The Earth is warming up, and humans are at least partially to blame.
The world’s climate has already changed measurably in response to accumulating greenhouse
gas emissions.
These changes as well as projected future disruptions have prompted intense research
into the nature of the problem and potential policy solutions.
Global warming has remained one of the most concerning topics over the past two decades.
And We can safely say that,
Global warming isn’t a prediction, It’s happening!
A long-term heating of Earth’s climate system has been observed since the pre-industrial
period between 1850 and 1900, due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning,
which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the global annual temperature has increased in total
by a little more than 1 degree Celsius, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit.
Between 1880 (the year that accurate record keeping began) and 1980, it rose on average
by 0.07 degrees Celsius (0.13 degrees Fahrenheit) every 10 years.
Since 1981, however, the rate of increase has more than doubled: For the last 40 years,
we’ve seen the global annual temperature rise by 0.18 degrees Celsius, or 0.32 degrees
Fahrenheit, per decade.
What’s The result?
A planet that has never been hotter.
Nine of the 10 warmest years since 1880 have occurred since 2005—and the 5 warmest years
on record have all occurred since 2015.
In 2018, The Fourth National Climate Assessment, warned that if we do not impede on greenhouse
gas emissions and start to adapt, climate change could seriously disrupt the U.S. economy.
Warmer temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather will damage property and critical
infrastructure, impact human health and productivity, and negatively affect sectors such as agriculture,
forestry, fisheries and tourism.
The demand for energy will increase as power generation becomes less reliable, and water
supplies will be stressed.
Another report examined how climate change could affect 22 different sectors of the economy
under two different scenarios: if global temperatures rose 2.8˚ C from pre-industrial levels by
2100, and if they increased by 4.5˚ C. The study said that if the higher-temperature
scenario prevails, climate change impacts on these 22 sectors could cost the U.S. $520
billion each year.
If we can keep to 2.8˚ C, it would cost $224 billion less.
In any case, the U.S. stands to suffer large economic losses due to climate change, second
only to India, according to another study.
Despite worldwide policy efforts, the emission of greenhouse gases remains a negative externality.
So, in this video, we will further explore how global warming is likely to impact global
economics.
AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY: In the long list of potential problems from
global warming, the risks to world agriculture stand out as among the most important.
It has been widely recognized that developing countries in general stand to lose more from
the effects of global warming on agriculture than industrial countries.
Most developing countries have less capacity to adapt than their wealthier neighbours.
Most are in warmer parts of the globe, where temperatures are already close to or beyond
thresholds at which further warming will reduce rather than increase agricultural output.
In Countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam, rising sea levels pose a different threat
to food security.
As the saltwater is more likely to flood coastal farmlands, it is also more likely to kill
off rice crops.
Half of Vietnam’s national rice production is centered on the Mekong Delta region, which
means that a flood in this region (roughly the size of Maryland) could impact both the
country’s food security and economy.
DECREASES FOOD NUTRITIONAL VALUE: Global warming can adversely affect the nutritional
value of food that is grown.
Studies show that higher carbon dioxide concentrations reduce the protein, zinc, and iron content
of crops.
By 2050, an estimated additional 175 million people could have zinc deficiencies (which
can, among other things, make them more susceptible to illnesses) and an additional 122 million
people could be protein deficient.
Communities relying largely on plant harvests for their nutrition will, again, feel this
most acutely.
INCREASES FOOD WASTE: Rain doesn’t guarantee healthy crops, either.
Higher rainfalls or flooding can produce toxic mold on crops.
Crops grown in high-drought areas that are then moved into humid storage facilities are
vulnerable to fungal infections or pests.
The more climate changes and the more that extreme climate events become commonplace,
the more food we lose on an annual basis.
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, roughly one-third of the food
produced by farmers is lost between the field and the market in low- and middle-income countries.
In high-income countries, a similar amount is wasted between the market and the table.
Currently, the food system contributes 21–37% of greenhouse gases, meaning that these food
losses add to the climate crisis but do nothing for food security or malnutrition levels.
SEA LEVEL RISE AND COASTAL GROWTH IMPACT: Climate change is likely to accelerate the
historical rise in sea level through warming of oceans and melting of ice, which in turn
will affect coastal development, wetland resources, and recreation along the coast.
