DEVELOPMENT DEBATES AND ISSUES
DVA4801
ASSESSMENT 07
DISCUSS CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE IMPACT ON
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH.
INTRODUCTION
Climate change refers to long-term changes in temperatures and weather patterns.
These shifts can be natural, for example through changes in the solar cycle. But
since the 1800s, the main driver of climate change has been human activity,
primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Burning fossil
fuels creates greenhouse gas emissions that act as a blanket wrapped around the
Earth, trapping the sun's heat. and increasing temperatures. Examples of
greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change include carbon dioxide and
methane. These come, for example, from using gasoline to drive a car or coal to
heat a building. Clearing land and forests can also release carbon dioxide. Landfills
are a major source of methane emissions. Major emitters include energy, industry,
transport, buildings, agriculture and land use.
Climate change involves significant changes in average conditions—such as
temperature, precipitation, wind patterns, and other aspects of the climate—that
occur over years, decades, centuries, or longer. Climate change includes longer-
term trends, such as shifts toward warmer, wetter, or drier conditions. These trends
may be due to natural climate variability over time, as well as human activities that
add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, such as burning fossil fuels for energy
(Anguelovski, Chu, and Carmin, 2014).
In other words, climate change refers to the long-term change in temperature and
typical weather patterns of a place. Climate change can affect a specific place or the
planet as a whole. Climate change may make weather patterns less predictable.
These unexpected weather events can make it difficult to maintain and grow crops in
regions that depend on agriculture, as expected temperatures and rainfall levels can
, no longer be relied upon. Climate change is also linked to other harmful weather
events, such as more frequent and intense hurricanes, floods, downpours and winter
storms. In the Polar Regions, warming global temperatures associated with climate
change have meant that ice sheets and glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate
from season to season. This contributes to the rise of sea levels in various regions of
the planet. Along with rising ocean levels due to rising temperatures, the resulting
sea level rise began to damage coastlines through increased flooding and erosion.
Climate change describes when the Earth's climate system adapts and displays new
weather patterns – lasting as little as a few decades or as long as millions of years.
The climate is constantly changing. But climate change is now largely the result of
increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), but
also methane (NH4) and nitrous oxide (NO2). Greenhouse gases trap heat and
prevent it from dissipating into space, which then raises the planet's overall
temperature and destabilizes weather, ecosystems, and human livelihoods, including
our ability to grow food for the nearly 10 billion people who will inhabit Earth the year
2050 (Bai, et al 2018).
Climate change is already a measurable reality that poses significant social,
economic and environmental risks and challenges worldwide. Like many other
developing countries, South Africa is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate
change (Kreft, Eckstein, & Melchior, 2017). As such, South Africa is tasked with
balancing the acceleration of economic growth and transformation with sustainable
use of natural resources and responses to climate change.
CLIMATE CHANGE THEORY (CONVEYOR BELTS THEORY)
Another possible driver of rapid climate change is ocean circulation. Today, warm
water from the equator is carried to the poles on ocean surface currents. Due to the
arrangement of the continents, warm water is carried far into the North Atlantic,
which moderates the climate in Northern Europe. As the warm surface water
reaches the cold air in the north, it cools. Salty Atlantic water becomes very dense as
it cools (Borrelli, et al 2020). The cold, salty water sinks to the bottom of the ocean
before it can freeze, where it is pulled south toward the equator. More warm water
from the equator flows north to replace the sinking water, creating a global ocean
"conveyor belt".
DVA4801
ASSESSMENT 07
DISCUSS CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE IMPACT ON
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH.
INTRODUCTION
Climate change refers to long-term changes in temperatures and weather patterns.
These shifts can be natural, for example through changes in the solar cycle. But
since the 1800s, the main driver of climate change has been human activity,
primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Burning fossil
fuels creates greenhouse gas emissions that act as a blanket wrapped around the
Earth, trapping the sun's heat. and increasing temperatures. Examples of
greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change include carbon dioxide and
methane. These come, for example, from using gasoline to drive a car or coal to
heat a building. Clearing land and forests can also release carbon dioxide. Landfills
are a major source of methane emissions. Major emitters include energy, industry,
transport, buildings, agriculture and land use.
Climate change involves significant changes in average conditions—such as
temperature, precipitation, wind patterns, and other aspects of the climate—that
occur over years, decades, centuries, or longer. Climate change includes longer-
term trends, such as shifts toward warmer, wetter, or drier conditions. These trends
may be due to natural climate variability over time, as well as human activities that
add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, such as burning fossil fuels for energy
(Anguelovski, Chu, and Carmin, 2014).
In other words, climate change refers to the long-term change in temperature and
typical weather patterns of a place. Climate change can affect a specific place or the
planet as a whole. Climate change may make weather patterns less predictable.
These unexpected weather events can make it difficult to maintain and grow crops in
regions that depend on agriculture, as expected temperatures and rainfall levels can
, no longer be relied upon. Climate change is also linked to other harmful weather
events, such as more frequent and intense hurricanes, floods, downpours and winter
storms. In the Polar Regions, warming global temperatures associated with climate
change have meant that ice sheets and glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate
from season to season. This contributes to the rise of sea levels in various regions of
the planet. Along with rising ocean levels due to rising temperatures, the resulting
sea level rise began to damage coastlines through increased flooding and erosion.
Climate change describes when the Earth's climate system adapts and displays new
weather patterns – lasting as little as a few decades or as long as millions of years.
The climate is constantly changing. But climate change is now largely the result of
increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), but
also methane (NH4) and nitrous oxide (NO2). Greenhouse gases trap heat and
prevent it from dissipating into space, which then raises the planet's overall
temperature and destabilizes weather, ecosystems, and human livelihoods, including
our ability to grow food for the nearly 10 billion people who will inhabit Earth the year
2050 (Bai, et al 2018).
Climate change is already a measurable reality that poses significant social,
economic and environmental risks and challenges worldwide. Like many other
developing countries, South Africa is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate
change (Kreft, Eckstein, & Melchior, 2017). As such, South Africa is tasked with
balancing the acceleration of economic growth and transformation with sustainable
use of natural resources and responses to climate change.
CLIMATE CHANGE THEORY (CONVEYOR BELTS THEORY)
Another possible driver of rapid climate change is ocean circulation. Today, warm
water from the equator is carried to the poles on ocean surface currents. Due to the
arrangement of the continents, warm water is carried far into the North Atlantic,
which moderates the climate in Northern Europe. As the warm surface water
reaches the cold air in the north, it cools. Salty Atlantic water becomes very dense as
it cools (Borrelli, et al 2020). The cold, salty water sinks to the bottom of the ocean
before it can freeze, where it is pulled south toward the equator. More warm water
from the equator flows north to replace the sinking water, creating a global ocean
"conveyor belt".
