To What Extent Do Heat Waves Impact Developing Countries?
Climate change is a current global crisis and is only getting worse. Because of climate change and global warming, the earth is heating up and temperatures are rising. One main impact of climate change is heat waves. Although heat waves have many impacts, the main question I will be asking today is: to what extent do heat waves impact developing countries? I will go over this problem through a social, economic, and political lens and then provide a possible solution.
To begin, what are heat waves? By definition, the weather is labeled as a heat wave if the region is above average temperature for two or more days. This makes us wonder, what causes heat waves and how does it happen? While there are many factors that cause heat waves, the main problem right now is the amount of fossil fuel humans burn. Until now, we have created around 36.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, including oils, fuels, etc. Now it is worth asking: what do heat waves have to do with us? To point one out, mass migration. One study in EurekAlert stated that heat waves impact the pattern of migration such as when people decide to migrate and possible obstacles along the route. As an example, there is Afghanistan. The number of Afghan immigrants in the United States increased throughout the years, almost tripling from 2010 to 2019 (Camarota et al.) Even though there are many factors that possibly influenced this statistic, we can’t ignore the increasing heat waves in Afghanistan. Also, developing countries like Afghanistan have poor infrastructures that are vulnerable to heat waves, being easily demolished. In addition, the economic loss caused by heat waves from 1992 to 2013 is estimated to be between 5 and 30 trillion dollars worldwide. This is due to the heat waves damaging crops, disrupting global trade, and even overwhelming power plants. Researchers and economists estimate this significant economic loss will continue to rise in the future.
A major policy that exists regarding this crisis is the Paris Agreement. Signed in 2015, the Paris Agreement set goals to keep the rise in temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Countries around the world, such as the United States, Russia, China, and many more are all participating in the Paris Agreement. However, there is one major problem with the Paris Agreement. There is no supernatural order to enforce that the countries indeed make progress to reducing their emissions. In other words, there is no king of all countries. In fact, in November of 2020, Donald Trump withdrew the United States, the second largest emitter, from the agreement. Fortunately, Joe Biden reentered the United States into the agreement.
One of the best existing solutions is imposing a carbon tax. What is a carbon tax? A carbon tax is a fee imposed on businesses and individuals that works as a sort of “pollution tax” to pay for engaging in activities that are harmful to society. The tax is a fee that will be imposed on companies that burn carbon-based fuels, including coal, oil, gasoline, and natural gas. But, why is this solution the best? There are two main reasons why this solution is the best one. The first reason is because it isn’t expensive. Other solutions, like technological negative emissions which involve deploying machines to remove carbon from the atmosphere, are very costly. Although technology does exist, this method has not been demonstrated to work on a real scale. Climate action of any meaningful scale would be expensive, probably too expensive for any growth-minded country to manage, which is why a carbon tax is the best solution. So, what are the effects of carbon taxing? Through carbon taxes, if we legislate a high enough cost, the market will respond by producing less and then eventually producing none at all. By putting a price on carbon, the amount of carbon emissions can be reduced. Another effect of putting a price on carbon is that people will start to use a different source of energy. People will start to rely more on clean energy, which will become a much cheaper option. Clean energy is a much better choice for the environment because it doesn’t emit greenhouse gasses and will be the best option to slow down global warming. These positive effects are why carbon taxing is the best solution to reduce heat waves and carbon emissions.
Although the impending climate crisis continues to impact us, there are available solutions to us today. Even though the Paris Agreement set goals to keep global warming in check, it failed because nobody was enforcing the goals of the agreement. This is why carbon taxes are such an appealing solution. After all, even under the assumption that all Paris Agreement goals are met, it is not enough to reduce the effects of the rise in temperature. Especially now, with the effects of the heat waves being clear, it is important that all countries, businesses, and individuals work towards reducing their carbon emissions. Hopefully, in the future, all the energy we use won’t bring negative impacts on the environment, and much more importantly, for those in the developing countries.