How to contain Climate Change in the next 10 years.

How can we contain climate change in the next 10 years? This is the question asked that has to be answered sooner than later. Climate change has rapidly increased over the years due to some harmful human practices that release harmful gases like carbondioxide, Nitrogen and other harmful gases into the atmosphere. Some of these practices include the burning of fossil fuels, the use of coal as a source of generating electricity, carbon emissions from large factories, deforestation ,breathing cause as human beings we breath in oxygen and breath out carbondioxide so this can also accumulate the amount of carbondioxide in the atmosphere all these are human practices that increase the amount of  carbondioxide in the atmosphere. What is climate change then? Climate change is a long-term shift in global or regional climate patterns. Often climate change refers specifically to the rise in global temperatures from the mid 20^thcentury to present. These changes can result into change in temperature, change in precipitation or rainfall which can make it difficult to grow crops, increased flooding in particular regions, the melting of the ice glaciers which will lead to the rise of sea level and cause erosion, loss of habitat of specific species because the habitat is destroyed which can affect the ecosystem. There have been various ways to try and contain climate change. These ways include the switching from fossil fuel to alternate use of energy. This is a major and one of the best ways to contain climate change because switching to alternate energy do not emit carbon in the atmosphere. Some of these source of energy include wind energy, thermal energy, sound energy , solar energy and hydroelectric energy. All these are alternate forms of energy that can be used, banning of fossil fuels cars and replacing them with electric cars, passing laws against deforestation and encouraging afforestation and taxing companies according to their carbon usage. All these ways I believe will help contain climate change in the next 10 years in the United States. My aim is to persuade lawmakers in congress to come up with a bill that would help make the atmosphere cleaner and safer for ourselves as well as our descendants in the United States.

            Climate change has called for more attention worldwide with the holding of summits or forums in order to contain climate change. Apart from internationally climate has also called for attention of lawmakers to make laws that would help contain climate change in the United States. In the article “Cash for Carbon: Schumer Climate Plan Would Help Consumers Buy Electric Cars” this article talks about climate change and how Senator Chuck Schumer is preparing a budget to replace gasoline powered vehicles with hybrid, hydrogen fuel cells and electric cars in the next 10 years. In this article the senator talks about how democrats plan to go on offense against climate change the plan which was blocked by the current P resident Trump saying that  “I withdrew the United States from the terrible, one-sided climate accord, was a total disaster for our country”. The senator is putting a new act which he believes would help contain climate change this plan is called the clean car plan, this plan is aimed at rapidly replacing 63 million of the 270 million cars on American roads with zero-emissions or near-zero-emissions vehicles. The senator plans on archieve this goal by having a trade-in program would give consumers $392 billion in vouchers to exchange their traditional gasoline-powered vehicles for zero-carbon emissions vehicles, like Hydrogen fuel or Hybrid cars.(Schummer, 2019).It includes a requirement that the new cars be assembled in the United States. The bill would also include $45 billion to help cities and states install electric vehicle charging stations, and $17 billion to help automakers build or retool factories to manufacture hybrid, electric and hydrogen vehicles. Most people would criticize this like the Republicans in the house because this laws might lead to the taxing of citizens and would also lead to the running down of some fossil fuel and automobile company which is against the Republican policies of favoring big business , but I believe that this would be an important step in controlling climate change like for example if New York city has vehicle charging stations installed this would limit the level of carbondioxide because New York City is one of the cities with the most emission of carbondioxide. The use of electric vehicles has increased largely in the United States. The switching more to electrical energy rather than the continuous use of carbon will also help in the containing of climate change, according to the article “The potential widespread of electrical vehicles travelled in the United States” the author believes that Electric vehicles can contribute to climate change mitigation if coupled with decarbonized electricity, but only if vehicle range matches travelers’ needs.  Evaluating electric vehicle range against a population’s needs is challenging because detailed driving behavior must be taken into account. The author says that “Transportation accounts for 28% of U.S. energy use and 34% of U.S greenhouse  gas emissions, the majority coming from light duty vehicles making personal trips—people com-muting to work,  driving to social events,  and performing errands in cars and light trucks, and that this has contribute to more carbon emissions.” (Nedell, 2016). The author believes that battery electric vehicles (BEVs) could contribute to reducing transportation related greenhouse gas emissions, offering some emissions savings even with today’s fossil-fuel dominated electricity supply mix. Also with an interview with Mr Daniel Cornin form the Carbon Tracker Initiatives, Mr Daniel believes that the taxing of carbon cars would lead to the growth of more electric vehicles, because ethe taxing of carbon cars would make them expensive and more harder to afford. The switching to electrical cars would be an important step towards containing climate change because there would be much progress if 28% of greenhouse emission is withdrawn from the atmosphere.

