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Climate change
Definition:
The phenomenon of climate or environmental change is the most important feature of the human environment that results in weather change from day to day, wasteland, forests firing and animals and plants disconnection. All these changes are continuous and natural changes that don’t impact the environmental change so much. But the harmful climate changes are the changes occurred with the virtue of the man’s interference as damming lakes ad revisers, continuous misusing of arable land, urban growth, air pollution with poison gases because of industries and burnings. The man can survive through the natural changes but the climate changes occurred as a result of the man’s activities lead to dangerous circumstances.
There are two types of climate change:-
1. Natural change:
This type of change is continuous and variable classified into;
- Regular changes occurred because of the earth circling (night and day). We have to mention that there are regular changes that the man doesn’t observe as immigration of some birds in the winter and sun and moon eclipse.
- Irregular changes as rain falling and increasing the air pressure.
These changes may be positive for what is called the natural balance. For example, the volcanoes and earthquakes that may cause temporary instability.
2. Changes occurred with the virtue of the man:
According to the man’s trails to control and dominate the natural resources to satisfy his needs, the nature of climate, water and soil is changed negatively. The most effective human activities that lead to climate changes are:-
- Burnings fire; it is widespread in the poor area especially in the Southern America, the Eastern Asia, and the Eastern South of Africa. Moreover, the garbage burning with its different gases in most of the world’s countries leads to changing the components of the air and climate.
- Misusing of arable lands; by using the chemicals and fertilizers in order to increase the agricultural production in addition to wasting the arable lands to be used in building that change the soil components. Moreover, activities as cutting trees and ignoring maintenance of the water and soil recourses lead to negative changing in the soil climate.
- Urban widespread; it is the most effective factor that threatens the climate stability that the urban growth leads to building widespread with no concern for the arable or desert lands. Moreover, lakes’ damming to be used in building or cultivation impacts the climate negatively because it destroys many kinds of fish.
- Wars and chemicals usage; wars have negative effects on plants. For example, in Vietnam War, the Americans made use of chemical components that destroyed many forests. Moreover, throwing bombs create holes like volcanoes’ holes that eases insects’ multiplication in addition to its negative impacts on the environmental components of the air and land.
- Industrial projects; the industrial projects aim to dominate the nature to satisfy the society needs That leads to numerous environmental losses that are equal the other profits “e.g. digging canals, building dams and establishing run ways and industrial cities”. On the other hand, the environment polluting industries as cement, chemicals and leather produce toxic gases that lead to climate changes.
The international community and the protection of man and environment from the dangers of the climate change
In May 1992, the climate changes case was put on the agenda of the international conferences for the first time, when the UN prepared an agreement around the climate changes to be undersigned by the different governments through;
- Land Summit held in 1992 in Brazil “the UN conference around the environment and development”.
- In March 21.1994, the agreement comprised 185 governments and began to be implemented. The agreement aimed to keep the percentage concentration of the harmful gases. The agreement implementation was divided into two steps; (the industrial countries) and (the developing countries) that comprised less condition and longer period.
- The first rotation of the governments meeting was held in Berlin 1995, and a new protocol was prepared to execute the agreement throughout 1997.
- In Geneva 1996 (the second rotation), the governments studied the protocol content.
- In Tokyo 1997 (the third rotation), when the industrial countries promised to decrease the harmful gases with %5.2 by 2000 comparing with the measurements in 1990.
- In Argentina 1998 (the fourth rotation), the action plan for Kyoto execution was undersigned.
- In Bon 1998 (the fifth rotation), the activation means for Kyoto protocol was studied.
- In Lahay 2000 (the sixth rotation), the members approved.
- In Bon 2001 (the fifth and sixth rotation), the negotiations were appealed.
- Land Summit (Rio+10) in South Africa, there was no agreement.
The case is still under studying by the conferences of the United Nations concerning the environment, development and climate changes. Moreover, many international conferences and NGOs are formed for the protection of the climate environment.
Egypt suffers from a number of dangerous problems concerning the climate and environmental changes for example the air and water pollution because of the population condensation in the urban areas, depending on a sole water resource “the River Nile” and the industrial and commercial growth.
The report of Land Center for Human Rights discusses the environmental pollution occurred with the virtue of the industrial activity reviewing the high increase of the air and water pollution. The report asserts that Cairo city comprises 51% of the industrial buildings in Egypt that contributes in increasing the toxic gases in the air. On the other hand, the River Nile receives about 75% of the industrial sewerage that decreases the vital chemical oxygen to 700 ton per day. The report mentions that the size of the leftovers of the public sector reaches four million ton a year. The study mentions that about 1000 industrial entities cause about 75% of the pollution, moreover, the cost of conditions adjustment to match with the necessary environmental conditions varies between 1-2 (%) of the current investments. The businessmen in Egypt allege that the operations of conditions adjustment cost a lot of money that will impact the industrial activity of their companies. We wonder, “Who will pay the expenses of the environmental adjustment? Are they the factories owners? The State? Or the labourers?!
· Air pollution:
The air in the urban areas in Egypt is full of gases conducted by the industrialization operations in factories in addition to other resources of pollution. The main reason of the air pollution in Egypt is represented in the high concentration of the industrial pollutants especially produced by industries of iron, cement, fertilizers and chemicals. It increases the concentration of SO2 is doubled between 2 to 10 times more than the necessary safety level (in Helwan city, about 600.000 ton of cement dusts release in the air. About %29 of students in Helwan’s schools suffer from lung diseases comparing with %9 in other areas in Egypt).
