In order to prevent catastrophic effects, the climate treaty that was signed in Paris in 2015 called for restricting the increase in the temperature of the Earth’s surface to 1.5 degrees Celsius over the levels that existed in the middle of the 19th century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offered more details by releasing a statement back in 2018, explaining that if we want to keep global warming below the 1.5C threshold, greenhouse gas emissions need to decrease by 43 percent by the year 2030. The planet has only warmed by a meager 1.2 degrees Celsius so far, yet this has been enough to significantly increase the lethality, frequency, and length of mega-storms, droughts, and heatwaves.
On Thursday (September 14), former heads of state and international organizations made a demand for national moratoriums to be placed on the deployment of technology that would reduce the effect of the Sun’s radiation on the Earth’s climate. At the moment, there is no formal global regulation in place for the research and development or implementation of such innovations, and our awareness of the dangers they pose is only partially formed.
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As we approach the midpoint to that deadline, emissions have not decreased, but rather increased, explained Pascal Lamy, former World Trade Organization head.
Because of the failure to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, which are the primary cause of global warming, there have been comments made that solar geoengineering, which was largely disregarded a decade ago as being needlessly dangerous, may buy time until the world ramps up its efforts to cut emissions of greenhouse gases and remove CO2.
According to the findings of various studies, artificially lowering the amount of radiation that comes from the Sun is likely to cause disturbances in the monsoon rains that fall in western Africa and South Asia, which might have a devastating effect on the rain-dependent agriculture that provides sustenance for hundreds of millions of people. Increasing the brightness of marine clouds by filling them with salt crystals from the ocean is one approach for modifying solar radiation. Another option involves deploying enormous reflectors in space to deflect away sunlight that is destined for Earth.
A phenomenon referred to as “termination shock” would occur if there was an abrupt halt in the process of filling the Earth’s atmosphere with particles that block the Sun’s rays. Scientists warn that this would cause the surface of the Earth to heat up very quickly. Who can predict what will come next?!
