climate change – uttamhindu.com

pakistani news The newspaper Dawn quoted British mountaineer Keaton Cool, who successfully climbed the world’s highest mountain peak Mount Everest for the 17th time, as saying that the snow on Mount Everest is melting and the giant mountain now seems to be drying up. Cool said in an interview ‘that a general trend of mountains is to be more rocky and less snow… but this varies from year to year. He said that he had never seen such rockslides on the Lhotse Face along the route leading to Everest’s summit. It shows how dry the mountain is now… I think it is due to lack of rain, lack of snowfall, he said. It could be global warming or any kind of environmental change.

Recently, there was news of the drying up of the lakes of the world. According to the study done by Science magazine, there has been a decrease in the water storage of 53 percent of the lakes globally. The climate crisis is becoming increasingly serious. This thing has once again been put in front of the whole world by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report ‘WMO Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update’. According to the study, one of the next five years will be the hottest year ever. Such changes will certainly lead to longer and more intense heatwaves. Risks such as drought, flood and unpredictable rains will also increase. Although the crisis is on the whole world, but it will have more impact on the Global South. India is in this. Surely it is time to take steps to reduce emissions and accelerate adaptation measures. Now a little mistake can lead to a big crisis. More than 60 percent of India’s population lives in rural areas. More than half of this population is engaged in agriculture. According to an analysis by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), 75 per cent of India’s districts are at high risk due to climate change. Record breaking heat has also been witnessed in India in the last few years.

Sunita Narayan, director general of the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), says the World Meteorological Organisation’s report ‘should act as a wake-up call’. We can no longer waste time inventing new excuses not to act, including empty promises of net zero emissions by 2050. Today the time has come for us to get serious and start meaningful action at the grassroots level. The good news is that there are technologies available to stop the current fossil fuel-driven industrial system. There is no need for us to wait for these technologies. Instead, we have to take decisive steps. The problem is that even today the action on the ground is too little and too late. In fact, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will rise as economies hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic doubly hard to get back to normal. Every country is desperate for recovery. This means that anything can be done with the existing economy. All that will be done to accelerate development as quickly as possible using coal, gas and oil. There is no doubt that a handful of countries are responsible for the majority of climate change.

The US and China together generate about half of the world’s annual emissions. If you add up emissions from 1870 to 2019, the US, EU-27, Russia, UK, Japan and China contribute 60 per cent of the global carbon dioxide budget. Consider this disparity, but also consider where action is needed. This is where we need to discuss India. India is currently the third largest annual polluter of CO2 in the world. India’s share of global CO2 emissions between 1870 and 2019 was about three per cent. China’s annual emissions are 10 gigatons and the US 5 gigatons. At the same time, India emits about 2.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually. But this does not mean that India should not act. In fact, it is in our best interest to take action to combat climate change. We are already seeing the worst impacts due to climate change on our people, from extreme rainfall, cloud bursts and floods to rising temperatures.’ In view of the above facts, concrete steps will have to be taken at both the society and government level to face the crisis due to climate change, if carelessness is shown in this matter then both our present and future will be in trouble.

– Irwin Khanna (Chief Editor, Dainik Uttam Hindu)