14 DAY TRIAL // Last December, in Copenhagen, heads of states and ministers from most countries that are members of the United Nations met to discuss the challenges associated with global warming. The conference yielded little tangible and legally-binding results, but at least all those in attendance recognized the fact that swift action needs to be taken in order to halt the warming trend that affects the entire globe. Now, researchers in the United States formulate new strategies that major polluters could apply, in order to avoid reaching the 2-degree Celsius temperature threshold.
Beyond this limit, climate scientists generally agree that the damage done to the environment and to ecosystems would become too large to mitigate. But keeping temperature rise below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit is a monumental challenge, and one that involves numerous political, economic and social aspects. Developing nations, for example, hold the Western world responsible for the current state and are generally opposed to the idea of capping their economic growth – which is mainly driven by polluting heavy industries – in order to mitigate a problem they were not responsible for.
But researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), which is based at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) say that solutions to this tangled mess exist. Climate scientists Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Yangyang Xu propose some of them in a paper they published in the May 3 issue of the esteemed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The team identified a total number of three main avenues, through which heavily-polluting countries can reduce their emission levels.
“Without an integrated approach that combines carbon dioxide emission reductions with reductions in other climate warmers, and without climate-neutral air pollution laws, we are certain to pass the 2 C threshold during this century. I am delighted by the availability of several 'low-hanging fruits' that can help us avert unmanageable climate changes,” says Ramanathan. “The low-hanging fruits approach to one of mankind's great challenges is very appealing because it's win-win. It cleans up the environment, protects human health and helps to sustain the 2 C threshold,” adds Jay Fein, who is the program director at the US National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences.