Role Of Individuals And Governments In Mitigating Climate Change
Introduction to Data Analysis
In October 2018, the intergovernmental control panel on climate change (IPCC) confirmed the worst. “…The impacts and costs of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) of global warming will be far greater than expected” (Leahy, 2018).
So it may be asked, what really are the impacts of global warming? Well, global warming is the trademark of climate change and as it is evident over the past 2 decades, there have been an increase in natural events such as storms, ice melting, earthquakes, droughts, coral bleaching, floods, etcetera, all credits to just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) of global warming. So, what will 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit achieve if something does not happen?
The hard truth however, is that, almost everyone is contributing in one way or another to the planets doom. Ranging from the little Co2 emitted from little garages to the massive carbon from huge factories, hence there is no excuse for anyone. As such, what remains is solutions to be formulated, action taken and funds given to aid in such action while still there is time, though little.
Just as Victor Cousin once stated, “if ignorance is bliss, then there should be happier people” but there isn’t such thing as more happier people and the mass ignorance on climate change has not been much helpful. However, there are many factors that influence climate change. According to Cimato and Mullan (2010), the government has a responsibility to see that their citizens are adapting to the effects of climate change. Such may be through adaptation of suitable policies and social programs.
Kolich (2018) in an article on the kind of human activities that tip carbon levels, argues that, amongst other activities: electricity consumption, transportation means, building activities, and deforestation play a huge role in increasing carbon levels. Another study by Carbon offsets to alleviate poverty (2018) states that, “…Offsetting your unavoidable CO2 emissions is a practical and immediate way to take ownership of your personal contribution to climate change.” and proposes alternative methods to popular activities that contribute to carbon increment such as: using low carbon vehicles, avoiding purchase of high fuel burning jets, reduction of home energy carbon footprint. Goodall (2017) argues that cutting down on meat consumption is set to contribute to less methane emission due to the high methane content emitted by cow and sheep meat.
Given the above argument, this paper seeks to establish whether there exists a relationship between climate changes, the role of government in aiding the war against climate change as well as individual actions in mitigating climate change.
Learning Outcomes
Several noticeable features have over the past been explored in an effort to substantiate the existence of climate change. In 2010, climatologists finally spoke on how bad climate change had become. Where, according to Thompson (2010), evidence indicates that “…average northern hemisphere temperatures remained relatively stable until the late 20th century.”
Another feature that indicate existence of climate change is the decreasing rate of the polar ice where it decreased by 8.6% in the period 1979-2007 but in 2007 almost 24% of the ice decreased a figure that has tremendously grown as by 2018 according climate activist Leonardo DiCaprio, due to global warming which is a characteristic of climate change. Despite variability in ice decrease rates, it is evident that glaciers and the polar ice are melting (Thompson, 2010).
OECD (2017) defines social capital as “networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or among groups.” Therefore, one of the perspectives with which to analyze the role of individuals in climate change is through social capitalism. With the ever increasing obsession of amassing wealth, individuals over time have lost their sense of responsibility towards anything; be it the community or the environment. As such, the decline of social networks, values and bonds have often led to the laxity of ‘anyone else should do’, something that have led to complacency of doing anything till it’s too late. A phenomenon that is equally applicable to climate change actions.
Greenhouse gases which according to Konrad and Thum (2014) are gases that trap atmospheric heat and are almost solely responsible for the current climate change epidemic. Interestingly, the increase of greenhouse gases level in the atmosphere is due to increase of human activities such as fossil burning (Carbon), decaying of organic waste (Methane) and additionally, the increase of Nitrogen oxide as well as fluorinated gases both of which occur due to increase in industrial and agricultural activities.
The ultimate purpose of any government is to draft and implement policies for both national interests as well as participate in drafting and implementation of international policies. The threat of global climate change which is now imminent has prompted policy creators to consider drafting methods with which to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (Stavins, 2008). Where, most of policy creators and the public consider on-budget allocations as the “cost of environmental regulation” carried out by the government.
To enable the study on the role of individuals and the government in mitigating climate change, two sets of hypotheses are formulated, the first hypothesis from the relationship between the role of the government and mitigation of climate change through policy drafting and implementation, with the second hypothesis following the argument from the relationship between human activities and climate change.
Impacts of Global Warming
Government involvement in climate change issues will help mitigate global warming
The underlying logic is that, if involvement of the government in war against climate change has a relationship with climate change, then the government can be effectual in mitigating climate change.
Alternative
There is no relationship between government activities to mitigate climate change and actual mitigation of climate change
Human activities are significant in influencing climate change
The underlying logic is that, if there exists a relationship between human activities and climate change then adoption of alternative activities will help mitigate climate change.
Alternative
There is no relationship between climate change and human activities
In this research, a correlational research design is assumed. Where, its main purpose is to establish whether there exists a relationship between the three variables of interest. As such, descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and predictive model designs are used (Punch, 2013).
Hence for the research, a linear regression predictive model is used to establish a relationship between the two independent variables and dependent variable.
The nature of the project is quantitative in nature since it uses real data. Hence, it adopts a positivism and deductive approach with the use of surveys, questionnaires as well as real life data obtained from surveys conducted in 2016. During data analysis, inferences and arguments are obtained through logical and deductive application of statistical methods in interpretation of statistics.
