Net-Zero. The awakening word that we hear every day, or perhaps not, depending on our interest, engagement in social discussion or content reading, and belief in science. Just a personal note, I have actually set my social media contents both by believers and non-believers of global warming. I find it interesting to see both side’s comments. Some generates lead for my further personal reading, and some just keeps me entertained. Most countries in the world have set their own target to achieve this Net-Zero. Germany and Sweden being the top of the line, targeting year 2045, most countries targeting year 2050, including the United States and some major contributors are lagging behind, setting their target as year 2070 ( India ) or 2060 ( China ).
As Climate Change is a very sensitive subject as well as a matter of believing the science, of course there will be two extreme groups: believers and deniers. Greta Thunberg in our recent history has become the icon of the one extreme end of the believers’ group and Donald Trump on the opposite end who has 87.6 million followers and as we know what our 45th President is famous for, he tweeted on Dec 06, 2013, as “Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee – I’m in Los Angeles and it’s freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”.
I can imagine, we, the people of this world must be polarized either in believers or deniers’ group in whatever extent, but I also can imagine there might be a large number of populations in the world, who doesn’t even know what we are talking about in mitigating climate challenges and if that individual has any role to play or not. In my simple eyes, I do actually focus on those people who are in oblivion, and doesn’t belong to any of these two groups.
Since this is a very high priority matter for our future, there are all kinds of action tracking group constantly monitoring the pledges and action points given by the each nation. UN, IEA and all major organizations constantly keep on publishing the update of those action points. And on those action points, we see broad based classifications like Governmental Policies and controls in place to mitigate the GHG emissions by the sectors like : Electricity and Heat Production, Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Use, Buildings, Transportation, Industry and Other Energy sectors.
( https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data )
In a pie chart, do we pay attention at the smaller or bigger pieces of the pie? Well, depending on the context, both are important and subject of interest. The sectors that are tracked to monitor their contributions as emitter of GHG are : Electricity and Heat Production ( 25% ), Agriculture, Forestry and other land usage ( 24 % ), Industry (21%), followed by Transportation (14%), Other energy (10%) and Buildings (6%). Within this category, obviously the big names are fossil fuel powered electric plants, industries like Cement, Steel and Glass etc. – those are constantly under scrutiny, literally by everybody. It seems like that a major focus has shifted towards believing or hypothesizing that we will live in a world that will stop producing cement or steels !
My very personal view is, I am fully aware that some major critical industries, critical to exist for the civilization, has a fare share of GHG emission in the pie, but I am also fully in cognizance that we must not over play this card over the industries and push the industries abruptly to adopt green-washing and literally do nothing kind of attitude. Cement and Steel and overall building industries sector is the big name and word out there that everyone is watching, while other very critical pices of that pie are not in our alert level – I have my personal reason, why so, which I am going to explain in here.
So, I am setting aside decarbonizing the Industry for now, since I am most conversant on this topic, I believe there are some unrealistic approach on those targets and achievements that the nations have pledged – saving it for any of my future writings. I thought to ask myself, I, being an alert citizen on the Climate Change topic, how is my lifestyle? How else is everyone else’s lifestyle around me? Does our lifestyle have a place in that pie of GHG emission? I certainly think that I do not have to answer these questions, as the answer is so obvious.
Based on my observations around me, my tiny dataset tells me that we are living in oblivion. The lifestyles that we have chosen that persists and in some cases taking a turn in wrong direction that will shift the individual’s carbon footprint to the higher end. Are we conscious buyer? Do we think about taking a little personal discomfort to change our home’s temperature setting ( a little warmer in summer and a little colder in winter ) ? Do we think our home’s GHG footprint? When we do grocery, do we realize that all the animal proteins that we buy has a deep impact on GHG footprint? Do we finish our important “Environmental Meeting” by talking whole day all “actions and pledges” and toast with expensive wine with a delicate piece of stake on the table? Do we consciously pick our electricity provider whether green or not? Do we think about making conscious decision on how we will move around by the modes of transportation? I do not have data to prove or disprove on any of those, some action tracking groups may have, but I have my observations, and based on that I know for a fact, we, the individuals are not doing enough, let alone even close to adequate level to do our fair share to fight this challenge.
The logical next question, I would imagine is why we, people are not really waking up in somewhat extent to change our lifestyles, that also has an impact on GHG emissions. My analysis is, the States and Governments are not doing enough to make this as public education goal to aware people. That education needs to be creative, thought provoking and fact based – so people will start waking up when they take decisions.
We can keep all our eyes and ears to monitor the already overly monitored Cement, Steel, Transportation sectors and by any means I am not telling we should not monitor, but apart from eyes and ears, many brains of every nation who has influential abilities, should educate people in their respective society so that they can also be part of achieving that Net Zero target.
Last but not the least, corporate and government green-washing should actually stop if they truly live for their beliefs or what actually they publicly say. My biggest entertaining news was when I found COP27 that took place at Sharm-Al-Shaikh at the end of 2022 was sponsored by Coca Cola – when Coca Cola and its associated brands are named as worst plastic polluter for five years in a row.
Oh, dear mother nature, your sons and daughters are living in oblivion and self-fulfilling monetary achievement, help us waking up to do the right things for you.
Manirul Haque/Houston/TX