Hira Bahadur Thapa

Unlike biological pandemic like COVID-19, climate change does not peak. But it is more damaging. Once we deforest the Amazon or melt the Greenland Ice Sheet, it is gone. We will have no alternative left than to live with whatever extreme weather that is unleashed. This is a warning from the climate scientists.
Despite being a serious challenge to human existence, climate change can be limited. This is different from the current global health emergency. If we preserve and enhance the buffers that are available for us to prevent further harm to climate, we can achieve resilience.

Temperature rise
An important buffer we have in connection with climate change is the protection of forests. It is needless to say that forests play a vital role in preserving the ecosystems and species diversity. Another buffer is the reduction of carbon emissions that raise the global temperatures leading to climate change.
The recent studies reveal that Arctic Ocean warming has occurred due to rising temperatures. Ice is melting fast. The worst fear is that that the ocean may be ice-free in late summer within a decade or two. Some experts think that the loss of all ice in Arctic during the sunlit months would produce global radiative heating equivalent to adding one trillion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Historically, in the period of almost three centuries since the industrial revolution, 2.4 trillion tons of carbon dioxide has been added to the earth’s atmosphere. The reason behind is the loss of ice between the periods of 1979 and 2016.
The added quantity of carbon dioxide suggests that ice melting is taking place at a faster speed. The global temperature is more likely to go up quickly as remaining ice continues to be lost. This hastens the rise in temperature and the latter precipitates the former. Both of them are the consequence of climate change. Unless this extreme scenario is halted, it may drive climate change forward by a quarter of a century.
Permafrost that captures carbon dioxide for a long period of time is thawing. The release of carbon locked in it reinforces the ice melting process. Arctic warming abetted by permafrost thawing is occurring at least twice as fast as average global warming. Owing to this, the rate of Greenland Ice Sheet’s melting has tripled over the last two decades.
One estimate is that the world temperature would increase by five degrees Celsius by the end of this century. Should this happen, it is feared that Island states like Haiti, Cape Verde, and Fiji may face existential threat from sea level rise and extreme weather events.
Global warming doesn’t respect lines on a map. It will drive massive waves of displacement across national borders. The great climate migration will transform the world.
As climate crisis intensifies, social divisions will arise within communities and countries between those who can pay to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and those who cannot. This division between communities and countries leads to climate apartheid on a bigger scale.
Economic power, location and access to resources determine how communities respond to adverse consequences from climate change. But these factors are influenced by global injustices that prevail in the world. Slavery, colonialism, and imperialism enriched some countries at the expense of others. This scenario still exists in the field of climate change.
If we analyse the quantity of carbon emissions that resulted in global warming, we find that some countries are enjoying the fruits of industrialisation at the cost of others.
Undoubtedly, climate crisis is the consequence of the relentless pursuit of interests by multinational corporations and the powerful countries. There is a commonality of interests of fossil fuel companies, governments and private sector. They pursue to add to their benefit without any regard to environment.
Fossil fuel companies seek profit, governments seek energy at lesser cost, and private sectors look for financial security. These pursuits have contributed to the campaigns of climate denialism as seen in the clearing of Amazon forests by the Brazilian government. With such campaigns receiving a boost from some powerful countries, which are also bigger emitters of carbon, the international response to climate crisis becomes weak.
The international community needs to broadly redistribute funds across states to respond to inequalities in resilience capacity to mitigate climate change effectively and justly.
Climate change has already threatened humanity. Our focus should also be laid on taking measures that help us adapt to the existing situation. The climate scientists have focussed on curtailing the carbon emissions. This is necessary but simultaneously the governments should emphasise adaptation. Adaptation means forward-looking policies to protect people, infrastructure, ecosystems, and society.
Most of all, adaptation means thinking many years ahead to gather extensive resources and political will for often unpopular policies.

Emission reduction
Adaptation should have begun in earnest decades ago. Reducing emissions is being emphasised, adaptation to climate change is misguided. It is because no matter what happens to emissions over the next 30 years, the earth will become significantly hotter. Trapped heat that has been absorbed by the oceans over decades is bound to emerge warming the planet.
It is true that no amount of adaptation will be enough if emissions are not reduced because that will lead to warming beyond what we have experienced so far. But it is also true that no amount of emission reduction will be enough to protect our communities that lack adaptation.

(Thapa is a former foreign relations advisor to the Prime Minister from 2008 to 09). thapahira17@gmail.com)