Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Provided the growth of GHG emissions remains constant, the average surface
temperature of the Earth will increase and new weather records will be recorded at
ever-shorter frequencies, as has been the case for the last thirty years. A range of knock-on
effects is expected. The ice caps will continue to melt, resulting in a rise in world sea
levels of more than 50 centimetres before the end of the twenty-first century. This could
submerge many coastal cities, such as Venice, New York, Athens, and Tokyo. The oceans
will become more acidic, which will have major impacts on marine life, and on land many
plants and animals will become extinct. Because of the increased temperatures, deserts will
expand, and freshwater - for drinking and irrigation - will become scarcer. As a result,
there will be less land available for agriculture, and therefore less food produced (IPCC
Climate change sceptics often insist that there is nothing unnatural about global
warming, since it happened before. This is true. Lee Kump of Pennsylvania State
University recently confirmed that the current period of global warming is not the first
in the Earth's 4.5-billion-year history. Thermal peaks occurred 100 and 55 million years
ago, most likely a result of GHG emissions from volcanic eruptions. The most important
difference between these and the current phase of global warming is the speed. The first
occurred over tens of millennia, giving life-forms time to evolve and adapt to the new
conditions, whereas modern warming is happening over a period of just a few centuries, far
While the nations of the world can largely agree that climate change is a major threat
to humanity, there is considerable disagreement on the best way to deal with it. While
the wealthier industrialised countries are thinking (and so far doing little more than that)
about lowering GHG emissions, the energy-hungry economies of the 'developing world'
are inclined to regard emissions reduction as a luxury they cannot yet afford. Viewed
from Europe and North America, China's embrace of coal may seem irresponsible, but
its economists can convincingly argue that its primary responsibility is to raise the living
standards of its people, and this is only possible with a huge increase in power production.
China recently overtook the United States as the world's largest emitter of GHGs, yet its
per capita emissions are still far lower. China also only began industrialising in the late
twentieth century, so its historic carbon footprint is still far smaller than that of Western
economies. Zhang Guobao, director of China's National Energy Administration, argues
that the pressure the international community places on his country is unfair, since China,
like other developing nations, is only following in the footsteps of the rich West (Biello
Climate change presents the community of nations, itself a recent concept, with its
greatest challenge yet. Global warming, which recognises no borders and does not
