Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time and there is no doubt about it. The concentration of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide skyrocketed over the last few decades. Government and private sectors have to take bold action to control these greenhouse gases by using modern technology. Especially private sectors, they will have to come up with new ideas about new technology so we can face this problem together. It won’t solve this problem within a year but if we start now we will see the results very soon. A few sectors where we can focus and apply new technology to face climate change are Energy, Agriculture, Built Environment, Transport, Industry, etc.
The World’s 35% greenhouse gas emissions come from energy consumption and it will increase day by day if we don’t use modern technology for climate change mitigation. But the good news is renewable energy is getting cheaper and more advanced. According to Morgan Stanley research by 2020 renewable energy and related technology will be more available all over the world. In the USA the solar industry will grow by 25% each year, which will be $422 billion by 2022, according to the article “Using Technology to Fight Climate Change”. Not only in the USA but also all over the world smart-grid and Internet-of-Things technologies are making energy grids more efficient, considering the dependable sources of power on electricity grids. China is the leading country where the government invests tons of money to focus on reducing pollution and energy emissions. Its goal is to achieve 40% of the total renewable power capacity by 2020.
The world’s 13% of greenhouse emissions come from the Agriculture sector. In Argentina, Australia, and India more than a third of total greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. Some of the countries like Bangladesh and Rwanda have mostly agricultural-based economies. So modern technology can play an important role to control greenhouse emissions. But the good news is according to the article “Using Technology to Fight Climate Change” AgTech investments reached $4.6 billion in 2015, which is 95% higher than the previous year. It focuses mostly on biofuels, seed genetics, and water desalination. Also, there is considerable investment in research to develop new technologies to reduce methane emissions from livestock. Countries like Australia, Argentina, Nigeria, and Bangladesh are investing money into their agriculture sector to reduce the greenhouse emissions rates, which is good news for all of us.
The world’s 40% of greenhouse emissions come from buildings and 10%-12% from deforestation. Some countries like Brazil are cutting down trees for farming and that’s why it’s losing the Amazon rain forest at an alarming rate. To solve these types of problems we have to apply advanced agriculture techniques and apply modern technology. The energy-efficiency movement in buildings is a global topic now. In the USA green-building certifications
jumped, from 296 in 2006 to 36,300 in 2016 according to the article “Using Technology to Fight Climate Change”. A country like Poland and some others are joining this same path too. New technologies like solar panels and green roofs are common now in our city building. It helps for beautification and cools down the building too. Some countries provide financial support to private house owners if they want to use solar panels. Another major step will be the electric vehicle sector, by 2050 global car sales of 75% will be electric cars. Public transportation will be more energy-efficient and cheap. In the end, I will say if we can allocate all of our resources and invest more money in research to develop new technology it will help to control the greenhouse emissions and give us a better planet to live on.
image:
https://edinburghsensors.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/renewables.png
Work Cited:
Edward S. Rubin Carnegie Mellon University, et al. “Innovation and Climate Change.” OpenMind, www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/innovation-and-climate-change/.
“Using Technology to Fight Climate Change.” Morgan Stanley, www.morganstanley.com/ideas/using-technology-for-climate-change-mitigation
