There is much heat about the problem of climate change and the need to address the issue with greater decisiveness and urgency. Meetings and statements abound. But getting on to the path of reducing emissions worldwide remains elusive. Those who follow environmental problems closely will realise that this is not merely frustrating but also alarming. Not only that, there are equally important environmental problems that do not receive the kind of public attention they deserve, such as those related to the loss of biodiversity or the interruptions in the biogeochemical processes like nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. When viewed together, these problems foretell impending disasters that might make the horrors of world wars look like a friendly wrestling match. The source of all these problems is exactly the same that makes our modern lifestyles so comforting and pleasant. It is about our relationship with the natural environment.
Scientists claim that while humans have been on earth for about 200,000 years, it was only 12,000 years ago that agriculture became a feature of stable, sedentary, social living. The last 12,000 years saw an unprecedented period of climate stability, with not more than a 1 degree Celsius change in average temperatures. More recently, in the last 200 years, the world witnessed the Industrial Revolution that led to astonishing improvements in global incomes, energy use, water use, paper production, transportation, telecommunications, tourism, use of fertilisers and so on, accompanied by a rise in the world’s population. These socio-economic trends are well-known: indeed, they represent the essence of modernity and development. What is now being confirmed is that exactly during those last 200 years, there have been exponential increases in the emission of greenhouse gases, ocean acidification, loss of tropical forest cover, rise of domesticated land, terrestrial biosphere degradation, the extraction of metals and minerals, and a rise in the surface temperature of the earth.
This period is referred to as The Great Acceleration: an unprecedented rise in living standards and comforts along with an unparalleled assault on the natural environment. Human existence has become intensely dependent on mechanical and electrical energy, which are almost entirely obtained from fossil fuels. During the same time, the world population has increased from a little less than a billion to well over seven billion and is still rising. The ecological footprint, which measures how much of global resources an individual or a society uses for an activity, has increased enormously. Today, we access resources from any and every corner of the world to meet our daily demands. These demands are higher the more rich and powerful we are.
The use of natural resources and our unending quest for growth in the number and variety of goods and services we consume also create a phenomenal quantity of wastes, of which carbon emission is only one. We have not spared the soil of the earth, the water in the lakes and rivers and oceans, and the air in the atmosphere. Human beings have become like a geophysical force with the power to influence the climate of the planet and its future trajectory of change. This, in short, has been the history of human development and the story of the rise and rise of a particular species that dares to control all of nature for its own benefit and comfort.
Given the scale and the breadth of this trend, sustaining it is impossible since there is only one planet we can bank on and, that too, we are already on overdraft. To get a more accurate and informed picture of where we are heading collectively, an interdisciplinary group of scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Centre have adopted a method which they call Planetary Boundaries Framework. According to this framework, there are nine key earth systems, which, if pushed beyond safety limits (through human activities), could result in large, sudden changes in nature that we have not experienced before. At the least, they would cost lives, livelihoods and lifestyles. Since 2008, these scientists have been closely monitoring research across the globe to figure out more precise estimates of the boundaries that define the safety limits and the ways and the means of adapting to discernable irreversible changes and mitigating future risks of sudden tipping points. They also update any new pollution or environmental stress considered significantly risky.
The Planetary Boundaries Framework considers the following nine critical earth systems for monitoring: climate change, biodiversity loss, phosphorus and nitrogen cycles, chemical pollution, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, land use patterns, freshwater use and atmospheric aerosol loading. These earth systems do not exist independently; they are part of a vast web of interrelated processes. Initially, around 2009, scientists involved in this project found that two of the earth systems had been pushed beyond safe zones. These were nitrogen cycle and biodiversity loss. In 2015, two more were added, namely land use patterns and the phosphorus cycle. In 2023, yet another couple were added to the list of safe zone violations. These were freshwater use and novel entities. The last one was added after recent research and includes items like microplastics that can cause a lot of environmental damage.
The crossing of the safety limits of many of the earth systems implies that the stability of the earlier geological age of the Holocene is no longer with us. Many of the changes are expected to have feedback loops on other systems that will only accelerate change. Consider one example: land-use change in agriculture is the primary cause of deforestation. This changes local weather patterns triggering extreme drought. Greater climate pattern change would trigger higher tree-cover loss, leading to a self-multiplying cycle. There will be effects on food productivity too. Currently, about 25% of climate-changing greenhouse gases come from food production, which is also the biggest driver of biodiversity loss, the main cause of land-use changes, one of the largest sources of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, and generates huge demands for freshwater. To get back to a safe territory for the planet, not only energy but food systems too will have to undergo fundamental transformations. Given the track record of the world in finding global solutions for climate change, such fundamental transformations might be extremely challenging.
Meanwhile, in policy circles, climate change is more about optics than systematic actions on the ground. Not many people are aware of the scale of the environmental problems beyond climate change and how close the world is to sharp, sudden, catastrophic changes. Those who find it difficult to survive, unsure of where their next meal would come from, could not care less about the future of the environment. The very rich, on the other hand, have access to a surfeit of resources and could waste them as if there were no tomorrow.
Economic growth and a business-as-usual attitude continue to be the mantras of the modern age. While the planet is dying a slow and torturous death, politicians are playing their own war-games on a chess board oblivious to the surrounding upheavals in planetary history.
Anup Sinha is former Professor of Economics, IIM Calcutta
