News
Climate Repair: A Strategy to Stabilize the Planet
01-May-2024
By: Talal Abu-Ghazaleh
Climate change poses the greatest threat to humanity and to our planet. We are already witnessing the consequences of global warming such as extreme weather conditions, rising sea levels, melting ice, and loss of biodiversity. It is crucial that we take urgent and decisive action to prevent irreversible tipping points that could trigger runaway climate change with catastrophic impacts on all life forms.
Fortunately, there is still time to avert the worst-case scenarios. We have an opportunity to stabilize the climate and create a safe and sustainable environment for ourselves and future generations. To achieve this, we must adopt a comprehensive and ambitious strategy that goes beyond simply reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We need to actively remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and repair the damage caused to Earth's natural systems, particularly in polar regions and glaciers.
This strategy is known as climate repair, which comprises three key components; reduction, removal, and restoration.
The primary component of climate repair is reducing greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly and significantly as possible. This entails transitioning our energy sources, transportation systems, industries, agriculture practices, and land use towards low-carbon alternatives. It requires improving energy efficiency measures while promoting conservation efforts and smart demand management techniques. It also means we have to make changes in the way we consume and live our lives to reduce the impact on the environment and minimize waste generation.
Another important aspect of addressing climate change is to actively remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it securely. This is crucial because even if we were to immediately halt greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon dioxide already present in the atmosphere would continue warming the planet for many years to come. Therefore, it is essential that we take proactive measures to decrease the surplus carbon dioxide that we have emitted and bring it back down to pre-industrial levels, which scientists consider safe for our climate. There are various methods available for achieving this, each with different potentials, costs, benefits and risks. It is crucial that these methods are carefully assessed and implemented in a sustainable and ethical manner.
The third aspect of addressing climate change is particularly innovative as it involves repairing the damage inflicted upon Earth's natural systems, particularly polar regions and glaciers. These systems play a critical role in regulating our climate while also providing vital services such as water, food and biodiversity. However, they are highly vulnerable and susceptible to global warming, undergoing rapid and irreversible changes that have adverse feedback effects on our climate.
We need to take action in these systems to restore their functionality and resilience and prevent further decline and collapse. This can be achieved by employing various methods through geoengineering, which is a contentious and risky proposal that raises numerous ethical, social and political concerns. It should not be viewed as a replacement for reducing emissions and removing carbon dioxide, but rather as a supplementary and temporary measure to give us some additional time and avoid the worst possible outcomes.
Addressing climate change requires a comprehensive and ambitious strategy to stabilize the climate and safeguard our future. It necessitates a global effort involving governments, businesses, civil society, and individuals. It demands an interdisciplinary approach that combines science, technology, policy-making, economics, ethics, and culture along with a sense of urgency, responsibility, and optimism.
Nations must implement environmental accountability to fully appreciate the extent of climate change on their nations. This comes from having proper accounting practices in place where companies and governments can effectively report and fully understand environmental costs and liabilities. I spoke about this in 1999 when I led the production of a detailed report leading international experts called ‘Accounting and Financial Reporting for Environmental Costs and Liabilities’. This was done under the Arab Society of Certified Accountants (ASCA) that I established in 1984 and was produced in consultation with the United Nations and International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR), which I also chaired.
As the Chair of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization in New York (CSU), my message to all governments is that we must act promptly before it is too late because time is running out fast to prevent irreversible harm to our climate.