            Secondly, according to BBC article “Ten simple ways to act on climate change” The number one goal? Limiting the use of fossil fuels such as oil, carbon and natural gas and replacing them with renewable and cleaner sources of energy, all while increasing energy efficiency. “We need to cut CO2 emissions almost in half (45%) by the end of the next decade” (Ortiz, 2019). This article talks about reducing carbon as being the major goal of containing climate change, Mr Ortiz believes that the road towards that transition includes daily decisions within your reach like driving and flying less, switching to a ‘green’ energy provider that is energy without carbondioxide  and changing what you eat and buy and he goes on to say that the changing of habit of one person would lead to others changing their habits as well. The author also believes that having less children would help contain climate change because the parent is responsible for their child’s emission as well as theirs, the author believes that more children would lead to more carbon emission. Less meat consumption would also help because “By reducing your consumption of animal protein by half, you can cut your diet’s carbon footprint by more than 40%”. (Ortiz , 2016)Changing our habits would be another way to contain climate change. Examples of the habits include the buying of more biodegradable materials and recycling, Mr Daniel from the Carbon Initiatives says that there are promos that encourage recycling like payment of 5cents when you recycle a bottle. This would help people recycle more and make the environment more ecofriendly.

            Another way to try and limit climate change is the use of the Cap and Trade policy, The cap on greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming is a firm limit on pollution. The cap gets stricter over time. The trade part is a market for companies to buy and sell allowances that let them emit only a certain amount, as supply and demand set the price. Trading gives companies a strong incentive to save money by cutting emissions in the most cost-effective ways. This is a way of taxing company of the gases they emit and this would be effective because if companies are taxed for the gases that they emit companies who emit less would be able to sell to companies that emit more gases, these companies who emit more gases would not be able to keep up with the tax burden and would ultimately be forced to switch to other forms of energy that do not emit carbondioxide. This is another step that can be taken in order to reduce carbondioxide emission because this would stop companies and upcoming carbon emission companies from using fossil fuels. Some companies will be against this policy because it involves taxing and most companies don’t like to pay taxes. But according to Mr Daniel the use of this policy the Government would be able to generate money from taxes collected and would be able to invest in alternate sources of energy that would cost billions of dollars. I believe that this policy would be a turning point because it would answer the questions asked by many, questions like “How would the government get the money to switch to alternate energy” this is a way in which the government can help solve part of the problem.

