Cleantech.Guide

CONCEPTS – THE WHAT AND HOW OF CLIMATE CHANGE & GLOBAL WARMING

• What is climate change? – Is climate change just hotter temperature, or is it more? – Answer
• What causes climate change?  – How much of it is caused by natural factors, and how much because of human activities? – Answer
• How do we know climate is changing? – Are there scientific tools & methods through which we can figure out that climate is changing and the extent to which it is changing? – Answer
• What is global warming? – Does global warming simply mean that next year will be hotter than this year, or is the concept more nuanced? – Answer 
• What causes global warming? – So it is just CO2 emissons, right? – Answer
• Is earth getting warmer at the same rate everywhere? – Or, if some places getting more warm than the rest, what is the reason? – Answer
• How can a small proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere have such a large effect on our climate? – If the CO2 amount in atmosphere is just a few hundred parts per million, how can it result in so much harm? – Answer
• Why is a small change in global temperature a concern? – A couple of degrees warming should not really matter, right? Or should it? Answer 
• Why are climate change and global warming serious problems? – Are these really as seriously threatening as they are made out to be? Answer
• Could there be benefits too from climate change and global warming? – A warmer climate could actually benefit folks in the colder regions, couldn’t it? – Answer 
• How long have scientists been investigating human influences on climate? – Is this research just a decade old, or have the scientists been investigating this for much longer? – Answer
• Isn’t there disagreement among scientists about the causes and effects of global warming? – I heard some experts are not convinced about climate change and global warming… – Answer
• Couldn’t the sun be the cause of the recent global warming? – Sun causes all the warming anyway, so shouldn’t it be responsible for the increased warming and higher temperatures too? Answer
• Could the ozone layer depletion be causing global warming? – Does the ozone hole have any effect at all on global warming? Answer
• Does air pollution affect global warming? – Air pollution and higher temperatures seem to go together. Surely air pollution should have a hand in the increased temperature and global warming? Answer
• Do volcanoes contribute to climate change and global warming? – Volcanoes spew out so much hot lava into the atmosphere. Surely these should also be contributing to the warming? Answer
• What does eating meat have to do with global warming? – Come on, you just don’t want us to enjoy life! Or, hold on, is there any truth at all to this? – Answer
• What kinds of data do scientists use to study climate? – What kind of data and inputs do scientists use to arrive at the results and predictions? And where do they get these from? – Answer
• How reliable are computer models of the Earth’s climate? – How can anyone be certain that these models are not just theoretical stuff? – Answer

EFFECTS & POSSIBLE SCENARIOS DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE & GLOBAL WARMING

• What are the targets for solving climate change? – And what are the benchmarks and metrics used for these targets? –  Answer
• What are the harmful results from climate change and global warming? – Yeah OK, I have read about some of them, but I would like to know the complete list of what could go wrong! – Answer 
• What is the effect of climate change on agriculture and food production? – Are we going to have frequent famines? – Answer
• What is the effect of climate change on biodiversity? – Surely, a lot of critters around us are gonna be affected. But how and why? – Answer
• How are oceans affected by climate change? – Will the seas swallow all of us soon? – Answer
• Will climate change lead to more droughts? – Surely, a hotter temperature should mean more drought? Or is it not that simple an equation? – Answer
• Will climate change lead to more flooding? – Shouldn’t a hotter climate mean less rain and less floods? But I keep hearing about MORE floods. What’s going on? – Answer
• How is climate change affecting poor countries? – Global warming would not know how to discriminate between the rich and poor, right? So all folks – rich or poor – should be equally affected? – Answer
• How will climate change affect rainfall? – Will it be less, or more, rain? – Answer
• How will climate change impact fresh water security? – If there are more floods owing to global warming, then it should mean more water and not less water, am I correct? – Answer
• Will climate change cause wars? – I thought people fight because they hate each other. What has climate change and global warming got to do with wars, people? – Answer
• Will climate change affect human health? – Other than hotter temperatures creating health hazards, are there other ways through which global warming and climate change could have adverse effects on human health? – Answer
• What is permafrost and how does it relate to climate change? – Never heard of permafrost. Let it be whatever it is and wherever it is – why on earth should I care? – Answer
• What is the economic cost of climate change? – And yes, the money part. This damned global warming, how much is it gonna cost our governments, cities and neighbourhoods? – Answer

GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS

• What are the main greenhouse gases? – I thought CO2 was the only greenhouse gas. Are there more? – Answer
• If water vapour is a key greenhouse gas, why is its abundance in the atmosphere not causing any concern? – I heard water vapour contributes to the highest amount of greenhouse effect. If true, it is shocking that, nobody, absolutely nobody, is talking about it. Strange world! – Answer
• How much CO2 is currently in the atmosphere? – What is the cumulative amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? – Answer
• How much of the other greenhouse gases does the world emit? – And to what extent do the these gases contribute to the greenhouse effect? Are their contributions only a small % of what the contribution from CO2 is? Answer
• Which activities and industries emit the most CO2? – Is it just our cars and coal power plants, or do the industries and factories emit a good lot of CO2 too? – Answer 
• How much CO2 is emitted owing to power generation? – And do different types of power plants (coal-based, natural gas based, nuclear…) emit different amounts of CO2 per unit of electricity generated? – Answer
• How much CO2 is emitted owing to transport? – Must be a heck of a lot?? Answer

EFFORTS & SOLUTIONS – WHAT CAN BE DONE AND WHAT’S BEING DONE TO CONTROL GLOBAL WARMING?

• What is the United Nations doing to fight Climate Change and Global Warming? – Or does it really have anything to do with this? Answer
• What is COP 21? – Did anything productive come out of all the government bigwigs hobnobbing for days in Paris in 2015? Or was it all parties and hot air? – Answer
• What is IPCC? – Hmmm, I seem to have heard about it. What indeed is it, and what is its role in climate change control? – Answer
• What is the Kyoto Protocol? – Is it the stuff that created the carbon trading market? And what exactly is the current status of the protocol? – Answer
• What are the benefits of acting on climate change right away, rather than later? – Why can’t we just chill and wait for sometime? Perhaps the whole thing will just blow over? – Answer
• Can renewable energy sources contribute to reducing global warming? – I hear solar all over the place. Is it going to solve the global warming problem? – Answer
• Can energy efficiency be a potent tool in our fight against warming? – Energy saved is energy generated. So surely energy efficiency should be an important tool in this fight? – Answer
• What is geoengineering and is it a possible solution for global warming? – Never heard of this term Geoengineering – sounds quite fancy. What indeed is it? – Answer
• Can nuclear energy contribute to reducing global warming? – Nuclear energy seems to be everyone’s favourite whipping boy, but it seems to hold significant potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Is that true? – Answer
• What is climate finance and its role in fighting global warming? – We can talk all day on how to solve global warming, but nothing is gonna move without the money. Where is all the money to control climate change gonna come from? – Answer
• What is a carbon footprint and what is its relevance to climate change and global warming? – Can I use this tool to understand how much my contribution to global warming is? – Answer
• What’s Clean Development Mechanism? – Is it the same CDM I keep hearing about in the context of carbon trading? – Answer
• What is a carbon price and why do we need one? – Surely, if CO2 is the villain, then it should be penalised! But how much should be the penalty and how can the penalty be imposed? – Answer
• What are the world’s powerful businesses doing about Climate Change? – Can low carbon processes and profits go together? – Answer
• What are the world’s power plants doing about Climate Change? – What are they doing to reduce CO2 emissions and do something about capturing the CO2 that does get emitted? – Answer