29 GEOPOLITICAL ISSUES RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE & CLIMATE VARIABILITY

Peerzada Raouf Ahmad

Learning Objectives

– UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE VARIABILITY & CHANGE

    – GEO-POLITICO ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

– GEO-POLITICAL SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

LEARNING OUTCOME

. Discuss the difference between climate change and variability

. Understand the geopolitics in climate change

. Look forward for a geopolitical solution to climate change

KEYWORDS

climate variability, climate change, La Niña, greenhouse effect.

UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE VARIABILITY & CHANGE

FIGURE-1 (Difference between climate change and variability)

To differentiate between climate and weather one need to look into the time frame for operation. The lengthier arrow in figure1 refers to the time frame in terms of hour, days, months, years, decades and centuries. It is illustrated here that climate refers to decades and centuries while weather is in reference to hour, days, months and years. Examples of climate and weather are tropical cyclone that refers to climate and weather is the rain at a particular time. Climate variability is the result of El-Niño or southern oscillations but climate change is the result of geographical location based on certain geographical parameters such as atmospheric pressure and human activities.

Climate variability is caused by three main large-scale features:

1. Southern Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ)
2. Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)
3. Western Pacific Monsoon (WPM)

    The South Pacific Convergence Zone is the zone that accounts for heavy rainfall that extends from Solomon Islands to east of the Cook Islands. In the winter season of southern hemisphere, it becomes more intensified and is strongest. ITCZ (The Intertropical Convergence Zone) pass through the Pacific moving from just north of the equator, it intensifies in the wet season of the Northern Hemisphere. The large difference of temperature between the land mass and the ocean body creates the west pacific monsoons. It shifts northward to Indian subcontinent during the summer of northern hemisphere and to south during the summer of southern hemisphere. The coming up of monsoons bring a shift from hot dry to cold wet weather.

The monsoonal features which is affected by the southern oscillation have a considerable effect on the various climatic determinant factors. This brings a change in cyclonic condition and precipitation pattern. The summer wet season of southern hemisphere brings heavy monsoonal rain to the region of south pacific convergence zone. Also, high rainfall can be seen in the inter tropical convergent zone.

Climate variability is the term used to describe the short-term changes in climatic conditions that take place over months, seasons and years. The different phases of ENSO can cause droughts and floods. Every El Niño and La Niña events are different and so they have different climatic impacts. El Niño and La Niña events drive changes in circulation, winds, rainfall and ocean surface temperatures.

FIGURE-2(htt25)

The trade winds (white arrows) blow to the west and cause a buildup of warm surface water (orange-red areas) and higher sea level in the West Pacific. The warm water heats the air above it, making the moist air rise and forming clouds (this is called convection). This warmer air then moves east to where the air is cooler, the cooler air sinks towards the surface and moves west, creating a convective circulation.

Under La Niña conditions, ocean temperatures across the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are cooler than normal (blue and green areas) and the easterly trade winds are stronger than normal across the Pacific Ocean. La Niña usually brings wetter than normal conditions to countries like Australia, Niue and Tonga because rainfall moves farther to the south-west than under normal conditions.

El Niño brings extensive warming of the central and eastern Pacific and weaker than normal (easterly) trade winds leading to a major shift in weather patterns across the Pacific. Typical El Niño conditions in the northern hemisphere winter result in the western Pacific experiencingvery dry conditions and the central Pacific around the equator experiencing wetter conditions. The 1997 El Niño brought drought to countries like Papua New Guinea.

Causes of climate change

FIGURE-3

The earth has seen changes in its climatic conditions over the years due to many natural as well as anthropological reasons. These include:

–  Earth’s orbital change that occurs naturally over thousands of years

–  change in sun`s composition can affect the incoming solar radiation

– eruption of ashes during volcanic activities can lead to development of ashes on the outer layer of atmosphere which may reflect back the incoming radiation and thereby reducing the temperature of earth

–  changes in the atmospheric condition caused by natural means.

The role of ‘greenhouse gases’

The greenhouse effect makes the earth inhabitable place. Without the greenhouse effect, the average temperature at the earth’s surface would be below the freezing point of water. As shown in Figure 10, some of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb the outgoing solar radiation and reflect it back to earth keeping Earth’s temperatures much as we know them now. The greenhouse gases in the atmosphere resembles the walls of a greenhouse, keeping the heat in. These greenhouse gases include: water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide and some industrial gases such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Water vapor and carbon dioxide are the most important greenhouse gases.

 FIGURE-4(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  2007)

Adding more of a greenhouse gas, such as CO2, to the atmosphere intensifies the greenhouse effect, thus warming Earth’s climate. The amount of temperature rises through greenhouse gases depend on both the internal and external mechanism.

GEO-POLITICO ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Since the earliest time of its origin humans have been interacting with the nature through the tools of productions which have seen changes but the relationship based on dialectics is still intact between human and nature. through the development of fire human gained their status has an independent being in a position to counter the environmentally vulnerable conditions.it was only after the rise of capitalisms and the growth of industries, creation of human needs and the commodification of use values culminated into indiscriminate cutting of tress and destabilizing the carbon content in atmosphere. As a result, the concentration of carbon dioxide increased dramatically the ability of the earth to act as natural sink for carbon dioxide was lost due to capitalist thrust toward commodification.

