise of 3°C by 2100 and that would mean that nearly 95% of the Alpine glaciers would disappear. Half of the glaciers, in this scenario, will have disappeared by 2050.

For an agreement to be effective, there must be strong incentives to adhere to it.

International agreement is difficult to reach as developing countries, India in particular, argue that it is developed countries that should reduce their own emissions first. They also fear that any such move will thwart economic growth and further deepen the divide between rich and poor countries.

It has been suggested that a group of countries or multinationals form a 'carbon club' that would make a strong commitment and action to reduce carbon emissions in their own territories. This would also protect developing countries.

However, it may be difficult to come to some form of agreement on this issue after this crisis.

There is, however, no obligation or punishment in any of these agreements. Border taxes at the importing country are allowed should the exporting country fails to regulate carbon externalities related to the product it is exporting.

A number of countries have obstructed any progress on regulations. They are Australia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Taxes could, of course, be applied to products from non-compliant countries if they would not be prohibited by the WTO regulations (which they are). Unless, a case could be made that the atmosphere is an exhaustible resource.

Possibly, the most potent force to lead the change is people power in its various forms.

At 1.5°C of warming, which is the figure set in the Paris Climate agreement, 14% of the world's population would be subjected to a major heat wave at least once every 5 years, while at 2°C there would be significant warming along the Mediterranean and nearly 50% of the Arctic`s permafrost will have disappeared. At higher temperatures, coral reefs would disappear and fisheries would see their catch decrease significantly.

In spite of all the conferences and resolutions, no conclusive action has been taken.

In 2010, the UN created the Green Climate Fund with the purpose of assisting poorer countries for their mitigation efforts. However, to this date, the fund is empty.

Compared to that, President Trump has made the choice of sustaining the economy rather than attempting to slow down climatic warming and withdrew from the Paris accord. However, several American states have introduced, and maintain, high enough norms.

China, while being the world's largest emitter of carbon, has now become the main defender of the Paris Agreement, stating it will reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

While it has made considerable investments in renewable energy sources, it has,  at the same time, been building coal-fired plants worldwide and particularly in Central Asia which are becoming big export markets for Chinese coal while the country itself continues to import coal.

To meet its commitment, therefore, the country will have to resort to extracting greenhouse gases from the air and planting considerable hectares of forests. This assumes both that the right technologies will be available, and that the government will be willing to face a very steep bill.

China has created the world's largest emissions trading scheme. Permits will be allocated to coal- and gas-fired plants based on the generation output of each plant.

In fact, targets should be established for corporations or industries, not states. Existing technologies could be efficiently used without too much of a cost increase. States should enforce this change.

The European Union published, in December 2019, a Green Deal which outlines measures to be taken to attain net-zero carbon emissions prior to 2050. It is centered around establishing a high price for carbon that would lead to important price increases for most products so as to reduce consumption of carbon-intensive products. The implementation, however, is expected to be slow essentially due to insufficient funding.

The EU passed a regulation committing to reducing emissions by 55% by 2030 while maintaining an affordable energy price. Financing this change will be done with green bonds and through the European Investment Bank which will commit 1'000 billion Euros to 2030.

The plan, however, remains vague on a number of issues such as the distribution of the effort by the different sectors and countries, as well as the cost.

Details are also still expected on a carbon tax on products imported from countries less committed to the reduction of emissions and on regulations regarding air travel.

Remedial activity

Whatever remedial action will be taken still means that some increase in temperature is more than likely and that we should prepare for it. Remediation depends on private and public investments and the speed and extent with which that  is made.

Government actions

Government policies must integrate climatic risk and its potential impact. They must also build or consolidate infrastructure where necessary.

Both the EU and the US are considering banning, or at least heavily taxing, products from countries that have less demanding emission standards and this is probably one of the main reasons China has been considering reducing the building of coal plants outside its own borders.

Building

Building with wood rather than cement would reduce the emissions due to cement production and allow the wood to store carbon from the atmosphere. This will require a good forest management.

People's actions

People need to change the system in which they live such as walking more and using bicycles rather than cars and eating less beef and cheese as well as tropical fruit airfreighted over thousands of kilometers.

Living in smaller-sized homes also helps.

They should switch to electric cars and abandon SUVs or, better still, reducing the mileage driven. Cities could encourage this through a number of policies limiting access to the city.

Changing behavior in the office is also important, such as unplugging chargers and switching off lights when not in use.

Government intervention should not monopolize anti-climatic action. Individuals and corporations should take the lead. Wealthy persons should reduce their living standards – flying less, consuming less.

Cities

Urbanistic choices made by cities will also be determinants to lower energy consumption. This involves a wide range of solutions such as planning, selecting the materials used in building, tax advantages, etc.

Investing in infrastructure to heat buildings electrically rather than through fossil fuels, would also be instrumental in CO2 reduction.

Investor actions

The world's major investors are requesting corporations to indicate their actions with regard to climatic warming.

Choices will have to be made between developing technologies to reduce carbon emissions with a reduction in economic growth, or to invest in allowing people to cope with climatic warming.

Agriculture

Better practices, such as abandoning the practice of tilling, will help the soil absorb carbon as well as leading to a better quality agriculture.

Changing the power source of agricultural machinery from fuels to electricity would contribute massively to reducing carbon release.

