Need for this study/campaign.

–  As human inhabitants rise, so is the feasibility for conflict over living space and food with wildlife. Natural Resources like forests, swamps and other water bodies have been encroached on and destroyed.

• Climate Change includes both global warming driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns.
• The largest driver of warming is the emission of greenhouse gases of which more than 90% are carbon dioxide (Co2)  and methane, fossil fuel burning(coal, oil and natural gas) for energy consumption is the main source of these emissions, with additional contributions from agriculture, deforestation and manufacturing.
• Temperature rise is accelerated or tempered by climate feedbacks, such as loss of sunlight-reflecting snow and ice cover, increased water vapor(a greenhouse gas itself), and changes to land and ocean carbon sinus.
• Temperature rise on land is about twice the global average increase leading to desert expansion and more common heat waves and wildfires.
• Temperature rise is also amplified in the Arctic where it has contributed to melting permafrost glacial retreat and sea ice loss.
• Warmer temperatures are increasing rates of evaporation, causing more intense storms and weather extremes.

Impacts on ecosystems include the relocation or extinction of many species as their environment changes, most immediately in coral reefs, mountains, and the Arctic.

• Climate change threatens people with food insecurity, water scarcity, flooding, infectious diseases, extreme heat, economic losses, and displacement

Drivers of recent temperature rise.

The climate system experiences various cycles on its own which can last for years, decades or even centuries.

Other changes are caused by an imbalance of energy that is “External” to the climate system, but not always external to the earth.

Examples of external forces include changes in the composition of the atmosphere e.g (increased concentrations of greenhouse gases), solar luminosity, volcanic eruptions, and variations in the Earth’s Orbit around the sun.

• Greenhouse gases.
• The earth absorbs sunlight, and then radiates it as heat. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb and remit infrared radiation, slowing the rate at which it can pass through the atmosphere and escape into space.
• On the other hand, concentrations of gases such as carbon dioxide, tropospheric ozone, and nitrous oxide are not temperature-depend, and are therefore considered external forces
• Human activity since the industrial Revolution, mainly extracting and burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, resulting in a radioactive imbalance.
• Additional carbon dioxide emissions came from deforestation and industrial processes, which include the carbon dioxide released by the chemical reactions for making cement, steel, aluminum and fertilizer.
• Methane emissions come from livestock, manure, rice cultivation, landfills, waste water, coal mining as well as oil and gas extraction.
• Nitrous oxide emissions largely come from microbial decomposition of inorganic and organic fertilizer.

From a production stand point, the primary sources of global greenhouse gas emissions are estimated as; electricity and heat (25%), agriculture and Forestry (24%), industry and manufacturing (21%), transport (14%) and building (6%).

• Despite the contribution of deforestation to greenhouse gas emissions, the earth’s land surface, particularly its forests, remain a significant carbon sink of carbon dioxide.

Natural processes such as carbon fixation in the soil and photosynthesis, modern offset the greenhouse gas contributions from deforestation.

The ocean also serves a significant carbon sink via a two-step process; first, Carbon dioxide dissolves in surface water, afterwards the oceans over turning circulation distributes it deep into the ocean’s interior, where it accumulates overtime as part of the carbon cycle.

• Aerosols and Clouds.
• Air pollution, in the form of aerosols not only puts a large burden on human health, but also affects the climate on a large scale.

From 1961 to 1990, a gradual reduction in the amount of sun light reaching the Earth’s surface was observed, a phenomenon popularly known as global dimming typically attributed to aerosol removal by precipitation gives tropospheric aerosols an atmospheric life time of only about a week, while stratospheric aerosols can remain in the atmosphere for a few years.

Globally, aerosols have been declining since 1990, meaning that they no longer mask greenhouse gas warming as much.

• In addition to their direct effects (scattering and absorbing solar radiation), aerosols have indirect effects on the Earth’s radiation budget.
• Sulphate aerosols act as cloud condensation nuclei and thus lead to clouds that have more and smaller cloud droplets. These clouds reflect solar radiation more efficiently than clouds with fewer layer droplets.

The above effect also causes droplets to be more uniform in size, which reduces the growth of raindrops and makes clouds more reflective to incoming sunlight. Indirect effects of aerosols are largely uncertainty in radioactive forcing.

• While aerosols typically limit global warming by reflecting sunlight, black carbon in soot that falls on snow or ice can contribute to global warming. Not only does this increase melting and sea level rise. Limiting new black carbon deposits in the artic would reduce global warming by 0.2 ^oC ( 0.36 ^oF) by 2050.
• Changes of the land surface.