In order to get through the structures that creates rift in carbon metabolism one has look for the agents that emits carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is now well settled that human “by interference with the natural flow of energy through changes in atmospheric compositions…global changes in atmospheric composition occur from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide that results from the burning of fossil fuel and methane and nitrous oxide from multiple human activities”(SKAGGS n.d.), to make it worse, “we have driven the earth system from the tightly bounded domain of glacial-inter-glacial dynamics,” the one which has been the identity of earth for more than 400000 years (Redlener n.d.). Arrhenius found that the problem of climate change lays in the growth of industrial set-up and he noted that more the industrial development more would be the rise of temperature. But it is only now that we have data which states that the quantity of carbon dioxide “has increased 31% since pre-industrial times” and that “half of the increase has been since 1965”(TRENBERTH n.d.).

Geopolitics in climate change

The rise of terrorism and civil unrest in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia is attributed to a toxic brew of historical conflicts, cultural and religious tensions and a myriad of complex factors are important drivers of deadly conflict within and across many borders. And then, in 2011, the simultaneous uprisings for political change throughout the Middle East, referred to as the Arab Spring, was thought to be provoked, at least in part, by large-scale population movements due to drought and other climate related conditions. Nations need arable land and clean water to sustain peaceful growth, long-term stability and domestic security.

Forced migration and the increasing decline in the productivity due to the climate change and the failure of the state apparatus to provide better means to address such grievances have led to the growth of distrust among the people for the government across the globe. People are increasingly getting radicalized in the name of religion or caste. The helplessness of government (to protect the peoples` right over resources) in its confrontation with the imperial capital have fueled the growth of left extremism.

Two reports issued by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) released in 2007 and in 2014 focused on the national security implications of climate change. The CNA’s military advisory board, consisting of numerous military leaders with decades of experience as risk managers and geopolitical security experts warned that “climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national security challenges for the United States”.

The second report expressed a particular concern about the continued lack of sufficient actions by the United States and the international community to adapt to projected climate change despite the growing body of scientific evidence regarding its likely causes and consequences. There is no exaggeration to say that the rising level of terrorism has its link to the question of climate change. Syria’s recent history of extreme civil unrest is a good example of the dynamics involved.

The first sign of civil unrest in Syria manifest in the period when the whole of country was affected by drought. From 2005 to 2010, Syria experienced its most severe drought on instrumental record. Scientific models have concluded that the anthropological factors have been responsible for the climate change at such a level which has caused severe draught or floods in different regions. And droughts of this scale inevitably lead to forced population migration and national anxieties about economic and social stability. These anxieties have the capability to cause civil unrest within the state and it also provides a chance to the enemy state to attack the resource rich land of nation, thus looking even from a neo-liberal frame the climate change issues have to be resolved as soon as possible. The crises in middle east and the political turmoil in that region should serve as a warning for the effect which climate change might have on the political economy of a region. The average increase in global temperature on Earth has roughly been 1.53°F from 1880 to 2012 but is projected to increase by at least 2.7°F by 2100 for all scenarios except one representing the most extreme mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. The rising temperatures melts the snow which besides causing floods destroys the habitant of various coastal species. Further failing to consider the link between climate change and the growth of radicalism and extremism would lead to undermining the impact of climate change on the global political space (Redlener n.d.).

The Economics of Climate Change

David Harvey in his book capitalism and its seventeen contradiction points that there is a clear contradiction between the process of capital accumulation and the environmental limit to such accumulation. The capitalists’ economies try to locate the problem of climate change within the structure that had led to it. The present mode of production and the environment is really on compactible with each other. Spending on the process to reduce the climate change and its impact would prove to be a futile exercise if the fundamental question concerning such issues are not addressed. Scientists have estimated that the worst impact of climate change can be reduced if the carbon level in the atmosphere remains between 450ppm to 500ppm. The present level is 430ppm of CO2and it is on rise at the rate of 2ppm per year. Stabilization in the rate would require reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gas up to 80% by 2020. Ultimately, stabilization – at whatever level – requires that annual emissions be brought down to more than 80% below current levels. Estimates say that the cost for achieving the stabilization would be about 1% of annual global GDP (STERN 2007). Costs would decrease further if the states in an efficient way attempts reduce air pollution level by halting industrial expansion at the cost of air and water. Cost would accelerate if there is less spending on the ways to control the carbon emission but the contradictions of such spending within the broader matrix of imperialist political economy would mean a postdated cheque for carbon reduction. The world has been witnessing the shifting of burden to the third world countries to compact climate change, thus they have to pay for what they have never consumed. Rich countries are developing corporations and are setting markets for them in the poor countries through the way of fear creation among the third world about the climate change and its impact on them. This fear has created an absolute space for the sale of climate change remedies in the third world countries. This also acts as a blanket cover for the imperial capital exploitative means of resource extraction.

