Hyderabad: City environment experts will reveal the current statistics on climate change in Hyderabad on Tuesday during the Hyderabad Climate Change Summit. Experts will also highlight global warming and focus on energy etiquette conservation, climate change and urbanisation.
According to experts, urbanisation is one of the prime factors behind climate change given the excessive energy consumption, particularly of fossil fuel. Also, buildings release far more CO2 than the transport sector and experts point out that city buildings are badly designed and retain heat and release the same.
The Summit will also focus on the state of Telangana’s forests, the problem of deforestation and change of land use in context of water bodies and wetlands. The resolution paper by experts will be submitted to the state government for consideration.
Management of forest is needed - Imran Siddiqui
A forest is much more than timber and carbon. Sustainable forest management also contributes to food security, poverty alleviation, economical development, and sustainable land use. Good forest management secures the survival of forest ecosystems and enhances its environmental, sociocultural and economic functions. It can both maximise forests’ contribution to climate change mitigation and help forests and the forest dependent population to adapt to new conditions caused by climate change.
For the last two decades there has been a lot of talk about the role of forests in an Indian context for mitigating climate change; but there has been very little implementation. The destruction of the dry forests of the Deccan Plateau is largely irreversible as these dry forests are slow in growth and thus recovery takes centuries. These forests are very susceptible to encroachments, conversion and degradation. According to the State of Forests report of 2010-11, around 281 sq. km of forest was lost in united AP with maximum from Khammam, Warangal and Adilabad districts. TS contributed 182 sq. km of this.
Overuse of fossil fuels causing global warming - Sagar Dhara
Global warming is a consequence of humans overusing fossil fuels and cutting forests. The 0.85°C rise in global temperature over pre-industrial times has triggered rainfall variation, extreme weather events, higher species extinction rates; 19-cm mean sea level rise and 40 per cent reduction in the Arctic’s summer ice in the last century. Glaciers have been shrinking by 275 giga tonnes per annum in the last two decades. The rich — countries and people — are primarily responsibility for global warming. The per capita historic emission of developed countries is 1,200 tonnes of CO2, whereas that of developing countries is less than a tenth of that. The top 10 per cent of global emitters contribute to almost half of the current global emissions, while the bottom 50 per cent contribute only 10 per cent. While the rich have benefitted the most from excessive emissions, developing countries and the poor, whose emissions are low, will be impacted the most because of their geographical location and their greater vulnerability. The rich will be affected the least. Other energy sources cannot replace fossil fuels for a variety of reasons. Action at regional level: • Ban new fossil fuel-based power plants in developed nations and restrict them in developing countries. • Emulate Germany’s shift to renewables in other developed countries and Cuba’s initiatives in developing countries
• Increase forest cover to a minimum of 33 per cent of a region.
• Compensate farmers in the nation/region for sequestering the CO2 generated in the state/region.
Moisture of soil is nil - Donthi Narasimha Reddy, Agriculture policy expert
With the receding of groundwater, soil moisture is nil in most places. Even during the rainy season the soil moisture is less and crops need manual supply of water. This affects the growth and yield of the crop. There have been changes in the insect pattern as well. Due to unusual heat and changed rainfall pattern, pest attacks are increasing on crops and there are changes within the insect population as well, which experts are unable to map. There is an erratic and unusual increase of pest on crops and that is why farmers are using high dosage of pesticides. Rainfall is erratic, we receive rains after the season when the harvest is ready. Unseasonal rains, sometimes heavy or moderate, affects the crops. Lack of rains leads to droughts and excess rains lead to floods.
Heat trapped equals 5 atomic bombs
Climate change is a byproduct of industrial civilisation. The fundamental difference among all human civilisations is the extent of energy consumption. Industrial civilisation has been increasing energy consumption exponentially. In this process, we have been generating conditions antithetic to the process of evolution of life. Huge quantities of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, released are trapping enormous quantities of heat.
According to Prof. James Hansen, the heat trapped is equivalent to five atomic bombs of the size dropped on Hiroshima per second. Fortunately for us most of this heat is stored in oceans (about 93 per cent), otherwise we would have much higher surface temperatures on land. Cyclones and hurricanes are nature's way of redistributing energy. So, more the heat stored in oceans, the more likely are the extreme weather events.
The global average temperature has increased by 1ºC already. Urbanisation is a characteristic of industrial society. Modern humans have extensively altered the land use. Deforestation and converting agricultural land for urbanisation have added to the problem of climate change. Several scientific studies demonstrate that urbanisation creates a heat Island effect. Within the city, different regions showed synchronisation with the pace of urbanisation. Urbanization also creates conditions for flooding as happened in Chennai now and Mumbai earlier.