Data used in the project comprises both primary and secondary data whereby, the primary data is collected from respondents in the United Kingdom concerning various issues using social surveys ad filling of questionnaires. Among the issues addressed in collection of the primary data is opinion on climate change which is the main focus of this project. The tool for the data collection is the European social survey which uses the following questions in collection of the primary data relating climate change:
- Is the climate changing? (where 1= definitely, 2=probably, 3=probably not, 4=definitely not, 5=refusal, 6=don’t know, 7=no answer)
- Do you think it is a personal responsibility to contribute towards climate change control? (where 0= no, 10= a great deal, 66=not applicable, 77=refusal, 88=don’t know, 99=no answer)
- Is the government doing enough in climate control? (Where 0= no, 10= a great deal, 66=not applicable, 77=refusal, 88=don’t know, 99=no answer).
Secondary data for this research is also obtained from the European social survey website for the United Kingdom round 8 surveys, year 2016. The variables of interest are individual view on climate change and the role of the government in aiding the control of climate change.
Data preparation
Data obtained from the website contains missing values; therefore in preparing the data for analysis, the following measures are taken:
- Data cleaning
Whereas the research requires 3 variables, data obtained from the source has got approximately 534 variables. Therefore, variables that are not relevant to the research are dropped from the dataset altogether.
- Dealing with missing values
Factors Contributing to Climate Change
Missing values in the data are replaced with mean value from the observed data so as to preserve the mean of the observed data.
Due to the fact that both the primary and secondary data is obtained using a data collection tool, the main challenge is related to non-responsiveness of respondents which led to missing data. Missing data might introduce biasness during data analysis hence misleading results.
From figure 3, 60.3% of the respondents believe that climate change is happening while 32.1% acknowledge that it is probably happening while only 6.4% are of the opinion that climate change is not happening.
In this research, test of normality is conducted through use of histograms and a normal curve where the data is considered normally distributed if the normal curve assumes a bell shape.
The above three figures indicate that, the data is normally distributed given the bell-shaped normal curve and the symmetrical distribution around the center. In addition, from the three figures below, it is evident that from the linearity test results indicate that the variables are linearly distributed
Correlation analysis enables examination of whether there exists a relationship between the variables of interest. From figure 7, there exists a relationship between climate change and individual responsibility i.e. the correlation coefficient is -0.279 at 99% confidence interval indicating small association between the variables. However, there is no relationship between government action and climate change. In the test of multicollinearity, the VIF value is less than 5 i.e. 1.013(figure 10) implying that there is no multicollinearity between the variables.
The regression model in equation 1 is used to explore the relationship between the focus variables, the confidence interval for the F-test is 95% where the model is assumed suitable for analysis of variance if the p-value is greater than 0.05. Additionally, the null hypothesis is rejected if the p-value if greater than 0.05.
Climate change=β0 +β1Personal responsibility + β1Govenment action +£i; where,
Β0 is the intercept, β1 and β2 are the regression constants and £i are the random error terms.
The R-squared statistic value is 0.24 (figure7) indicating that the model accounts for only 24% of the variability hence does not pass the goodness of fit while the p-value for the F-statistic is 0.000 which is less than 0.05 (figure 9) hence the model is suitable in predicting climate change control.
P-value for the relationship between government action is 0.904 which is greater than 0.05. Therefore, reject the null hypothesis at 95% confidence interval and conclude that there is no relationship between government activities to mitigate climate change and actual mitigation of climate change.
The Role of Government in Mitigating Climate Change
P-value for the relationship between personal responsibility and climate change is 0.000 which is less than 0.05. Therefore, fail to reject the null hypothesis and conclude that human activities are significant in influencing climate change.
Conclusion
In the current fight against climate change, several entities have been saddled with the blame of either contributing to the change or not doing enough to mitigate more increase in global warming. However, some of the blame might be correctly implied. That is, the entities might be actually not doing enough of what they are tasked with. However, countries such as UK and France are putting on considerable effort in contributing to the global campaign against climate change (Barrow, 2017). Nevertheless, it is clear from the research that the governments are not putting enough effort in what others call “a war the world has lost” given that government action is not significant in predicting climate change.
In contrast, with the rising concern of individuals over their energy consumption habits, fuel use and increased inclination towards the use of biodegradable products, it is no wonder from the research analysis the individual responsibility variable is significant in the fight against climate change. Following the regression results from the research, it can be inferred that human activities are instrumental in predicting climate change, i.e. taking the government action constant,
Climate change=1.848 -0.064Personal responsibility
That is, for every unit action of personal responsibility, climate change is impacted by 1.78356; hence personal responsibility action against climate is positive.
In conclusion, climate change is a broad and sensitive issue which unfortunately puts human life on the cliff’s edge. As a result, the responsibility of fighting the climate change calamity, cannot be shifted or rather it can only be borne if the future generations are to survive let alone the current one given the severity of hazards such as floods, hurricanes, storms, earthquakes etcetera. That is, everyone has a role to play in controlling climate change, from the littlest of actions such as reducing meat consumption to innovation of means to capture and permanently store CO2.
More so, given the current low level of government participation in climate change action, the government should devise more ways with which it can ensure control of greenhouse gas emissions especially through policy drafting and implementation.
References
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