Climate change: There’s no room for complacency

Countries need to ramp up their investments in low-carbon technologies

Last week, the UN World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) said the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a new record last year with emissions showing no sign of slowing down, dashing hopes for a deceleration in emissions of CO2. Without rapid cuts in CO2 and other greenhouse gases, climate change will have increasingly destructive and irreversible impacts on life on Earth. The window of opportunity for action is almost closed,” WMO SecretaryGeneral, Petteri Taalas, said. This report must be read along with the one released by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October. Climate scientists warned in that report that there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty.

If the world wants to slow down the onward march of climate change, it needs to invest in low-carbon technologies like wind, solar, and electric transport, and such products need to be in the mainstream. And that’s not happening at a pace that is required across the world. Take for example, India. In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a target of generating 175 GW of power from renewable sources by 2022. Out of this, 100 GW is slated to come from solar energy. But in the third quarter of 2018, the country added 1,697 megawatts (MW) of solar power capacity, according to Bridge to India (published in Quartz). “Our revised best-case estimate for solar capacity by March 2022 is 67 GW, well short of the 100 GW target unless decisive remedial steps are taken immediately,” Bridge to India said.

At a time when reports show the problem is going out of hand, policies need to be shored up to ensure that no country misses out on their renewable commitments. It could prove expensive not just for the country, but the world at large.