By Josfyn Uba
All over the world, humans are under siege by plastic. Statistics show that more than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced annually, half of which is designed to be used only once.
Nigeria, also, literally lives in mounds of plastic given the quantity being produced and trashed. Recently, Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark the 2023 World Environment Day. The focal point of this year’s campaign is on solutions to combat plastic pollution, #BeatPlasticPollution.
In this interview, Washington Uba, a trained engineer and environmental activist X-rayed the huge impact of pollution on developing nations, stressed the need for all hands to be on deck to mitigate the impacts and risks of climate change as there is no territorial integrity with regards to disasters. He also supported valid arguments by environmental activists and scientists that rich countries should pay the most to address climate change, and even pay poor countries reparations, because they have historically emitted the most greenhouse gases.
Annually, the world celebrates the World Environment Day with tree planting efforts to save the environment. Yet, another group of campaigners are vigorously campaigning against these efforts. What do you make of it?
Let me start by pointing out one fact: there’s no territorial integrity with regards to climate change disasters. It’s a come one, come all basis. Just like Bob Marley sang that “when it rains, it’s not only on one man’s roof.” Climate change denial or global warming denial is dismissal or unwarranted doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of a scientific controversy where there is none. Many who are climate change deniers self-label themselves as “climate change sceptics”, which is a misapplied description.
Climate change denial includes doubts to the extent of how much climate change is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, and the potential of adaptation to global warming by human actions. To a lesser extent, climate change denial can also be implicit when people accept the science but fail to reconcile it with their belief or action. Several social science studies have analysed these positions as forms of denials, pseudo-science or propaganda. The conspiracy to undermine public trust in climate science is organized by industrial, political and ideological interests. Climate change denial has been associated with the fossil fuels lobby, the Koch brothers, industry advocates, conservative think-tanks and conservative alternative media, often in the United States. More than 90 papers that are sceptical on climate change originate from right-wing think -tanks. Climate change denial is undermining the efforts to act on or adapt to climate change, and exerts a powerful influence on politics of global warming and the manufactured global warming controversy.
Given what you have said about the huge consequences of climate change, if countries don’t step up their actions, would you say that the rich nations are playing well the big brother role?
For decades, environmental activists along with some government officials and scientists have argued that rich countries should pay the most to address climate change, and even pay poor countries reparations, because industrialized nations have historically emitted the most greenhouse gases.
A new study by two Dartmouth scientists aims to calculate just how much economic impact larger emitters have caused other nations. Published Tuesday in the journal, Climatic Change, the study says the figures could be used in courtrooms and in international climate negotiations about payments from rich nations that burn more coal, oil and gas, to poor countries damaged by emissions.
For example, the data shows that the top carbon emitter over time, the United States, has caused more than $1.9 trillion in climate damage to other countries from 1990 to 2014, including $310 billion in damage to Brazil, $257 billion in damage to India, $124 billion to Indonesia, $104 billion to Venezuela and $74 billion to Nigeria. But at the same time, the United States’ own carbon pollution has benefited the U.S. by more than $183 billion. “Do all countries look to the United States for restitution? Maybe,” said study co-author Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth College climate scientist. “The U.S. has caused a huge amount of economic harm by its emissions, and that’s something that we have the data to show.”
In this regard, where should poor nations turn to?
Developing nations have convinced rich nations to promise to financially help them reduce carbon emissions for the future, but haven’t been able to get restitution for damage already caused, a term called “loss and damage” in global climate talks. In those negotiations, the biggest carbon emitters, like the United States and China have had a “veil of deniability” that their actions caused specific damages, said study lead author, Christopher Callahan, a climate impacts researcher at Dartmouth. This study lifts that veil, he said.
“Scientific studies such as this ground-breaking piece show that high emitters no longer have a leg to stand on in avoiding their obligations to address loss and damage,” said Bahamian climate scientist, Adelle Thomas of Climate Analytics, who wasn’t part of the study. She said recent studies “increasingly and overwhelmingly show that loss and damage is already crippling developing countries. While carbon emissions have been tracked for decades on the national levels and damages have been calculated, Callahan and Mankin said this is the first study to connect all the dots from the countries producing the emissions to countries affected by it. The study also tallies benefits, which are mainly seen in northern countries like Canada and Russia, and rich nations like the US and Germany.
So, why should governments take urgent action to tackle climate change and its impacts?
Climate change is caused by human activities and is threatening the way we live and the future of our planet. By addressing climate change, we can build a sustainable world for everyone. But we need to act now.
Are people’s lives really being affected by climate change?
Yes, of course. Severe weather and rising sea levels are affecting people and their properties in developed and developing countries. From a small farmer in the Philippines to a businessman in London, climate change is affecting everyone, especially the poor and vulnerable, as well as marginalized groups like women, children, and the elderly.
What happens if we don’t take action?
If left unchecked, climate change will undo a lot of the progress made over the past years in development. It can also exacerbate, as we are already seeing, current threats such as food and water scarcity, which can lead to conflict. Doing nothing will end up costing us a lot more than if we take actions now that will lead to more jobs, greater prosperity, and better lives for all while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building climate resilience.
Can we solve this problem or is it too late to act?
We can definitely address climate change, but we have to vastly increase our efforts. The world must transform its energy, industry, transport, food, agriculture and forestry systems to ensure that we can limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees, maybe even 1.5. We also need to anticipate, adapt and become resilient to the current and future impacts of climate change.
In December 2015, the world took a significant first step by adopting the Paris Agreement, in which all countries committed to take action to address climate change. Many businesses and investors are also committing themselves to lower their emissions through the Climate Action Agenda—an effort born at the 2014 Climate Summit in New York to bring governments, businesses and civil society together to embark on new initiatives that promote climate action.
How much would it cost to solve this problem?
The way to think about it is not in terms of how expensive it will be, but how much we need to invest and what investment opportunities there are to address climate change. In total, public and private-sector investment in clean energy needs to reach at least US$1 trillion per year by 2030, and more to build climate resilience. This sounds like a lot, but consider that of the US$1.6 trillion invested in the global energy supply in 2013, nearly 70 per cent was related to fossil fuels.
What’s more is that the estimated costs of mitigation do not account for the benefits of reduced climate change. Investments of only $6 billion disaster risk reduction over the next 15 years would result in total benefits of the $360 billion in terms of avoided losses over the lifetime of the investment. By acting now, we save lives, money, and avoid setbacks in the progress we have achieved to date.
Climate change is fast resulting in global food crisis. What affirmative action should stakeholders take to avert this looming crisis?
Climate change impacts and risks are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage. Simultaneously, the world is facing the complex challenges of hunger and multiple forms of malnutrition, where over 30 per cent of the world’s population is facing micro-nutrient deficiency, and 828 million people are undernourished, while 676 million are obese.
The UN has announced that Madagascar is on the brink of experiencing the world’s first “climate change famine.” Tens of thousands of people are suffering “catastrophic” levels of hunger. Climate hazard scientist, Chris Funk, provides insights into the causes.
How significant has the drought been in Madagascar?
Out of the last six years in Madagascar, five years have had poor or very bad rainy seasons. Funk and his colleagues were able to track this because of the satellite-gauge rainfall data that we developed – the Climate Hazards Infra-red Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) system – to monitor droughts in regions like southern Madagascar. The focus of his work has been on sea temperatures between Australia and Hawaii – the Indo-Pacific – and the impacts variations have on southern and eastern Africa.
The data suggests that since 2015, with the exception of the 2018 – 2019 rains, seasonal rainfall (which usually falls from October to May in southern Madagascar) has been low. This falls within the driest 10 percent of years since 1981.