The most important step of containing climate change is the switching to alternate use of energy. These energies must be ecofriendly and be carbon free some of these energies include solar, hydroelectric, wind. These energies can be used to generate electricity therefore can be used as a substitute to coal. The application of Smart Grids can make climate change adaptation and migitation easier, according to the article “Smart grids: opportunities for climate change mitigation and adaptation” written by Rosemary Lyster Smart grids combines the information and communication technology and electrical capabilities in other to improve flexibility, effiency, security of electrical systems. This is good because the Smart grids includes energy resources like energy storage that can accommodate electric vehicles while charging, can distribute power to remote communities and is better tool for communicating with consumers. This is another alternative because the benefits are clear and it will be more sustainable and efficient to use to generate electricity. This would lead to the decline in coal as a major source of energy and many people would argue that it would lead the loss of jobs of coal mine workers. Mr Daniel from the Carbon Tracker Initiatives explains that the people whose jobs are at risk would be compensated through the Just Transition this would take people who work for coal mines or oil companies and compensate them by giving them new jobs or money to start of a new business or giving them some training that would be helpful to them. Also according to the article “enhancement of a solar through power plant by integrating tower collectors” this article talks about how the use of solar energy over the past decade to produce electricity has resulted into the decline in the use carbon emission, the article also talks about another way to contain climate change which is switching to the use of wind energy which is another form of energy that is ecofriendly and carbon free. According to the article “Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar” Mr Clark is trying to inform people about ways to switch to various energy sources like wind, Hydroelectric energy and believes the ways of doing that are bydeploying very large amounts of energy storage, providing supplemental energy sources that can be dispatched when needed. This would serve for a better alternative to the use of carbondioxide because the energy would be stored and would be able to be generated to various homes when needed from the grid. According to the article “Use of Nanofluids in solar pv\thermal systems the authors are Asmaa Ahmed, Hassan Baig and Tapas K. Mallick believe that Solar energy can play a vital role in saving our planet from the impacts of climate change caused by the use of fossil fuels to meet our energy demands, but the authors believe that a key challenge would be to reduce the amount of heat that is produced but this problem has been solved with the use of nanotechnology so the electrical effiency of the solar panel can be raised, the authors also lists some advantages and disadvantages of using the technology, some advantages are improving the heat transfer coefficient of the working fluid by raising its thermal conductivity, allowing the fluid to convey high amounts of thermal energy by raising the density and specific heat product and Boosting the heat transfer between the fluid and the receiver. While some disadvantages include the high cost of production and preparation and the operating cost. I believe this would be a better alternative because first of all it is can be improved in order to produce more electricity this would serve as a better alternative to the use of coal to generate electricity.

Climate change is real and there are evidences to support that I believe that the United States government should act at a faster pace in order to contain climate change in the United States, with countries like China and India who are already switching from the use of Coal plants to the use of solar plants the United states might fall behind as the world power if we can’t contain climate change or at least be a role models to all this other countries. People should vote for lawmakers that would make more laws in order to contain climate change, laws like the switching to alternate source and  taxing of carbon emission companies. We all want a world free from natural disasters, a world that we can predict 100  years wildfire rather than 10 years and I believe that we can come together in order to fight climate change but we need to act now in order to make the planet a much more better place for our generations. And the best way of doing that is switching further away from carbon to the use of energy and limit the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

                                                References-

Keokhane, N. (2019). How cap and trade works. [online] Environmental Defense Fund. Available at: https://www.edf.org/climate/how-cap-and-trade-works [Accessed 30 Oct. 2019].

     Clark, C. (2017, June 27). Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles.

   Davenport, C. (2019, October 25). Cash for Carbon: Schumer Climate Plan Would Help Consumers Buy Electric Cars. Retrieved October 30, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/climate/climate-change-schumer-electric-cars.html.

Needell, Zachary A., et al. “Potential for Widespread Electrification of Personal Vehicle Travel in the United States.” Nature Energy, vol. 1, no. 9, 2016, doi:10.1038/nenergy.2016.112.

   Ortiz, D. A. (2018, November 5). Ten simple ways to act on climate change. Retrieved October 30, 2019, from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181102-what-can-i-do-about-climate-change.

Lyster, Rosemary. “Smart grids: opportunities for climate change mitigation and adaptation.” Monash University Law Review, Mar. 2010, p. 173+. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A246834183/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=508e5944. Accessed 10 Nov. 2019.

Ahmed, Asmaa, et al. “Use of Nanofluids in Solar PV/Thermal Systems.” International Journal of Photoenergy, 2019, p. NA. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A602461680/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=f2378005. Accessed 10 Nov. 2019.

Interview with Daniel Cornin from Carbon tracker initiatives. Website- https://www.carbontracker.org/