Low-lying developed areas in the Gulf Coast, the South, and the mid-Atlantic regions are
especially at risk from sea-level rise.The rapid growth of coastal areas in the last
few decades has resulted in larger populations and more valuable coastal property being at
risk from sea-level rise.
This growth, which is expected to continue, brings with it a greater likelihood of increased
property damage in coastal areas.
DROUGHT: Global warming increases the odds of worsening
drought in many parts of the United States and the world.
Regions such as the U.S. Southwest, where droughts are expected to get more frequent,
intense, and longer lasting, are at particular risk.
But question arises; How global warming contributes to drought:
▪ Warmer temperatures enhance evaporation, which reduces surface water and dries out
soils and vegetation.
This makes periods with low precipitation drier than they would be in cooler conditions.
Ultimately it can lower river water level, affect livestock and crops, and can raise
concerns about the reliability of electricity production from plants that require cooling
water to maintain safe operations.
In 2015, scientists concluded that a lengthy drought in California—the state’s worst
water shortage in 1,200 years—had been intensified by 15 to 20 percent by global warming.
They also said the odds of similar droughts happening in the future had roughly doubled
over the past century.
And in 2016, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine announced that we
can now confidently attribute some extreme weather events, like heat waves, droughts,
and heavy precipitation, directly to climate change.
MARKET FAILURE: Conventional economists acknowledge that emissions
of greenhouse gases and pollutants are an inevitable by-product of growth — given
the technologies at their disposal, firms will pollute as they increase their production
of goods and services.
In determining how much to produce, firms weigh their private benefits against their
private costs.
They ignore the social costs of their production, they do not factor in the cost of polluting
the environment.
If firms operate without internalising the costs of pollution, they will produce socially
inefficient levels of goods and services.
If unpriced emission of greenhouse gases imposes real costs on future generations, both present
and future generations can enjoy a higher consumption of economic goods and services
through the correction of this unpriced externality, so there is no real economic opportunity cost
to mitigate global warming.
Though everyone is affected by climate change, not everyone is affected equally, . Indigenous
people, people of colour, and the economically marginalized are typically hit the hardest.
Inequities built into our housing, health care, and labour systems make these communities
more vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change—even though these same communities
have done the least to contribute to it.
IS GLOBAL WARMING A CRISIS?
The earth’s ocean temperatures are getting warmer, too—which means that tropical storms
can pick up more energy.
In other words, global warming can turn a category 3 storm into a more dangerous category
4 storm.
In fact, scientists have found that the frequency of North Atlantic hurricanes has increased
since the early 1980s, as has the number of storms that reach categories 4 and 5.
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season included a record-breaking 30 tropical storms, 6 major
hurricanes, and 13 hurricanes altogether.
With increased intensity comes increased damage and death.
The United States saw an unprecedented 22 weather and climate disasters that caused
at least a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 2020, but 2017 was the costliest on record
and among the deadliest as well: Taken together, that year's tropical storms including Hurricanes
Harvey, Irma, and Maria caused nearly $300 billion in damage and led to more than 3,300
fatalities.
Now climate scientists have concluded that we must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees
Celsius by 2040 if we are to avoid a future in which everyday life around the world is
marked by its worst, most devastating effects: the extreme droughts, wildfires, floods, tropical
storms, and other disasters that we refer to collectively as climate change.
The impacts of global warming are being felt everywhere.
Extreme heat waves have caused tens of thousands of deaths around the world in recent years.
And in an alarming sign of events to come, Antarctica has lost nearly four trillion metric
tons of ice since the 1990s.
The rate of loss could speed up if we keep burning fossil fuels at our current pace,
some experts say, causing sea levels to rise several meters in the next 50 to 150 years
and wreaking havoc on coastal communities worldwide.
Each year scientists learn more about the consequences of global warming, and each year
we also gain new evidence of its devastating impact on people and the planet.
As the heat waves, droughts, and floods associated with climate change become more frequent and
more intense, communities suffer, and death tolls rise.
If we’re unable to reduce our emissions, scientists believe that climate change could
lead to the deaths of more than 250,000 people around the globe every year and force 100
million people into poverty by 2030.
Sadly, this is not a trend that appears to be going away any time soon.
If global warming is a real economic problem, there is no economic cost to correct it.
In principle, the costs of reducing emissions in the current generation can be shifted to
the future generations who will benefit from a cooler planet by reducing conventional investment.
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