Humans change the Earth’s surface mainly to create agricultural land. Today, agriculture takes up 34% of the earth’s land area, while 26% is forests and 30% is uninhabitable (glaciers, deserts etc).

• The amount of forested land continues to decrease, largely due to conversion to crop land in the tropics.
• This deforestation is the most aspect of land surface change affecting global warming. The main causes of deforestation are; permanent land-use change from forests to agricultural land producing products.
• In addition to affecting greenhouse gas concentrations, land use changes affect global warming through a variety of other chemical and physical mechanisms.
• Changing the type of vegetation in a region affects the local temperature, by changing how much of sun light gets reflected back into space (albedo), and how much heat is lost by evaporation. For instance, the change from dark forest to grassland makes the surface lighter, causing it to reflect more sunlight.
• Deforestation can also contribute to changing temperatures by affecting the release of aerosols and other chemical compounds that influence clouds, and changing wind patterns.
• In tropic and temperate areas the net effect is to produce significant warming, while at latitudes closer to the poles again of albedo(as forest is replaced by snow cover) leads to an overall cooling affect.

Globally, these effects are estimated to have led to slight cooling, dominated by an increase in surface albedo.

• Solar and volcanic activity.

Physical climate models are unable to reproduce the rapid warming observed in recent decades when taking into account only variations in solar output and volcanic activity.

As the sun is the earth’s primary energy source, changes in incoming sunlight directly affect the climate system.

Solar irradiance has been measured directly by satellites, and indirect measurements are available from early 1600’s there has been no upward trend in the amount of the sun’s energy reaching the earth.

Further evidence of greenhouse gases being the cause of recent climate change come from measurements showing the warming of the lower atmosphere(the troposphere), and coupled with the cooling of the upper atmosphere(the stratosphere).

If solar variations were responsible for the observed warming, warming of both the troposphere and stratosphere could be expected, but that has not been the case.

Explosive volcanic eruptions represent the largest natural forcing over industrial era. When the eruption is sufficiently strong (with sulphurdioxide reaching the stratosphere), sunlight can be partially blocked for a couple of years, with a temperature signal lasting about as long.

In industrial era, volcanic activity has had negligible impacts on global temperature trends.

Why combat climate change and global warming?

Climate change feedback.

The response of the climate system to an initial forcing is modified by feedbacks; increased by self-reinforcing feedbacks and reduced by balancing feedbacks.

The main re-enforcing feedbacks are the water-vapour feedback, the ice-albedo feedback, and probably the net effect of clouds. The primary balancing feedback to global temperature change is radioactive cooling to space as infrared radiation in response to raising surface temperature.

In addition to temperature feedbacks, there are feedbacks in the carbon cycle, such as the fertilizing effect of carbon dioxide on plant growth.

Uncertainty over feedbacks is the major reason why different climate models project different magnitudes of warming for a given amount of emissions.

As air gets warmer, it can hold more moisture. After initial warming due to emissions of greenhouse gases, the atmosphere will hold more water. As water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, this further heats the atmosphere.

If cloud cover increases, more sunlight will be reflected back into space, cooling the planet. If the clouds become more high and thin, they act as an insulator, reflecting heat below back downwards and warming the planet.

Overall, the net cloud feedback over the industrial era has probably exacerbated temperature rise.

The reduction of snow cover and sea ice in the Artic reduces the albedo of earth’s surface. More of the sun’s energy is now absorbed in these regions, contributing to amplifications of artic temperature changes.

Artic amplifications are also melting permafrost which releases methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Around half of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions have been absorbed by land by the oceans.

On land, elevated carbon dioxide and extended growing season have stimulated plant growth. Climate change increases droughts and heat waves that inhibit plant growth, which makes it uncertain whether this carbon sink will continue.

Soils contain large quantities of carbon and may release some when they heat up.

And more carbon dioxide and heat are absorbed by ocean, it acidifies, its circulation changes and phyto plankton takes up less carbon, decreasing the rate at which the ocean absorbs atmospheric carbon.

Climate change can increase methane emissions from wetlands, marine and freshwater systems, and permafrost.

Impacts

Physical Environment.

The environmental effects of climate change are broad and far-reaching, affecting oceans, ice and weather. Changes may occur rapidly or gradually. Evidence of these comes from studying climate change in the past, from modeling, and modern observations.

