“We have a single mission: to protect and hand on the planet to the next generation.”
– Francois Hollande (President of France)
How much carbon dioxide do you transmit into the atmosphere? Anytime you do something that needs fossil fuels – like driving a car, flying in an aeroplane, buying something, eating something, or even just watching TV – you radiate carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Our carbon dioxide emissions are an amount of the sum of emissions on Earth. All of the cars and trucks that we drive, the parcels shipped, the products fabricated, the emissions from the meals we eat, the air-conditioned buildings – it all counts up.
What is a carbon footprint?
A carbon footprint is the whole sum of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and methane) induced by our motions.
The average carbon footprint for an individual in Malaysia is 7.98 tons. Globally, the average carbon emission is closer to 6 tons. To deliver the best chance of avoiding a 2℃ rise in global temperatures, the average global carbon footprint annually must drop under 2 tons by 2050.
Lowering individual carbon footprints from 16 tons to 2 tons doesn’t occur overnight! We can start creating a big difference by making minor modifications to our actions, like eating less meat, taking more occasional connecting flights, and line drying our clothes.
The actual cost of carbon pollution
The ‘social cost’ or shadow price is a critical indicator of the global incremental harm of emitting greenhouse gases today. Cost-benefit research would set the optimal amount of greenhouse-gas-emission reduction at the point where this social cost equals the total charge of overseeing emissions. The more increase in the value for the social cost of carbon, the more control is affirmed. Many acknowledge this is not the case because of the very long-term, irreversible, and potentially catastrophic nature. But, in the short run, a comparison of cost and benefits is needed, and, in any event, all decisions imply expenses and benefits. This comparison assumes that cost-benefit analysis is the correct way of defining climate-change policy. But what is the ‘right’ constitution for the social cost of carbon?
These effects can cost corporations, households, countries and taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars through inflation of healthcare costs, the devastation of property, raised food prices, and more.
The social cost of carbon estimates the economic damage from those impacts defined as the dollar value of the actual harms from carbon price per ton of CO2 into the environment. The current primary estimate of the social price of carbon is above $50 per ton in today’s dollars. While this is the most influential and conceivable figure available, it does not contain all the widely acknowledged and accepted scientific and economic impacts of climate change.
A Race We Can win
Climate change is the explicative crisis of our time, and it is occurring even more quickly than we feared. But we are far from helpless in the face of this global threat. Secretary-General António Guterres said, “the climate emergency is a race we are losing, but it is a race we can win”.
The transportation sector is one of the most significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas. The catastrophic result of radiation on the environment. Quantitative estimation of the carbon footprint of transportation is required to advance research and policy discussions on building carbon emission sustainability and reducing architectural planning.
The last decade was the hottest on record. According to World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report, we are at least one degree Celsius above preindustrial levels and relative to what scientists warn would be “an unacceptable risk”.
Ice sheets and glaciers in polar and mountain areas are melting faster than ever, causing sea levels to climb. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s cities with populations of over five million are located in areas at risk of sea-level rise, and almost 40 per cent of the world’s population live within 100 km of a coast. If no step is taken, entire districts of Shanghai, New York, Abu Dhabi, Rio de Janeiro, Osaka, and many other cities could find themselves underwater within our lifetimes, superseding millions of people.
Global warming impacts everyone’s sustenance and water security. Climate change is a specific cause of soil degradation, restricting the amount of carbon the earth can contain. Some 500 million people today reside in areas affected by erosion.
Conclusion
COVID-19 has proven that prompt and revolutionary changes to legislation, organisations and ways of living are achievable in the face of a crisis- in this case, to reduce carbon footprint. The menace of climate change warrants such a reaction, and central to this will be ensuring that cities’ recovery from the pandemic does not embed our problematic relationship with consumption. The COVID-19 recovery should be about climate recovery too.