The Changes Needed for Climate Change - SDG 13

"People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!"
When Greta Thunberg delivered her speech at the UN Climate Action Summit, the whole world was left astounded. The call for prompt action against climate change reverberated among the political leaders as well as various activists working to prevent climate change. Climate change is affecting almost every country across the world. It's high time that every nation starts taking action against climate change.
Climate refers to a general description of long-term weather conditions of a geographical area such as temperature, rainfall, humidity etc. The global climate has gone through many cyclical disruptive changes during millions of years. But, scientists now believe that in the 20th century, these changes became faster than what can be explained by natural climatic variabilities. With the progression of time, the evidence became widespread and more frequent, scientists coined the term "Climate Change" to differentiate such trends from natural climatic variations. Scientists have claimed that these changes are occurring due to an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases allow the high-frequency radiation of the sun to pass through but trap the low frequency reflected radiation from Earth's surface. Greenhouse gases exist naturally, but since the first industrial revolution, industrial emissions increased drastically and as a result, there is now over a third more CO2 in our atmosphere than there was before the industrial revolution. 76% of the entire volume of greenhouse gases emitted is carbon dioxide; hence it is the highest volume among the greenhouse gasses present in the atmosphere.
India and Climate Action
The climatic changes are affecting lives, costing people, communities and countries today and will do so even more tomorrow. Sea levels are rising, weather patterns are changing, weather events are becoming more and more extreme and the greenhouse gas emissions are at their highest levels ever seen in history. Without prompt corrective action, the world's average surface temperature is going to surpass 3 degrees centigrade this century. It is predicted that this temperature change is going to make India's monsoon more unpredictable. Indian economy is agrarian, 60% of India's agriculture being rain-fed.15% of India's groundwater resources have depleted due to climate change, and falling water table is suspected to hamper progress of agriculture. Further, rising carbon dioxide levels due to global warming is suspected to shrink down the amount of nutrients for crops like rice and wheat, which are the primary food source for the majority of the population leaving people at risk of malnutrition, poor immunity and increasing the risk of diseases affecting the population severely. Apart from the monsoons, heat waves are another feature of climate change. Heatwaves claimed 3,500 lives in South Asia in 2015. According to a research by MIT in the US, heatwave that can kill even healthy people within hours is suspected to reach India soon.
Innovative solutions which are affordable and scalable are needed to become cleaner, more resilient economies. Moving to renewable sources of energy will help in reducing emissions. Climate change is an internal challenge that does not respect national borders. It needs to be tackled at an international level to help developing countries adopt a low-carbon economy.
Paris Agreement was adopted by countries at the COP21 in Paris to strengthen their stance against climate change, which went into force in November of 2016. In it, all countries agreed to work to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees centigrade. As of April 2018, as many as 175 parties had ratified the Paris Agreement.

The impact of climate change in numbers

Business Implications and Responses
Mankind's action has led to a situation where the planet's systems are being pushed to unsafe territories. It will be challenging to continue towards development without damaging the environment because, at some point, the Earth will not be able to bear the load of human-made changes due to business activities. Certain studies indicate that this time has already passed, and we have degraded nature to the extent that the planet's natural systems may not be able to recover from it.
Critical areas of concern include biodiversity loss and changes in nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. Climate changes have become critical, and all planetary systems are continuing to move to a dangerous condition. Thus, the management of these systems, such that they support human life by remaining intact, is the basis of the need for Sustainable Development. Business operations are critical in this context because it is through businesses that the majority of products and services are provided, and they are the ones affecting the climate the most. Thus, it becomes imperative for businesses to contribute to a sustainable future because they cannot thrive on a planet that is moving towards failure.
Thus, as the world is getting more and more conscious about climate change, the onus is on businesses to either adapt or face the public backlash. Not only that, the regulations are now under constant scrutiny, and therefore it is in their interest to be proactive and avoid regulatory as well as economic damages. However, the adaptation strategy requires long term investment as well as planning from the businesses.
In order to reduce carbon emission, businesses have to make infrastructural as well as technological changes with more emphasis on R&D in some industries like manufacturing, shipping, aviation, transport, etc. The rising awareness pushed the corporates to look for clean technologies. Adopting cleaner technologies might also open up opportunities for businesses as infrastructural investments could lead to the creation of economies of scale, resulting in the reduction of long-term costs. In addition to this, the resulting disruption could propel proactive firms to a position of advantage from where they can capture a more significant market share in the face of policy changes. The firms can also use these cleaner technologies to attract environmentally aware consumers and employees. The investors also understand this, and therefore they might prefer a low carbon project to invest.
Following are some of the responses of companies that have adopted changes to be environment-friendly:

