By: Staff Writer
April 5, 2022
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that since 2010 human related greenhouse gasses (GHG) have increased despite carbon emission reduction from fossil fuels overall.
The IPCC, a United Nations established panel in their latest report, “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change,” noted that: “Net anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased since 2010 across all major sectors globally. An increasing share of emissions can be attributed to urban areas. Emissions reductions in CO2 from fossil fuels and industrial processes, due to improvements in energy intensity of GDP and carbon intensity of energy, have been less than emissions increases from rising global activity levels in industry, energy supply, transport, agriculture and buildings.”
Anthropogenic means environmental pollution and/or pollutants that originated as a result of human activity. So the efforts governments and corporations around the world have said to have been putting in to reduce the amount of carbon emissions have not worked.
This spells bad news for climate dependent countries like those in the Caribbean.
The report also said: “Per capita urban GHG emissions increased between 2000 and 2015, with cities in the Developed 34 Countries region producing nearly seven times more per capita than the lowest emitting region.”
The Caribbean has lost a lot and expected to lose a lot more if urgent action is not taken to cut man-made carbon emissions as the report indicated, “Based on past historical analysis, a region such as the Caribbean, which has experienced climate-related losses equal to 1 percent of GDP each year since 1960 is expected to have significant increases in such losses in the future leading to possible upwards of 8 percent of projected GDP in 2080.”
It further added for areas in Central America, El Salvador and Guatemala, experienced severe losses in agriculture totalling about $6bn due to drought in 2018.
Despite feeling the brunt of the climate damage, regions such as the Caribbean, Africa and Latin America comprises less than half of the overall CO2 emissions in 2019 and beyond. The report warned, however, “Territorial emissions from developing country regions continue to grow, mostly driven by increased consumption and investment, albeit starting from a low base of per capita emissions and with a lower historic contribution to cumulative emissions than developed countries,” which can mean good news and bad news all the same. For one, it means that the human race is learning and not employing the same environmentally damaging tactics that destroyed the environment in the developed countries, or it could mean that developing countries are catching up and will end up as much as a polluter as any of the larger, developed countries.