• Since 1950’s droughts and heat waves have appeared simultaneously with increasing frequency.
• Extremely dry and wet events within monsoon period have increased. The maximum rainfall and wind speed is likely increasing.
• Global sea level is rising as a consequence of glacial melt, melt of the ice sheets and thermal expansion.
• Increased ocean warmth is undermining and threatening to unplug glacier outlets, risking a large melt of the ice sheet.
• Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have led to changes in ocean chemistry. An increase in dissolved carbon dioxide is causing oceans to acidify.
• In addition, oxygen levels are decreasing as oxygen is less soluble in warmer water, with hypoxic dead zones expanding as a result of a legal blooms stimulated by higher temperatures, higher carbon dioxide levels, ocean deoxygenation and eutrophication.

Nature and wildlife.

• Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and an extended growing season have resulted in global greening, whereas heat waves and drought have reduced eco system productivity in some regions. The future balance of these opposing effects is unclear.
• Climate change has contributed to the expansion of drier climate zones, such as the expansion of deserts in the subtropics.
• The size and speed of global warming is making abrupt changes in eco systems most likely it is expected that climate change will result in the extinction of many species.
• Harmful algae bloom enhanced by climate change and eutrophication cause anoxia, disruption of food webs and massive large scale mortality of marine life.
• Coastal eco systems are under particular stress, with almost half of wetlands having disappeared as a consequence of climate change and other human impacts.

Humans.

The effects of climate change on humans, mostly due to warming and shifts in precipitation have been detected worldwide.

Regional impacts on climate change are now observable on all continents and across ocean regions, with low-latitude, less developed areas facing the greatest risk.

• Continued emission of greenhouse gases will lead to further warming and long-lasting changes in the climate system, with potentially “severe, persuasive and irresistible impacts” for people and eco systems.

Climate change risks are unevenly distributed but are generally greater for disadvantaged people and developed countries.

Food and Health.

• Health impacts include both the direct effects of extreme weather, leading to injury and loss of life as well as indirect effects such as under nutrition brought on crop failures.

Various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate which affects children more severely.

• Young children are the most vulnerable to food shortages, and together with older people, to extreme heat. The other major health risk associated with climate change includes air and water quality.
• Climate change is affecting food security and has caused reduction in global mean yields of maize, wheat and soya bean and many other food crops. Further warming could further reduce global yields of major crops.
• Crop rotation will probably be negatively affected in low-latitude countries while effects at northern attitude may be positive or negative.

Up to an additional 183 Million people worldwide particularly those with lower incomes, all at a risk of hunger as a consequence of these impacts.

• The effects of warming on the ocean impact fish stocks, with a global decline in the maximum catch potential. Only polar stocks are showing an increased potential.

Livelihoods.

Economic damages due to climate change have been underestimated, and may be severe, with the probability of disastrous tail-risk events being nontrival.

• Climate change has likely already increased global economic inequality, and is projected to continue doing so.

Most of the severe impacts are expected in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia, where existing poverty is already exacerbated. The World Bank estimates the climate change would drive over 120Million people into poverty by 2030.

Low-lying islands and coastal communities are threatened through hazards posed by sea level rise, such as flooding and permanent submergence. This could lead to statelessness of populations in island nations.

• In some regions, rise in temperature and humidity may be too severe for human beings to adopt. With worse-case climate change, models project that almost one third of humanity might live in extremely hot and uninhabitable climates similar to the current climate found in the Sahara. These factors plus weather extremes can drive environmental migration both within and between countries.
• Displacement of people is expected to increase as a consequence of more frequent extreme weather, sea level rise, and conflict a rising from increased competition over natural resources.

Climate change may also increase vulnerabilities leading to trapped populations in some areas who are not able to move due to lack of resources.

Climate change impacts on people.

Environmental Migration: Sparser rainfall leads to desertification that harms agriculture and can displace populations.

Agricultural Changes; Droughts, rising temperatures and extreme weather negatively impact agriculture.

Tidal flooding: Sea-level rise increases flooding in low-lying coastal regions.

Storm intensification.

Objectives

• Enabling a more sustainable economy and new jobs through growth in “green technology” industries.
• Ensuring our export products are competitive on a global market that is increasingly carbon-aware.
• Reinforcing our “clean green” reputation, supporting existing industries such as agriculture and tourism that rely on that brand.
• Health improvements from lower air pollution and warmer and drier homes and increased fitness from walking and recycling.
• Social justice and equity by protecting the vulnerable from rising fossil fuel, energy and food prices

Research hypothesis/questions

1. How effective is conservation and preservation of nature and wild life?
2. How possible can it be?
3. What does it take to conserve and preserve nature and wild life?

