There is an agreement amongst the scientists, governments, and scientific organizations that global warming is happening and that it is brought about by human activity like burning fossil fuels. However, some voices still question whether global warming is a reality, and they cast doubt on the evidence preponderance. Climate change is a reality, and any doubt is general ignorance. There is sufficient evidence beyond reasonable doubt that climatic change is already with us here, ranging from data that demonstrate the historical changes in climate change, the historical rise in temperatures against historical rise in ocean levels, the rise in temperatures versus the increase in dissertation, and even comparative figures against human destruction of forests versus decline in the amount of rain collection per unit area. Climate change is here with us, and it continues to be a major global problem, and the world community has no choice but to deal with it. Global warming, which is the increasing temperatures, is a good example of how climatic changes are causing serious damage to the world environment, which in the end affects the sea levels and the rate of crop yields. The seriously abnormal weather patterns, together with climate changes, bring a direct effect on food security since they impact crop and livestock survival (Ward, 2010). Climate changes and changes in temperatures also have serious consequences on the freshwater supplies across the globe. While global warming increases, the human population continues to double every year. The correlation means that as the food supplies decline, the human population increases, bringing huge shortages to the human food supply.
The climate change opponents argue that the changes seen recently attributed to human activities can be observed as part of the natural variations in the global temperature circle and earth’s climate. They further postulate that it is very challenging or it may be impossible to pinpoint the direct correlation between any weather event to climatic change, for instance, correlation to droughts, hurricanes, and icecaps. This is an ignorant argument and baseless because there is evidence all over correlating environmental events to actual human activities (World Bank, 2007). A perfect case example is rising sea levels. The world Sea Level Rise (referred here as SLR) variations have a significant impact on the very vulnerable economies. The sea-level rise is a primary component of the estimated climatic change economic damage, a very critical input to climate-adaptive measures and policies. The global SLR during the ice age cycles in the past few millions of years has been varying by a margin of more than 100 meters. The sea levels have been rising much faster over the last century than in the earlier millennia. According to the NASA, in Feb 2016, the world experienced the greatest levels of sea height variation at 75 millimeters since the year 1993, with a 3.4mm annual global average sea-level change. In their study, Church and White (2011) estimated that the increase in the world sea level averages from the satellite altimeter data measures is about 0.2 meters between the years 1993 and 2009.Schaeffer et al. (2012), on their part, adopted the semi-empirical approach, calibrated with the sea level data for the past century (100 years). They obtained a 0.25 m lower with not-mitigated emissions situation. They, however, obtained a 0.15m overboard the hypothetical case minimizing world emissions to zero through the year 2016. The IPCC (2013) in their estimations discovered that the global sea-level rise was at 3 mm yearly since the early 1990s. The scholars observed that the sea levels would rise from 0.75 meters to 1.90 m between the period 1990 to 2100due to an increase in global warming. A more recent study by Kopp et al. (2014) estimated that the 2oth century means SLR is between 0.3 and 1.2 m, adopting the RCPs scenarios.
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Some scientists argue that human does not have any impact on the environment; this could not be closer to the truth. There are several years of reliable data and studies that provide conk evidence of the reality of climatic changes and the relations to human impact on these changes. Studies reveal that fossil fuels, as the major human activity have a direct impact on global temperatures. Economists have further demonstrated that taking actions to reduce fossil fuel emissions helps protect the environment and is much better than having to wait to impacted by the global warming effects. ISAC (Inter-Agency Standing) (2009) confirms that global warming will always be a direct catalyst for the persistent and always existing problems to food security. ISAC also reports that the level of success of the world food system is directly dependent on the weather/ climate today greater than it did several years ago.
The increasing evidence regarding the huge global impact of the increasing temperatures on the community demands for a research into the level of such a climatic effect on the economic activities. As global temperatures rise, global sea levels also increase. This provides a firm proof of the need to investigate the impact of rise in sea levels on economic activities, development, and losses. According to Hallegate (2012), the sea rise largely impact on the economic growth and the people’s welfare, even on the inter and regional scales and can be categorized into Land loss, Capital and infrastructure loss, Social capital loss, loss from extreme events and Increase in coastal protection costs. Additionally, Hallegate (2012) confirms that the SLR is a dynamic and progressive process, and it demands a continual process of adopting to get used to it. Table 1 below describes two recent peer-reviewed studies that look into the measures of SLR economic effect as a %ge of the national GDP under different approaches and scenarios. Implementing the sea level modeling methodology, the SLR estimatins were in between 0.35m in the RCP 2.6 situation to a high figure of 1.750m in the year 2100. The forecast for the world effect on the GDP through the SLR is generally between 0.15% and a high of 9.3% of the global GDP. Pycroft et al., (2015) estimated their world GDP loss at 0.5% through the SLR scenario and with welfare loss of 1.91% globally by the year 2010, which is equal to $2.82 trillion by the year 2100.
According to IPCC (2014), tourism in the coast regin has been the greatest element of the world tourism sector. In the study by Burke et al. (2011), it was observed that over 100 nations benefit in someway frm the value brought about by the sea and the coral reefs, which were responsible for more than $10.5bn to the world tourism. The current tourism sector is one the world’s biggest industries, contributing to about 9% of the world GDP. The sector also provides a significant number of jobs to people around the globe. The tourism sector is specifically very important the upcoming and poor countries around the world, particularly the small island nations. Tourism is a potential capital that any community living in the coastal line or government can promote the national economy and create jobs. Therefore, tourism is a very important economic growth driver (Nicholls 2014). According to the World Tourism Organization (2012), 2015 international tourist arrivals increased by 4.4%, which is approximately 1.2 billion arrivals, which is getting closer to the projected 1.6 billion arrivals by the year 2020. Most of the developing nations depend on the tourism sector as the primary driver of their economic growth. Despite the dependence on tourism, climate changes impose a great risk to the development of the sector.
A perfect example of the impact of sea-level rise in regards to tourism in the Maldives. Some scientists discovered that the country is highly vulnerable to SLR and that it experiences a high possibility of most of its land area being inundated by the year 2100. The Climate Hot Map (CHM), the expansive coral reefs, and white sand beaches, including 1,190 islands attract more than 655,000 tourists every year. The Maldives directly depends on its beaches and maritime to support its tourism sector, which contributes more than 30% of its entire GDP. Additionally, Pfeffer et al. (2008) estimate that the SLR could increase between 0.8 to 2 meters, depending on the level of carbon emissions.
References
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Church, John A., and Neil J. White. 2011. “Sea Level Rise from the Late 19th to the Early
21st Century.” Surveys in Geophysics 32 (4): 585–602. doi:10.1007/s10712-011-9119-1
Climate Hot Map. Sea-Level Rise in the Republic of Maldives.
http://www.climatehotmap.org/globalwarming-locations/republic-of-maldives.html (accessed 21 November 2016).
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