Clean energy

The main problem is that introducing clean energy in a substantial way will take a long time and it is not before 2030 that clean energy will overtake coal on a sustained worldwide basis. Nevertheless, it represents today one quarter of the electricity generation worldwide. That figure must reach 50% if we are to maintain temperature increase to a maximum of 1.5°C. Wind energy and some biofuels seem good candidates for this. Replacing present unclean energy sources with clean energy will require to produce four times more energy.

Transport is a major factor as it represents 25% of the world's energy-related CO2 emissions and continues to grow by 2.5% year.

House heating and insulation is another area that requires substantial investments.

Coal subsidies should be decreased and investments in developing countries should be in renewable energies only with the ultimate aim of totally phasing out coal. Recycling seems to be the best solution for the time being.

Germany has announced it will invest 9 billion euros to produce clean hydrogen and France and China are following suit. The estimate of the total investments that will be required in the EU is of around 400 billion Euros over the next 30 years. This may still be insufficient and require imports. However, import infrastructure does not exist and presents major challenges.

Producing clean, or green hydrogen, as compared to fossil hydrogen, is an expensive operation.

The use of nuclear power, which today represents 10% of world electric power - will probably increase although several existing plants are close to water fronts, making them fragile to the rising of sea levels. Further, a number of plants are reaching the end of their useful life and few new plants are being built.

Morocco has built a giant solar farm providing a large part of the country's energy needs.

Fiscal and other incentives are required to accelerate private investment in alternative energies.

In the case of solar power, the price has dropped by 90% over ten years. Also, there is the issue of the disposal of the solar panels at the end of their useful life which is estimated to be of 25 years.

Industry

Emissions from industry will require major changes and investments, that will involve electrification with sustainable sources of manufacturing processes, digitisation and artificial intelligence. Recycling will also have to take an important place in the supply chain.

Removing carbon dioxide from the air

Carbon Capture Technology exists but needs to be refined and its cost reduced. Presently only a very small part of the CO2 produced is captured and it is mostly used to produce other products and thus released again when these products are used.

There are some sectors where this may prove possible, such as transport, and sectors, such as farming, shipping, aviation and heavy industry (cement, pulp and paper and steel), where this may prove to be extremely difficult.

Unless we can effectively capture CO2, it will not be possible to reach zero emissions. These are complex technologies requiring substantial investments and can only be profitable if there is a cost attributed to carbon emissions.

Another method to remove carbon from the atmosphere is to spread some mining tailings that would absorb the gaz.

The carbon so collected could be put to a variety of uses including transforming it into fuel.

Geoengineering

Several technologies have been suggested to cool the planet artificially.

An example is increasing the earth's reflectivity through the seeding of the lower layer of clouds with sea salt crystals so that they reflect more sunlight,  cooling the area. This is, so far, an untested technology.

Squirting sulphric acid in the stratosphere for the same purpose as spraying sea salt crystals is another example and so is placing mirrors in deep space to deflect heat.

Cover the world's deserts in shiny mylar is a more terrestrial approach.

Some of these ideas have had little, if any, serious feasibility studies conducted, but are being increasingly considered to avoid a major climatic disaster. Further, this is a global approach and would require international agreement which would be very difficult to achieve.

Long term consequences are unknown and unpredictable and may lead to unexpected results such as an ice age.

Tree planting

The elite meeting at the Davos Forum agreed on a plan to plant one trillion trees so that atmospheric carbon dioxide can be absorbed as well as restoring ecosystems.

900 million hectares of land planted with trees could store 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide which is about two thirds of the carbon dioxide put in the atmosphere by human action.

Reforestation may not be as difficult to carry out due to increased urbanisation, and in some countries this is already happening.

This solution, however, is not as effective as it seems. Indeed, not only some natural events such as droughts and fires may nullify such actions, as could attacks by insects. Sufficient land may not even be available.

Further, the positive effect will be long to take effect and may well lead to the belief that enough is being done and that we can continue our nefarious habits. Indeed, trees need a century to reach such a large absorption capacity.

With reforestation must also come the restoration of wetlands with the drawback of making these spaces unsuitable to grow food.

Several other techniques have been developed, some rather exotic or difficult to put into practice such as ocean reforestation.

Algae cultivation

The large expanse of sea allows the cultivation of seaweed that would remove massive amounts of CO2. Inasmuch that such an undertaking would not compete for land used to grow food, it has an advantage over planting trees to grow forests.

Developing powerful batteries

An obvious initial application, which is already presently in limited use, is on planes, to reduce fuel consumption.

Developing the use of sustainable aviation fuel

Sustainable aviation fuel is made from vegetables and waste.

Conclusion

It seems inevitable that the short term solution requires a reliance on nuclear energy. However, the long delays in building nuclear plants that meet the recent stringent requirements are lengthy. The long life of these plants also ensures that this is unlikely to remain a 'temporary' solution.

Possibly a major driver to stabilise and eventually reduce global warming will be the product of industry that will see profitable opportunities in the greening of the economy with the massive creation of jobs. The new US administration, for instance, is raising the possibility of creating a quarter of a million jobs just to close the oil and gas wells. In a catastrophic employment market, this is a significant number and  will be an important driver of a major reconversion of the economic apparatus and be pivotal in securing a reduction of the climatic upheaval we will be likely to suffer if no major actions are taken.

By Dr. Michael Akerib December 2020 ©