GEO-POLITICAL SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

David Biello(BIELLO n.d.) provides six major solutions to global warming that are advancing in an unprecedent pace:

1. Clean Power Plants: –there has been an increasing shift toward the use of solar energy for generation of energy not just in underdeveloped or developing countries but also to a certain extent in the developed countries. The colleges in India are not being powered by solar cells. Besides the growing installation of solar panel on peoples` roof top. Such solar panel in America generates 2GW of electricity. While the natural gas is replacing the old form cocking through coal. Shale revolution have proved to be boon to compact climate change it has reduced to emissions to a considerable extent, at the same time it has led to growth in economy of the nation. Chinese sees nuclear power as the best available alternative to substitute the exhaustible energy sources, besides they also have an eye on the hydel and wind power.

2. Local Actions—Local actions by various interest group proves to be highly valuable in the effort to stop climate change than that of the institutionalized central efforts. Like that in US north eastern state at the regional level people participated in the campaign to stop climate change by looking for alternate source of energy. They also planned practices which would help in efficient utilization of energy resources. The program was highly successful and the US government planned to reduce the carbon cap by 45% in the coming years. The central governments should provide more power for resource control to this semi state or non-state actors, this would provide means for better efficient way to compact climate change.

3. Control of Methane Leakages —Methane is the gas which is more potent to act as a greenhouse gas to facilitate depletion of ozone layer than co2. Thus, any sort of leakage in the supply of gases would means disastrous to climate. The need is therefore for regular maintenance of pipelines through various regulations. Methane currently accounts for about 9% of global greenhouse gas emission which would rise on account of increasing gas pipeline connectivity across the globe. An action to reduce methane emission would prove to be more beneficial to stop climate change than the attempt to restrict the emission of co2.

4. Tougher Emissions and Efficient Standards—Car manufacturing techniques are being renewed which have been more environment friendly and reduces pollution level to considerable degree such manufacturing units are based especially in US and China. When the world heeds toward 2 billion vehicles the focus on less emission of carbon in the atmosphere will have to be established through hybrid or efficient combustible engines. Electric cars are the way toward the reduction of gases in the atmosphere. These cars run not from the burning of fossils fuel but rather works on electricity which can be provided by wind or solar power. Besides this the regulations on the use of non-renewable energy sources have to be stricter so that carbon emission is reduced to extent sufficient to make the earth a place fit for survival.

5. Greener Farming—US department of agriculture helps the farmers to compact the global warming phenomenon by providing environment friendly fertilizers and similar chemicals. The regional climatic hubs have been formed that provides technical support to compact the climate change process. Wetland preservations have also been done to stop erosion and flood. The forest reserves of different states are now being managed with a goal to preserve the carbon dioxide content. Farmers have been adopting different methods to adopt and resist the change in climate they have started using the bio fertilizers and green manure to increase the productivity. Through different techniques they have now being reducing the greenhouse gas emission to certain extent. Farmers across the globe are even using energy crops for bio-fuels.

6. New Kinds of Geopolitical Consensus—the most polluting countries namely US and China signed agreement to solve the problem of climate change. The agreement provides that China will put a tap on use of its exhaustible resources and would use wind or solar energy to facilitate its economy. The plan by China was to get 20% of its energy from the wind energy or from the solar energy. But the US agreed to reduce the pollution generation from 1 to 2%. Besides the European union countries have also pledged to reduce carbon emission to considerable degree.

Developing countries are looking forward to renewable source of energy in order to secure their economical interest. This has also been due to the imperial focus on extraction of exhaustible source of energy while they spend a large amount of money on encouraging the market expansion in the non-exhaustible energy resources. As a result, Kenya has become the hotspot for the geothermal energy and India is heading toward a solar powered country while the imperial regime of US is busy extracting the exhaustible resources from these third world nations. A survey conducted by Bloomberg found that the developing countries have been producing 55% more renewable energy than that of the developed nations. “If you’re burning diesel to light your home, that isn’t great,” as said by Bloomberg’s Zindler. “You can now displace that with PV,” which has been due to the creation of market space within the structure for sustainable environment.

SUMMARY: –

• – difference between climate change and variability is the result of difference in time reference

• – Nations need arable land and clean water to sustain peaceful growth, long-term stability and domestic security.

• – shale revolution has helped US reduce its carbon emission to a considerab

References

• http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/nino-home.htm.
• AL, FALKOWSKI ET. n.d. THE GLOBAL CARBON CYCLE.
• BIELLO, DAVID. n.d. “7 Solutions to Climate Change Happening Now.” SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. Fourth Assessment Report, 2007.
• Redlener, Irwin. n.d. “Climate Change and Geopolitics: What’s Really at Stake.” HuffPost .
• SKAGGS. n.d. THE GREAT GUANO RUSH.
• STERN, NICHOLAS. 2007. THE ECONOMICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: THE STERN REVIEW. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
• TRENBERTH, KARL AND. n.d. MODERN GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE.