Assignment 1, Climate change

Chepkoech Ronnice

Reg. no. TU01-EM332-0006/2020

Taita Taveta University

MSc Environmental Engineering

authors of the shared documents (Hardin 1968, Limits to Growth A, Limits to

Growth B). (10 Marks)

Climate change is a global phenomenon of climate alteration due to the usual climate of the

planet such as increased temperature trends described by global warming, sea-level rise, ice mass

loss, and extreme weather events caused by both human activities such as burning fossils fuels

deforestation, and natural activities such as volcanic eruptions, ocean currents, and solar

variations.

Limits to growth examine five main trends of global concern which include increasing

industrialization, rapid population growth, malnutrition, depletion of non-renewable resources,

and environmental pollution.

Climate change and limits to growth-share some common viewpoints. For example, authors in

limits of growth concluded that if the present growth trends in industrialization, population

growth, food production, depletion of non-renewable resources, and environmental pollution

continue unchanged, the limits to growth will be reached sometime within the next one hundred

years and the most likely result will be a rather rapid and uncontainable deterioration in both

population and industrial capacity (Meadows, 2004). This conclusion is relevant to climate

change because if the main causes of climate change are not managed by either eliminating or

reducing them, the impacts after some time will be sudden and uncontrollable.

Both climate change and limits of growth oppose technological interventions to solve the

challenges related to climate change and growth as opposed to physical variables. According to

the authors of limits to growth, technologies take time, require capital, materials, and energy
flow and they tend to collapse. Climate change cannot solely rely on technologies to remedy the

situation since technologies require an update as time changes due to changes in climatic

conditions. Ethical and cultural changes in addition to technologies are required to manage

climate change and growth limits.

Climate change is also relevant to the limit of growth in a scenario where they both share a

common managerial outlook in the Earth as a system that can be observed, managed, and

controlled. The authors of limits of growth argued that once a limit is overshot, the consequences

are observed and successfully bring back human activity to sustainable conditions using a

managed process or through nature. Limits of growth concluded in every book that “there is time

left to address the limits, provided the citizenry and political leaders are willing to take the

necessary steps” (Meadows, 2004). This applies to climate change where the conditions are

constantly managed to ensure a sustainable environment.

Climate change and limits of growth's main concerns are maintaining the global economy at the

current levels. The main challenge associate with climate change is the increased cost of

managing and sustaining the environment to normal conditions. The authors of limits of growth’s

main concern are not the world is about to exhaust the resources but rather the increased cost

required to sustain the quantity and quality of material flows required by the economy.

According to limits of growth “the notion of zero growth is so primitive” (Meadows, 2004) and

they do not believe in no growth. This is relevant to climate change since climate will

continuously change. Therefore, the concern is how to manage and resources and efforts required

to sustain the environmental conditions with constantly changing climate.

Climate change is a relevant limit of growth where model results from the two perspectives lead

to a public perception that the model results are more or less accurate predictions of the future
besides their self-professed intentions. This is illustrated from one of the critic’s quotes which

says “Happily, we should expect that their second revision, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year

Update will reassure us that their original projections were far too pessimistic and that all is

and will continue to be well”(Meadows, 2004). On the other hand, climate change predictions of

the future based on past data can be more or less accurate predictions because of increasing

industrialization, rapid population growth, increased malnutrition, depletion of non-renewable

resources, and pollution.

2. Using keywords such as radiative forcing, Paris Agreement, carbon credits, CDM,

REDD, among others, explain how policy action and process optimisation in a sector

of your choice could help address the problem of global warming. Hint: Read recent

literature on COVID-19 and the importance of emissions to the climate change

discourse here: Link (15 Marks)

Global warming of the climate system is unambiguous, many of the observed changes are

unprecedented over years. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the snow and ice have

diminished, and the sea level has risen. Policy action implementation and optimisation through

integrated responses can help address the problem of global warming.

Radiative forcing is one of the driving forces that contribute to global warming problems. This is

energy imbalance imposed on the climate system either by human activities or externally such as

volcanic emissions, deliberate land modification, anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases,

aerosols, and their precursors (Ramaswamy et al., 2001). A radiative forcing provides a simple

quantitative basis for comparing the response in global mean temperature to different imposed

agents. Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere associated with human
activities that contribute to about two-thirds of the radiative forcing gases. Methane is another

greenhouse that contributes to radiative forcing in the atmosphere. Methane lasts for less than a

decade in the atmosphere. According to the past research, methane contributes about 16% of the

radiative forcing by long-lived greenhouse gases, where approximately 40% of methane is

released into the atmosphere by natural sources and about 60% originates from anthropogenic

sources such as agriculture, fossil fuel exploitation, and fuel-burning (Ramaswamy et al., 2001).

Other gases that contribute to radiative forcing include Nitrous Oxide, CO, H2, So2, O3, and

isotopes (Sicard et al., 2020).

Paris agreement is a poly action that was implemented in 2015 to address climate change

problems. This agreement aims in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere to

reduce global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels while finding ways to

limit the increase to 1.5 degrees (Oberthür, 2018). limiting the rise to 1.5C helps in reducing

global warming. The agreement commits to reduce global warming and climate change in major

emitting countries. Under the Paris agreement, every country sets its emission-reduction targets

called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which are revised every five years (Oberthür,

2018). Also, under the agreement, developed countries are required to help developing countries

adapt to climate change and shift to renewable energy.

A carbon credit is another policy action put in place to reduce greenhouse emissions to the

atmosphere hence reducing global warming problems. A carbon credit is a tradable permit that

provides the owner of the credit the right to emit 1 ton of carbon dioxide or any other equivalent

greenhouse gas to the atmosphere (van der Gaast, 2018). This policy aims to reduce the emission

of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to reduce the problems of global warming. Carbon
credits are market mechanisms for the minimization of greenhouse gases emission. Policy action

sets the caps on greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the immediate reduction of the emission

is not economically viable for some industries. Therefore, they can purchase carbon credits to

comply with the emission cap. Industries that achieve the carbon offsets are normally rewarded

with additional carbon credits. The sale of credit surpluses may be used to subsidize future

projects for the reduction of emissions.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a policy action that enables a country with an

emission-limitation agreement under the Kyoto Protocol to implement an emission-reduction

project in developing countries. This project can earn saleable certified emission reduction

(CER) credits, each equivalent to one ton of CO2, which helps in attaining their targets in

reducing gas emission. For example, a rural electrification project using solar panels or the

installation of more energy-efficient boilers (Benites-Lazaro, 2018). This policy improves

sustainable development and greenhouse gas emission reductions while proving industries

flexible strategies of reducing emissions and preventing global warming problems.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) is a policy action which

involves incentive for altering the use forest resources. This policy provides a new way of

reducing CO2 emissions by paying for actions that prevent deforestation and degradation. The

payment mechanisms include carbon trading and paying for forest management. REDD helps in

reducing the global warming problems by implementing different strategies which include

funding rewards good forest management in developing countries and makes poor forest

management, such as indiscriminate unenforced logging, less profitable than the sustainable

alternative (Myers, 2007).

web-based modelling application, to simulate the following scenarios based on the

following data:

(a) Initial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of 383 ppmv (parts per million by

volume) in 2007, assume positive inflow feedback with an estimated annual rate

of increase of 0.49%, and simulate the possible business-as-usual scenarios of

carbon dioxide ppmv in the years 2010, 2015, 2020, and 2030. (10 Marks)

Table 1: carbon dioxide level from simulations results

year Carbon dioxide level(ppmv)

2010 388.66

2015 398.27

2020 408.13

2030 428.57
Figure 1: A stock-and-flow system of carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere

Figure 2: Simulation results of the level of carbon from 2007 to 2030

forest area clearance rate of 1.1% per month. Determine after how many

months the forest is likely to get depleted given these simultaneous processes and

state what kind of model behavior these processes lead to. (10 Marks).

From the simulation results, the number of months the forest is likely to get depleted=375

months.

The type of model behavior as illustrated in figure 4 is a nonlinear model because the area of

forest cover decreases or is depleted with an increase in the number of months.

Figure 3: A stock-and-flow system of forest cover

(c) Assuming that this is a tropical forest that can store 250 tons of carbon per

hectare in a year and that on average one car operating in the tropics can

produce one ton of carbon emissions per year, estimate how many such cars the

forest above could offset their carbon emissions for one year of driving. Briefly

discuss the policy implications of your findings as far as the forest conservation

policy in your home country is concerned. (15 Marks)

From the insight maker simulations results, the number of cars the forest above could offset their

carbon emissions for one year of driving = 250 cars.

1 ton of carbon emissions per car per year is too way higher than the recommended amount of

carbon per year based on Kenya's forest conservation policy( approximately 0.5 tons per year per

car).
Figure 5: A stock-and-flow system dynamics model of the carbon storage capacity of tropical

forest

Figure 6: Simulation results of carbon emission per car.

Meadows, D., Randers, J. and Meadows, D., 2004. Limits to growth: The 30-year update.

Chelsea Green Publishing.

Myers, E.C., 2007. Policies to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation

(REDD) in tropical forests. Resources Magazine, 7.

Ramaswamy, V., Boucher, O., Haigh, J., Hauglustine, D., Haywood, J., Myhre, G.,

Nakajima, T., Shi, G. and Solomon, S., 2001. Radiative forcing of climate. Climate change, 349.

Oberthür, S. and Groen, L., 2018. Explaining goal achievement in international

negotiations: the EU and the Paris Agreement on climate change. Journal of European Public

Policy, 25(5), pp.708-727.

van der Gaast, W., Sikkema, R. and Vohrer, M., 2018. The contribution of forest carbon

credit projects to addressing the climate change challenge. Climate Policy, 18(1), pp.42-48.

Benites-Lazaro, L.L., Gremaud, P.A. and Benites, L.A., 2018. Business responsibility

regarding climate change in Latin America: An empirical analysis from Clean Development

Mechanism (CDM) project developers. The Extractive Industries and Society, 5(2), pp.297-306.

Sicard, P., De Marco, A., Agathokleous, E., Feng, Z., Xu, X., Paoletti, E., Rodriguez,

J.J.D. and Calatayud, V., 2020. Amplified ozone pollution in cities during the COVID-19

lockdown. Science of the Total Environment, 735, p.139542.

Screenshots of a stock-and-flow system dynamics model from Insight Maker