The disruption of global climate is one of the most complex challenges that societies has ever faced. Millions of people died and billions others have been displaced by floods and droughts, sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns, cyclones or typhoons…. These are all the result of climate change. The impact of climate change seems to increase further, as emission of harmful gases to the atmosphere is increasing. Carbon dioxide emissions are expected to increase from 45 to 110 percent by 2030 if fossil fuels continue to dominate energy productions.
Although climate change has been brought about largely by industrialized nations, it imposes the most hardship on the poorest countries. Most people in developing countries lead their life as subsistence farmers. This makes them more vulnerable to changes in temperature. Unlike farmers in countries endowed with financial and technological resources, peasants in developing countries would find it difficult to adapt to climate change by switching over, such as to new drought-resistant seeds, efficient but expensive water-conservation technologies. Since low-income countries do not have adequate resources for building infrastructure needed to combat natural disasters. They are, therefore, the principal victims of climate change. What is to be done then?
Environmental and economic experts argue that accelerated socio-economic development would be the best solution for the poor countries to adapt to climate changes. Without rapid economic growth, they could lack the financial resources required for adaptation. And without rapid social development in fields such as education and public health, their workforce will continue to be deficient in the skills and mobility required for tackling climate changes. The experts concluded that the prospects of future generations will be seriously jeopardized if the present generation in developing countries fails to achieve rapid growth. Yet, there are other environmental experts, pressing the poor to accept a very different approach. They recommend that developing countries should strike a “balance” between development and climate-change mitigation. They mean that industrialized countries are unable, or unwilling, to reduce their own greenhouse-gas emissions on the scale required for limiting climate change. According to this line of reasoning, developing countries should curb their rising greenhouse-gas emissions, even at the cost of slowing down development. But, the latter argument seems unlikely to be successful, as it is difficult for one country to build up a capacity to adapt to climate change without fast development. Hence, it would be preferable for developing nations to secure their developments prior to trying preventing the crisis.
Increasing fossil fuel consumptions, clearing of forests… worsen the impacts of climate change. Among many other methods, adopting modern agriculture and forestation are necessary steps to challenge the impacts. Eritrea, as part of the catastrophic Sub-Saharan African region, would not escape from the severe climate crisis. And as the large percentage of the people of Eritrea depend on agricultural products, it would certainly be affected negatively. Being a country that does not have advanced technology for combating natural disasters would make the crisis worse. This tells us combating climate change is very crucial.
The vast potential of the agriculture sector in Eritrea require infrastructure development. Therefore, improving agro-infrastructure development is important to strengthen the measures taken to challenge the climate change. This strategy increases food production, hence solves the shortages of food that could result from climate change. Harvesting more water to start irrigation based agriculture is a tool for this. The government has been taking steps to enhance modern agriculture, and has been satisfactory. To harvest more water, for example, many dams were constructed and others are under construction. Fanko, Warsay, Gherset, Semomo, Digsa… can be mentioned among the constructed ones. Though a lot remain, more have also been achieved on the reforestation and soil conservation campaigns. Yet, the Ministry of Agriculture is expected to deal with broader soil conservation strategy to increase soil fertility.
Reducing heat trapping gases is another method of combating climate change. This is to say that introducing of clean technology free from carbon and other harmful gases could solve the climate problem. Wind and solar energy are the best examples of clean technology. Nowadays, several countries are making a lot of investment in these projects. And they get most of their electricity supply by this technology. It is unfortunate, however, that there are some regions in the world where the availability of wind energy is poor. Their wind speeds are unreliable. Countries with annual wind speed under 3 meters per second cannot sustain wind power system. This indicates that there are regions around the globe that cannot explore this potential, nor can they rely on windmills and wind turbines to supply electricity to their households. On the other hand, regions with annual wind speeds of more than 4.5meters per second have the potential for wind energy systems. The same would be true with the availability of solar energy. There are countries, which cannot use solar energy because of lack of sufficient sunlight.
For reasons that Eritrea is situated in a place, which has enough wind and sunlight, it has a very good opportunity to pursue clean and cheap energy technologies. Though they are in a small scale, these technologies have been started in the country. But, they are confined in to a few areas only. Achieving wider use of such clean and renewable sources of energy is thus, a crucial step for a sustainable national development.
However all countries have equal responsibilities to protect the atmosphere, although the industrialized ones are expected to work more. This is because the largest amount of carbon-dioxide emission comes from these nations. At the same time, they possess the financial and technological resources required for combating climate change.