Environment matters
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Mohammad Niaz
Global warming poses grave threats to human life, ecological integrity, and agro-ecosystems with profound cross-sectoral repercussions in modern times. The IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) second working group report of 2007 concludes that besides physical and biological systems, human-induced warming will affect the health and welfare of millions of people around the world. At the global level, energy consumption contributes about 70 per cent Green House Gases (GHG) to the present environmental scenario, thus adding emissions continuously to the atmosphere.
Warming will continue as long as the main factors contributing to climate change, such as burning of fossil fuels, industrial emissions and deforestation, are not checked. According to the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC 2007 the largest contributing sectors of GHG emissions are the energy-supply sector, the transport sector, the industry sector whose emissions have increased to about 145 per cent, 120 per cent, and 65 per cent respectively since 1970. The projected global average temperature by the year 2100 as estimated by the IPCC, will increase from 1 to 3.5 degrees Celsius (about 2 to 6 F), with a rise in sea level equivalent to 15 to 95 cm (about 6 to 37 inches). Sea-level rise would not only affect coastal areas but would also promote saltwater intrusion into freshwater habitats affecting severely associated flora and fauna due to change in their bio-physical and geographical requirements.
Changed climate would favour and facilitate some non-native plants in many parts of the world as a growing environmental concern on account of their adaptation that may pose a serious threat to the native ecosystems. Caused by global warming, ozone depletion would let more ultraviolet-B radiation that reach the Earth's surface and cause diseases.
Scientists believe that the rate of melting ice has accelerated many folds that currently causes sea levels go up by about 0.8 millimetres per year in wake of the observed increase in the global average temperature attributed very likely to man-made greenhouse gas emissions that trigger declining the glaciers and snow-cover, thus reducing the flow for irrigation. It has been recorded that the global mean surface temperature warmed by between 0.7 and 1.5ºF during the 20th century. The climatic changes would prove devastative for fragile areas, human health, energy, water regimes, dry land areas, agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Resource depletion would largely affect natural-resource-dependent communities. It is also estimated globally that there will be an increase in both intensity and frequency of fires posing serious threats to human lives and flora and fauna.
Developing countries would suffer at large. According to recent estimates, Pakistan occupies the 12th slot among vulnerable countries to be affected by the impact of climate change. At the regional level, anthropogenic emissions will have major impacts on climatic conditions in different regions. In South Asian region, the socio-ecological ramifications of climate change and global warming severely affect and threaten ecosystems and about one and half billion people.
Reports indicate that increasing global average temperature is a clear indication to promote glacial recession phenomenon as experienced through the last century. Their progressive shrinkage would largely affect water availability. Symbolically, the continuous meltdown of the snowfields and icecaps of the Himalayas, Hindu Kush, and Karakorum mountain ranges would exhaust their capacity to supply adequate water to the Indus Basin, thereby affecting the hydrology and ecology of the Upper Indus Basin with far-reaching socio-economic and ecological consequences. Not only ecological integrity would suffer but also millions of people dependent on it. It is time to seriously tackle issues pertaining to environmental degradation by preventing the continuous "anthropogenic interference with climate system." All nations, both developed and developing, should fulfil their responsibilities through effective coordination and regulatory framework processes to strike a balance between economic and developmental needs and maintain sanctity of the environment.