• Johnson & Johnson signed New Plastic Economic Global Commitment. Under this commitment, J&J aims to use more recycled material for packaging, reduce reliance on the single-use model, and ensure that 100% of the plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable, and compostable by the year 2025.
• Johnson & Johnson also partnered with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group to help fund programs that will lead to better air quality and human health. J&J aims to deliver over 14000 climate actions over the next four years.
• The Aditya Birla Group aims to enhance environmental awareness through participation and consultation with employees and contractors by training and effective channels of communication.
• The Aditya Birla Group also Influences their contractors and suppliers to adopt the Aditya Birla Group environmental policies, principles, and practices and encourage appropriate environmental management across the supply and value chain.
• Diageo improved its water efficiency by 43.8% against its 2007 baseline. Diageo also recorded a 36% reduction in waste water polluting power.
• Diageo improved recyclability of the packaging by 98.7% since 2009. They aim to make 1005 of their packaging reusable or recyclable.
• GSK started using enzymes in the manufacturing of amoxicillin (one of the world's most widely prescribed antibiotics), a process that significantly cuts carbon emission and reduces waste.

Analysis
According to a report by National Resources Defence Council, the cost of just four impacts of global warming – hurricane, real estate losses, energy and water costs would cost $1.9 Trillion after accounting for inflation. There is substantial evidence that the increase in global temperatures has led to an increase in extreme climate phenomena, from heat waves to droughts and even increased precipitation. This poses substantial risk for businesses, from operations blackouts to escalating damage and disruption. In the short term, businesses also face the risk associated with transitioning to operations with lower carbon footprint. Countries across the world are making efforts to stimulate change in industries using tools like carbon taxes and clean energy subsidies, which would drive up the short-term costs for businesses and could cause unemployment and related socio-economic issues if the future of carbon intensive industries is not planned. Over the period from 1965-2017, the top 20 carbon emitting companies, which have contributed over a third of the greenhouse emissions during this period, are all fossil fuel companies. Of these emissions, 90% is accounted for by the use of the products of these companies, from petrol to jet fuel and natural gas. According to a report by the United States Energy Information Administration, energy consumption will increase 28% from 2015 to 2040, accompanied by a 16% increase in CO2 emissions over the same period and fossil fuels accounting for 77% of the world energy consumption in 2040. These figures illustrate a major challenge that the world faces in combating climate change. The worst affected from these developments is the impact on developing countries which are least able to afford the consequences. The economy in these countries is severely affected, with countries forced to borrow for their climate spending. They also face the pressure of having to take actions quickly as the cost of borrowing increases with time due to increasing risk. These countries have higher incidence of poverty which adds another handicap as the people in poverty are more vulnerable to climate change, and the economies depend on agriculture which is the most affected by climate change, with agriculture absorbing 80% of the damage due to drought between 2006 and 2016. These challenges need to be addressed to meet the goal of limiting the increase in global average temperatures to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
Suggested Path Ahead
As it is apparent, the fossil fuels, coal, in particular, are detrimental to achieving the goal of lower carbon emissions; therefore, it is of paramount importance to phase out the use of it. However, the problem that comes with phasing out coal is unemployment. Generating employment in such cases can be an arduous task.  Taking the example of China, it had stopped work on about 150 coal power plants.  But they created a $5 Billion funds to reallocate and retrain the estimated 5-6 million people who would be affected by it.   It is also advisable to make the disclosure mandatory to reveal climate-related financial risk. This can help shift private investors manage risks and provide them with information to develop transition plans.
By 2030, due to policy gaps and financial constraints, about 700 million people will be without power. In such a scenario, access to clean energy can solve the problem.  In recent past, support and training for women entrepreneurs have shown promising signs. In Bangladesh, under the scheme, Grameen Shakti, about 3000 women were trained as solar technicians to install as well as maintain Solar Home Systems in rural areas. Since 2003, this has helped in reducing carbon emission by 160000 tonnes per year while creating 115000 jobs. It is important to introduce and implement such initiatives in developing countries to take care of carbon emission as well as controlling unemployment.
About 70 countries have either put a price on carbon or are planning to do it.  Putting up the price on carbon also gives a stronger incentive to look for better and greener alternatives.  This gives a clear signal to industries as well as the consumers to change their ways and look for alternatives. In addition to it, eliminating subsidies on fossil fuel production and consumption can act as an instigator to industries and consumers as the increased price will have to be born by the consumers eventually. This subsidy reform, combined with carbon pricing, will not only give incentives to industry and consumers but will also create a source of revenue generation to promote green alternatives for the governments.
References:
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Corfee-Morlot, Jan, et al. “4 Ways to Shift from Fossil Fuels to Clean Energy.” World Resources Institute, 13 Sept. 2019, https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/01/4-ways-shift-fossil-fuels-clean-energy.
Global Affairs Canada - Affaires. “Climate Change in Developing Countries.” GAC, 24 July 2019, https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/environmental_protection-protection_environnement/climate-climatiques.aspx?lang=eng.
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