· Water pollution:
Water resources in Egypt are so limited in addition to its high percentage of pollution because of the unplanned usage of these resources. On the other hand, the toxic industrial leftovers and the huge quantities of organic leftovers “about 270 ton a day” in addition to the untreated sewerage of the 6 million people polluted the water of the Nile. It pushes the government to waste a lot of money to purify the water. There are many means to reduce the water pollution as;
- Reusing the resources.
- Reusing water in closed freezing cycles.
- Machines maintenance and using warning machine.
- Separate the polluted water away from the unpolluted water.
- The chemical, physical and biological treatment of leftovers.
· Soil pollution:
The Egyptian soil is so polluted with toxic components and heavy minerals in some places that couldn’t be reused. It is the main resource for water pollution in addition to the leftovers of the sewerage, organic and inorganic fertilizers and different kinds of pesticides.
· The problem of solid leftovers:
It is one of the environmental problems in Egypt. In the urban areas, about 15000 ton of the solid leftovers is collected every day (68% from houses, 15% from the commercial activities, 12% street garbage, and 5% industrial leftovers).
The environmental action plan in Egypt mentions that the rapid growth of population and industrial sector oblige us to pay more attention for the future environmental problems resulted from the urban and industrial solid leftovers. The quantity of the toxic leftovers resulted from factories and hospitals reach 20.000 – 50.000 ton a day. These leftovers are either burnt producing air pollution or thrown in the sewerage canals causing water pollution or stored in wastelands resulting long-term environmental problems for the soil.
We can make use of direct means to reduce the pollution and protect our environment by applying some restrictions to limit the pollution as imposing fines against who violates the environmental conditions or issuing realistic (not illusive) authorizations for establishing different projects in order to guarantee the environmental safety. Moreover, we can apply indirect means as imposing taxes against the pollution producers. According to the study achieved by the Cooperation and Environment Organization, the taxes may be used in financing the necessary environmental activities. In Egypt, to achieve income from the pollution taxes, we need for more control concerning the practical implementation. For example, if we impose taxes for oil in the developing countries, we will gain financial profits besides achieving environmental goals but it may comprise negative impacts for limited income people. We can recover the negative impact by applying some compensative policies as decreasing the value of some taxes or decreasing the prices of the main products. To achieve more efficiency, we have to impose qualitative taxes (imposing oil taxes will be less efficient than imposing taxes differed according to the gases produced by various types of oil).
The government have to be concerned with reusing the strategies of fighting pollution and obliging the businessmen to pay the costs of the pollution. The huge quantities of leftovers push us to think about its recycling. Therefore, the factories owners have to be considered with the leftovers and pollution as a part of their integral plans for designing and clarifying their products. They have to think about the destiny of their products after usage, as they are concerned with the materials and products. They have to think bout how to return the leftovers to be a source for the power? The companies and factories have to think about such issue in a collective way through which the industrial economy of leftovers will be created that promotes the idea of (the industrial environmental adjustment).
This idea will be a solution for the leftovers problem through which the leftovers of some factories will be used in other industries to promote the idea of the leftovers recycling. It doesn’t aim to reduce the leftovers of the different industries but change the industrialization means to be used in the industrial activity especially that this experiment failed in many industrial cities because it aimed to gather the leftovers that was in vain. This new strategy requires revealing the components of the factories’ leftovers especially that some companies are considered its leftovers as secrets that haven’t be revealed for the competitive companies. Therefore, the Environmental Affairs Institution has to examine the companies’ files to be informed about the different leftovers.
The protection from pollution is different from its reduction that the first operation requires planning from the first step to examine all possible results. About the pollution reduction, it is late operation implemented after pollution it is as the different between the impacts of the serum and antibiotic. Generally, the protection from pollution costs less money and effort than its reduction (protection is better than treatment).
The protection from pollution is a mean through which the inputs of the industrial activities are developed or changed to decrease its unwanted outputs. According to the industrial history, the industrialization organizers are concerned with getting rid the environmental leftovers after production but the new strategy of pollution reduction requires decreasing or treating the industrial leftovers during the production operation itself. The experiment of the USA asserted that the pollution reduction and the clean production have long-term social, economical and environmental benefits. The protection from pollution increases the human efficiency and improves the quantity and quality of the natural resources used in the production process that leads for the economical development.
One of the environmental agencies defines the environmental protection as an operation that comprises the following practices;
- Decreasing quantities of pollutants, materials, etc.
- Decreasing the components that impact the general health.
- Getting rid of pollutants’ production through (increasing the efficiency of the materials – protecting the natural resources).
The ministry of environment in Canada define the environmental protection as any process that decrease the production of leftovers or pollutants that motivates or requires changes in the plan of the basic behaviour in the industry, trade or social customs.
There are many means as:
It plans for getting rid of pollution from the beginning that may require important changes in the industrial operation concerning the design of the machines, the rearrangement of the industrial processes that reduce and control the leftovers.
If it is hard to get rid of the leftovers from the beginning, we can reuse it through other industrial operations (e.g. reusing the liquids, metals, and organic components).
It means leftovers treatment to decrease its size and poisoning by chemical, physical and biological ways. Although this strategy may decrease the quantity of the big solid leftovers, it isn’t as effective as protection.
It is the last effective techniques as burying big solid leftovers in the land.
We ask for protecting our lives and environment. We can file lawsuit against the companies and institutions that pollute the environment if they don’t apply the environmental conditions. Moreover, we can organize campaigns to press the officials to protect our lives and resources. We have to declare our solidarity with the international movement for the environmental protection that protect our rights, kids and the coming generations.