I will be researching and advocating on how we have progressed and increased the friendly climate economic system since the climate change crisis began. In the 21st century, we are making technological, sustainable infrastructure investment and increased resource productivity. These will result in efficient, livable cities, low carbon, protected forests, and most important sustainability. The plan for the future is to keep the temperature below 2 C growth per year. Since the shift to the 21st century and the dawn of climate change crisis, each year we have accelerated and transitioned to a better more inclusive climate-friendly economic system in energy, cities, food, land use, water, and industry.
Clean Energy System:
The first stage of this investigation is to look at how the efficiency of modern cities we are building and seeing the change. To see the change, I will be looking at energy usage in the cities. The article looks at the State of California, where they want to reach renewable energy mix to 33% by 2020. In addition, the California Public Utilities Commission is also cutting energy storage by about 1,325 MW every year. These will lead to less energy being used thus less will be stored to be used, which will be increasing each year. These changes can also be seen in Melbourne, Australia where they are improving energy and water efficiency through an “environmental upgrade charge.” In addition, the use of more efficient energy systems will tend to increase sustainable development in more countries leading to smarter urban development.
Energy Decreased by 2050 in tWh:
\[ 15315.03 \text{TWh} = 0.0160 \text{TWh} (1-0.00135 \text{tWh}) ^{33} \]
The energy from the graph above shows that in 2017, there were 16,000 TWh of energy used worldwide, but by 2050, it predicted that there will be 0.00135 TWh reduction in energy used. Therefore, by 2050, there will be roughly 15,000 tWh being used, decreasing by 1,000 tWh.
Smarter Urban Development:
To continue on investigating better urban sustainable planning, the report indicated about strategic infrastructure. This comes from the fact that using less energy means rewiring of existing cities and infrastructure to be more efficient. Specifically, the article looks at the expansion of public and non-motorized transport networks. Non-motorized transportation means relying on electric powered transport systems to reduce congestion and air pollution. This will add to the idea of electrifying cities thus decreasing carbon emissions by a significant amount. As a result, it will increase economic savings by about 17 trillion US dollars by 2050 and also saving 3.7 gigatons per year of CO2 emissions. Therefore, it will help to stimulate the growth of the economy by improving access to jobs, housing, and population booms in rural cities as everything will be more connected.
Sustainable Land Use:
With more compact and efficient cities, we can start to look at forms of agriculture that can start to give us better economic benefits and generate millions of jobs. The report says that “restoration of natural capital…our forests, degraded lands, and coastal zones will strengthen our defenses and boost adaptation to climate impact.” This comes from the news we all heard about this year with the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro approving the degradation of the amazon and exploiting its resources for big corporation. The amazon is part of the world’s largest ecosystem that produces more oxygen than anywhere in the world. Degradation of forests leading to hazards such as wildfires produce more carbon-dioxide and carbon-monoxide which is detrimental to the whole world.
Wise Water Management:
“Today, 2.1 billion live without readily available, safe water supplies at home, and 4.5 billion live without safely managed sanitation.” Water is seen as the important part of life, giving life to billions of individuals and also all the animals we see on this earth. Clean water is not something we need but all the organisms relying on clean waters in our oceans, lakes, and rivers to live a healthy life. Due to climate change, we have seen many regions in the world becoming scarce of water leading to a 6% reduction in their gross domestic product (GDP). This can lead to over-priced water available to buy and also decrease in systems that invest in clean water production. By 2050, the commission wants to increase investment into systems that develop clean water. In addition, many countries will need to start deploying improved technology which help to increase water-efficient crops and also invest in public infrastructure. By doing this, the economy and also the climate will benefit.
Circular Industrial Economy
Circular Industrial economy as defined online aims to redefine growth, focusing on positive society-wide benefits. In relation to climate change, is about extracting the maximum value from a product and regenerate products that could be used to the extent. It cuts down the waste of materials that could’ve been used somewhere, which will lead to decrease in carbonization. The report way that global extraction of materials from 1970 to 2010 grew from 22 to 70 billion tonnes. This contributes to the plastic seen in aquatic life, and also seen in our garbage. It also mentions that more than 95% of the plastic packaging material value at $120 million US dollars. If the economy was more circular, we could use all this material to be used again to their extent, leading to less loss of material and dollars. That money that was lost before could now be used to stimulate growth in better climate change and invest in systems to become more efficient and sustainable.
Transitioning to this low carbon growth:
To further understand carbon levels, I will be looking at changes in levels throughout the years, forest changes, and changes in food and land use. Specifically, in India where TESSOL has started to reduce losses in storage and crop protection. They want to reduce and be more sustainable when it comes to protecting the crops that are a year-round process to grow. The transition to low-carbon model could help to generate 65 million new jobs which could stimulate economic growth.
The article West Africa Climate Extreme and Climate Change Indices talks about and compares changes in climate change with low temperatures and how that has impacted climate change in the West Africa. The year 2017 was a devasting year due to series of extreme weather conditions leading to many complications all over the world. Many atmospheric scientific are trying to bring attention to climate caused by human activities. It talks about extreme change with temperature exceeding daily temperature. This period of extreme temperature increasing everywhere has led to global average surfaces temperatures becoming more variable than usual.
Conclusions were drawn from the studies using the temporal and spatial scales. “Temperature-based indices show a consistent pattern of warming trends across the region with warming being observed in all [western African countries] seasons.” There were increases in the frequency of warm days and warm nights but decreases in the cool days and nights. The precipitation across the region was not as consistent as the temperature but show similar patterns recently. There has been more prevalence in wetter conditions than dry season in western Africa. These contributed to heavy rain fall leading to destruction of agriculture and flooding areas of human habitat. By understanding the extreme conditions in West African countries, the countries can use the dataset to anticipate rainfall and plan accordingly. However, it is led to a conclusion that climate change is becoming a global variable not in just West Africa but all over the world.
In conclusion, the change we see all over the globe are impacting how our views on saving this planet change. However, due to the dramatic changes we have seen, all over the world we have seen accelerated and better climate-friendly policies in energy, environment-friendly cities, and more.
Figures:
Graph 1: CO2 level graphs
https://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/green/index.html