After centuries of progress in technology and international cooperation, the world has become a globalized village where connectivity and interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures, and populations bought us into a developed world. But during the whole development of globalization humankind did not focus on the basic question what are the impacts of globalization on earth’s natural environment? The clear answer is that the impacts of globalization on the natural environment have more cons than pros. Because the earth’s environment is connected and balanced; every factor is linked with the whole system. Earth’s environment consists of Land, air, water, plants, and animals, broadly comprising the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. While the major driving forces of globalization are trade and technology. Their short-term impacts are very productive in terms of economic and social aspects but in long run, they are not sustainable. The reasons behind this are the use of non-renewable sources of energy like fossil fuel, non-recyclable materials like plastic, and excess use of natural resources like forests. So, the net results are global problems like climate change, pollution, and loss of biodiversity.
Currently, the climate of the whole world is disturbed and keeps changing and the world is knowing the bitter reality that their developments are not sustainable. But the question is how to make the developments sustainable and how to overcome the damages caused to the natural environment by globalization. The biggest challenge is global warming, which rises due to pollution, specifically atmospheric pollution known as greenhouse gases. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution have increased the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide by over 50%, from 280 ppm in 1750 to 421 ppm in 2022. Also, CO2 has a strong heat-trapping nature in the atmosphere. The increase in greenhouse gas levels warms the earth, resulting in climate change.
The simple equation of globalization and climate change is:
Globalization = pollution = global warming =climate change = loss of biodiversity + survival of life
Earth’s climate has been changing throughout history but now the rate of change is very rapid because of human activities. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact.". But the issue becomes undermined because of the race of international dominance between capitalist and communist blocks. For the first time in 1992 at the Earth summit, the problem of climate change was addressed under an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", as a result, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established. Later in 1997, they put forward the Kyoto protocol to implement measures to control GHG but it comes into force in 2005. It fails to achieve its target because developing countries like China, India, and Indonesia refuse to set a GHG reduction target as their economy was growing rapidly. Also, the Kyoto protocol fail because the goal was to stabilize the GHG emission to the pre-1990 period instead it increased by 60% in 2020. According to the environment journal “reducing the emissions of the ratifying countries approximately by 7% below the emissions expected under a “No-Kyoto” scenario.” The Kyoto protocol was superseded by the Paris agreement which enter into force in 2016. The Paris Agreement works on a five-year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by countries. Every five years, each country is expected to submit an updated national climate action plan - known as Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC. Paris Agreement has 194 parties. For every member it’s mandatory to make long-term national climate action to restrict global temperature to 1.5c for which GHG emissions should be reduced by 45% by 2030 and global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. According to the un–Environment Program (UNEP) the range of temperatures by 2100 is around 2.8°C under current policies, and 2.4°C if countries live up to all the commitments about future policies made to the unfccc in Paris and since.
For this purpose, the united nation set sustainable development goals (SDGs) for 2030. In the globalized world three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions come from the energy sector. To get rid of GHG emission world need a clean renewable energy transition. The alternate source of green energy is not enough to replace the whole fossil fuel or coal-based energy needs. Here is the role of globalization through investment and cooperation in the renewable energy transition. Developed countries should cooperate and shifts green technology to other developing and third-world countries. The target to reduce 45% of global greenhouse emissions by 2030 now seems impossible because this target was demanded by small low-lying states and they declare it a red line in the Paris agreement but the large polluters were focusing on the 2c temperature or their long-term goal of net zero emissions of the 2050s or 2060s which is alarming for many low-lying countries. A collective effort is required to limit or reduce global warming. Industrial greenhouse gases
Ozone depletion is also a major factor contributing to global warming. The major element for ozone depletion is fluorinated gases used for cooling across the globe. One way these gases are cooling the houses but in the overall scenario, these gases deplete the ozone layer which results in the direct penetration of UV rays causing global warming which ultimately leads to more use of these gases for cooling. This cooling effect is a paradox that is warming the world with time. There should be a ban on fluorinated gas products.
There are many other ways to reduce global warming other than reducing greenhouse gas emission which includes plantation and introducing natural solutions to the things that enhance greenhouse emission and also increasing the carbon sink like forests which are degrading because of the effect of climate change. There are many factors by doing so, global warming can easily reduce the land use changed with time and the land use for agriculture has used some organic products like fertilizer which ultimately led to high corps but they release a high level of methane to the atmosphere. Which plays a great role in global warming the world needs sustainable farming. For economies, their ecosystem must remain conserved because the diversity of the ecosystem balances the natural environment. Global warming is now a reality and its effects are expressed by climate change. Severe droughts, floods, wildfires, and other extreme events are unstoppable because of the damaged we did to the environment but their effects could be reduced by effective management of the consequences of climate change.
