The Major Problems Of Climate Change

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Climate change is serious problem in the world. The major problem caused by climate change was having a severe influence in the coastal areas. The UN (2006) report that more than 50 per cent people live in cities at present, and this number will steady grow in the next few year. Climate change is due to increasing car exhausts and factory emissions that lead to global greenhouse gas emission to rise sharply. For this reason, the earth has a number of environmental problems, such as the sea level rise, extreme events and unreasonable energy use. This essay will explain some major problems of climate change, and analyze the impacts of economic and environmental. The essay argues climate change caused by human beings and rapid urban development. …show more content…

The first problem is sea level rise. Sea level rise is due to more and more greenhouse gas emissions and melting glaciers, and the affect is coastal erosion and land area loss. The World Bank (2012, p.8) states that about 70 per cent of the biggest European cities are in danger from rising sea levels, and the sea level of these cities is less than 10 meters. Especially in the developing and developed coastal areas, for instance, Kolkata, Shanghai, Tokyo and New York city. The second problem is extreme events. Climate change include floods, storms, heat-waves and intense precipitation, these effects will cause terrible harm to the economic development of the coastal cities. The total damage cost of Hurricane Katrina was $130 billion, accounted for 25 per cent with the event of full macro economic costs. Extremes events in the developing countries have an undeniable influence on the economic growth (Hallegatte, 2006 and Hallegatte et al, 2007, p.33). The third problem is energy use. Climate change is closely related with energy use, depending on the different temperature and areas people could reduce the demand for heating or rise demand for cooling (EEA 2008). In addition, climate change may cause the different energy and produce more greenhouse gas emissions. These three problems will continue to exacerbate the climate change and influence the development of the …show more content…

The most affected by sea level rise are the coastal areas, therefore, for the coastlines and river nearby the coast, Gaffin (Gaffin, N.D. cited in Braw, 2013) suggests building the grey and green infrastructures to protect the coast areas. The grey infrastructure is building walls and barriers (Gaffin, N.D. cited in Braw, 2013). Leonardsen’s team point out green infrastructure contains green roofs and green streets. Their team will plant more trees in the streets and lower the level of the lakes. Also, they will lay underground pipes to the harbor. When the flooding is coming, the trees can capture water and discharge to the lakes and the harbor.
Extreme event is another major problem of climate change. In the coastal cities, extreme events can result in many people who injured and died. Disaster plan can help people out of danger. Stephens et al. (Stephens 1996, cited in UNDP 2012) explain many poor people live in Indore who fix the shelves and put up the electrical on the walls. Moreover, they pack some portable valuables, cooking utensils and some clean clothes. A perfect disaster emergency plan can strongly reduce the economic loss and casualties. However, disaster emergency plan can only solve the current extreme

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