GLOBAL warming can no longer be taken lightly. Many scientists view higher temperatures as being mainly responsible for the hurricanes, floods, droughts and wildfires, witnessed in recent months and years. If global warming intensifies, there will be more heat-related deaths and more damage to crops and livestock as a result of droughts.

Water supply from melting of snow may decline and there may be more power shortages, load-shedding and business interruptions.

Due to increase in the frequency and force of hurricanes, the hazard posed to coastal infrastructure, property and ecosystems may increase manifold. Already, we have witnessed the severe damage caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita to the oil infrastructure and refineries in the US Gulf coast.

Weather scientists have expressed the view that higher temperature of Gulf water could have been responsible for making the storms more lethal and destructive.

In fact, global warming had already started having its adverse effect on businesses. Particularly, the international insurance business is feeling the pinch due to rising bills from hurricanes, floods, fires, heat waves and losses to crops. According to a recent news report, insured losses from catastrophic weather events had gone up 15-fold during the past 30 years.

That is why insurance companies are reportedly collaborating with institutional investors, banks and rating agencies and together they are calling upon companies to treat greenhouse emissions as a material risk, just like all other kinds of financial risks that adversely affect earnings.

The insurance companies are demanding that companies seeking insurance should, in future, add up risks relating to global warming and revise their business plans accordingly. This will, no doubt, raise the cost of all companies who want to insure their businesses with an insurance company.

A large number of companies in industries such as oils and materials as well as high tech were either planning action or had already initiated action to cut down greenhouse gas emissions.

Many of them were not doing it because of some mandatory requirements but only because they saw the ground realities. If they went on postponing such action, a time might come when they would be forced to act and, at that time, the cost could be considerable which would adversely affect their businesses.

Companies, which decided to take action early to fight global warming, have also benefited from their action. For example, DuPont in USA saved about $2 billion, by cutting energy use seven per cent below 1990 levels. BP (Britain) had reportedly saved a total of $650 million by bringing about improvements in operating and energy efficiency. The company had been able to reach its 2010 emissions target in 2001. Bayer (Germany), by boosting energy efficiency, was able to avoid $861 million in investments that would otherwise have been necessary, since its production had gone up by 22 per cent. Finally, in case of BT (Britain), low-carbon and renewable sources provided 98 per cent of its British power consumption, resulting in a saving of $1.15 billion. Adding 38 per cent reduction in vehicles emission would almost double the company’s savings.

Awareness about global warming has increased, the world over, in recent years. In India’s Andhra Pradesh state, villagers reportedly power their tractors with a cleaner-burning diesel substitute pressed from seeds of the ‘honge’ tree.

In China’s Inner Mongolia, wind farms have been coming up along the breezy steppes, while outside Bangkok, generators fuelled by methane produce electricity. What is common among the aforesaid projects – so far from one another – is that they are all the result of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – a global agreement to reduce emission of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Now, in a new development, Europe is reported to be considering nuclear power as an option, at a time when concern regarding global warming grows and energy crunch looms over the horizon. Until recently, nuclear energy was not very much favoured in Europe due to its hazards arising out of the problem with regard to the disposal of nuclear waste. However, due to change in circumstances, governments and the people of Europe are now ready to accept nuclear energy as a possible option.

On the other hand, energy sources favoured by the environmental groups such as wind, solar and thermal etc, are reportedly not considered sufficient to meet the rising demand for energy. In recent years, European governments had reportedly invested billions of dollars to develop the aforesaid sources. But these technologies had yet to prove reliable and, at the same time, they had yet to yield high enough output to make them viable substitutes for the conventional power sources.

As a result, the use of nuclear energy (which meets the cleaner environmental standards) is likely to receive a boost in Europe in the coming years. Already, more than half of the world’s nuclear plants – 204 to be exact – are in Europe. Britain has 23 nuclear reactors and nuclear power meets about 20 per cent of its total energy needs.

France has 59 reactors and nuclear energy constitutes as much as 78 per cent of the total electricity generated in the country, while Germany has 17 nuclear reactors and nuclear energy meets about 32 per cent of its total energy needs. As against the above, the United States has as many as 104 nuclear reactors, but nuclear power constitutes only about 20 per cent of the total electricity generated in that country.

Environmental groups are of the view that nuclear power plants are too expensive and, also, that the users have no permanent solutions for the disposal of nuclear waste, which can remain radioactive for thousands of years. In addition, they argue that nuclear plants could also attract terrorist attacks.

However, according to a spokesman of the World’s Nuclear Association, nuclear power plants are more cost-efficient than the conventional plants and they produce only two per cent of the carbon dioxide emissions that are produced by coal-fired power plants.

It is heartening to note that Pakistan is showing awareness about increase in global warming and the looming energy crunch. According to press reports, a number of projects aimed at developing alternative energy sources such as solar and wind are under consideration, at present, to be started in Sindh and Balochistan.

Besides, top priority is being given, to construction of new dams to inter-alia develop hydro-electric capacity, which is a cheaper as well as a cleaner source of energy.

At the same time, another nuclear power project at Chashma is expected to start production of nuclear power soon. However, the pace of work on various projects needs to be accelerated, if we want to sustain the higher GDP growth rate.