The context below has been ably studied and believed to answer the above questions and implementation of the same will lead to a success in the forth coming and existing challenges.

Methodology.

Responses: mitigation and adaptation.

• Climate change impacts can be mitigated by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and by enhancing sinks that absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

In order to limit global warming to less than 1.5^oC with a high likelihood of success, global greenhouse gas emission need to be zero by 2050 with a target of 2.0 ^oC.

• This requires far reaching, systematic changes on an unprecedented scale in energy, land, cities, transport, building and industry.
• To reduce pressures on eco systems and enhance their carbon sequestration capacities, changes would also be necessary in sectors such as forestry and agriculture.

Other approaches to mitigating climate change entail a higher level of risk. Scenarios that limit global warming to 1.5 ^oC typically project the large scale use of carbon dioxide removal methods over the 21^stCentury.

Solar radiation Management (SRM) methods have also been explored as a possible supplement to deep reductions in emissions. However, SRM would raise significant ethical and legal issues, and the risks are poorly understood.

Clean energy

Sustainable energy and Sustainable Transport.

Long term decarbonisation scenarios point to rapid and significant investment in renewable energy, which includes solar and wind power, bioenergy, geothermal energy and hydro power.

Solar and wind have seen substantial growth and progress over the last few years; photo voltaic solar and onshore kind are the cheapest forms of adding new power generation capacity in most countries.

To achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, renewable energy would become the dominant form of electricity generation, rising to 85%, or more by 2050 in some scenarios. The use of electricity for other needs, such as heating would rise to the point where electricity becomes the largest form of overall energy.

Some environmental and land use concerns have been associated with large solar and wind projects, while bioenergy is often  not carbon neutral and may have negative consequences of food security.

Hydro power growth has been slowing and is set to decline further due to concerns about social and environmental concern.

Clean energy improves human health by minimizing climate change and has the near-term benefit of reducing air pollution death, which were estimated at 7 Million annually in 2016.

Energy efficiency.

Reducing energy demand is another feature of decarbonisation scenarios and plans. In addition to directly reducing emissions, energy demand reduction measures provide more flexibility for low carbon energy development, aid in the management of electricity grid, and minimize carbon-intensive infrastructure development.

Efficiency strategies to reduce energy demand vary by sector. In transport, gains can be made by switching passengers and freight to more efficient travel modes, such as buses and trains, and increasing the use of electric vehicles.

Industrial strategies to reduce energy demand include increasing the energy efficiency of heating systems and motors, designing less energy-intensive products, and increasing product lifetimes.

In the building sector the focus is on better design of new buildings, and incorporating higher for existing structures. Building would see additional electrification with use of technologies like heat pumps, which have higher efficiency than fossil fuels.

Agriculture, Industry & Transport.

Agriculture & forestry face a triple challenge of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, preventing the further conversions of forests to agricultural land, and meeting increases in world food demand.

A suite of actions could reduce agriculture/forestry-based greenhouse gas emissions by 66% from 2010 levels by reducing growth in demand of food and other agricultural products, increasing land productivity, protecting and restoring forests, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production.

In addition to the industrial demand reduction measures mentioned earlier, steel and cement productions which together are responsible for about 13% of industrial carbon dioxide emissions, present particular challenges. In these industries, carbon-intensive materials such as corks and lime play an integral role in the production process. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions here requires research driven efforts aimed at decarburizing the chemistry of these processes.

In transport, scenarios envision sharp increases in the market share of electric vehicles, and low carbon fuel substitution for other transportation modes like shipping.

Carbon sequestration.

Natural carbon sinks can be enhanced to sequester significantly larger amounts of carbon dioxide beyond naturally occurring levels.

• Reforestation and tree planting on non-forest lands are among the most sequestration techniques, although they raise food insecurity concerns.

The feasibility of land-based negative emissions methods for mitigation are uncertain in models. Where energy production or carbon dioxide- intensive heavy industries continue to produce waste carbon dioxide, the gas can be captured and sored instead of being released to atmosphere.

Although its current use is limited in scale and expensive carbon capture and storage (CCS) may be able to pray significant role in limiting carbon dioxide emissions. This technique in combination with bio-energy production (BECCS) can result in net-negative emissions, where the amount of greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere are less than the sequestered or stored amount in the bio-energy fuel being grown.

ADAPTATION.

• Adaptation is “the process of adjusting to current or expected changes in climate and its effects”. Without additional mitigation, adaptation cannot avert the risk of “severe, widespread and irreversible” impacts.

More severe climate change requires more transformative adaptive capacity, which can be prohibitively expensive.

The capacity and potential of humans to adapt, called adaptive capacity, is unevenly distributed across different regions and populations, and developing countries generally have less.

• Adaptation to water rise consists of avoiding at risk areas, learning to live with increased flooding, protection and, if needed, the more transformative option of managed retreat.

There are economic barriers for moderation of dangerous heat impact; avoiding strenuous work or employing private air conditioning is not possible for everybody.

• In agriculture, adaptation options include a switch to more sustainable diets, diversification, erosion control and genetic improvements for increased tolerance to a changing climate.

Eco systems adapt to climate change, a process that can be supported by human intervention. Possible responses include increasing connectivity between eco systems, allowing species to migrate to more favourable climate conditions.

• Protection and restoration of natural and semi-natural resources helps build resilience making it easier for eco systems to adapt.

Increased use of air conditioning allows people to better cope with heat, but increases energy demand. Compact urban development may lead to reduced emissions from transport and construction.

• Increased food productivity has large benefits for both adaptation and mitigation.

Climate change effects on Tourism.

Towards the end of each year, hundreds of thousands escape dark, cold, rainy winters in Europe and North America for a break in “sunny Uganda”.

Many are drawn by the country’s wide array of outdoor attractions, nature reserves, beaches and adventure activities like sun bathing, sky diving e.t.c. All of these are reliant on prolonged pleasant weather conditions.

But climate change could place the Country’s booming tourism sector which contributes the highest GDP each year at risk. Research shows that climate change will badly compromise the sector.

Weather changes

The sub Saharan region will likely be hit hard by climate change. It will experience temperature increases above the average global rate.

• Extreme weather events will become more common and the rainfall patterns are set to change. Some areas will experience increased rainfall and a heightened flood risk, while others are projected to experience a decrease in rainfall and become more drought prone.

Mapping the problem.

Concern led us to initiate a pilot study that explored ultimate change threats to tourism sector. Research shows that the worst effects will be experienced by 2050.

Climate change will not only shift seasons, changing the date of spring and summer and extending the duration of summer. It will also alter rainfall patterns and daily temperatures. These factors will lead to reduced climate sustainability for tourism.

There is room for action.

An improved understanding of how climate change threatens tourism is a good thing, no matter how gloomy our findings look. Understanding can improve the sectors capacity for effective adaptation and mitigation.

Accurate, high resolution forecasts of special climate change threats allow for well-targeted measures that improve the chances of sustainable tourism- whether it’s at the level of individual establishments or whole sector nationally.

Nationally, the government could develop quicker responses to flood affected regions. This could allow tourism establishments to get back to running quickly after a climate event like a flood.

Individual establishments like making improvements on indoors to increase comfort during periods of bad weather, like installing air conditioners or organizing indoor entertainment.

Solution: We need to make the switch from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy and bring our carbon pollution down to net zero by 2050. Most of the technology needed for this is in existence.

The above transition would not just stop climate change. Switching from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy will be better for people, communities and businesses.

To achieve a 100% renewable energy, we need changes like;

• Meeting humanity’s energy needs from sustainable sources( such as solar, wind, geothermal and bio fuels) not fossil fuels.
• Using energy efficiently.
• Stopping carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation.
• Living within the planet’s means.

To reduce Carbon emissions, the following actions must be taken;

• Enabling a more sustainable economy and new jobs through growth in “green technology” industries.
• Ensuring our export products are competitive on a global market that is increasingly carbon-aware.
• Reinforcing our “clean green” reputation, supporting existing industries such as agriculture and tourism that rely on that brand.
• Health improvements from lower air pollution and warmer and drier homes and increased fitness from walking and recycling.
• Social justice and equity by protecting the vulnerable from rising fossil fuel, energy and food prices

The above has prompted us to run a primary campaign to have the human activities that has geared global warming halted as the easiest way to have Tourism sector boosted and sustained in the long run- which will increase the Country’s revenue.

–  Sensitization programs/campaigns to be run all over the country to stop activities that increase the emission of greenhouse gases like deforestation e.t.c.

– Re-afforestation program campaign to be run all over the country and availing the trees seedlings to the people to plant them.

We therefore request your support as we further carry out the projects that will bring an end this madness.

ZINK PHEDNAND SAFARIS- UGANDA
Tel: +256 782 209 054

Email us on: zinksafaris@gmail.com; visit us on: www.zinksafaris.com

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NUWABIINE PHEDNAND

DIRECTOR- ZINK PHEDNAND SAFARIS