Fig 1 Nigeria gas flaring

Dangers of interconnectedness

Centre for Climate Change & Environmental Studies

Biodiversity is important in ecosystems and for the provision of ecosystem services including climate regulation. Therefore it has an important role in reducing climate change and its impacts, and protecting and improving societal wellbeing. There is growing concern that efforts to address climate change may have the unintended consequence of exacerbating biodiversity loss, and so complicate future options.

Climate, biodiversity and human wellbeing are inextricably linked (Figure 1). Over the past few hundred years, human activity has significantly changed the face of the planet, a period sometimes described as the anthropogenic (Crutzen & Stoermer 2000). Consequently animal species are disappearing faster than ever, and many ecosystems on which humans and other species depend for their survival are being degraded or used unsustainably.

A simple schematic

Over the last 50 years humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable era in human history. The implications are only beginning to be understood. This accelerated anthropogenic climate change has impacts for human wellbeing and longer-term effects. Even if greenhouse gas emissions were to cease immediately, temperatures would continue to rise for at least 30 years, and sea levels for the next 100 years. Action must be taken now to prepare for impacts inevitable over forthcoming decades and efforts targeted to human populations and ecosystems most at risk.

Because ecosystems collectively determine the biogeochemical and biophysical processes that regulate the earth’s system, the potential consequences of biodiversity loss are mobilising significant scientific interest. Continued loss may compromise the long-term ability of ecosystems to regulate the climate, accelerate or amplify climate warming, and lead to additional, unforeseen, and potentially irreversible, shifts in the earth system.

Sentitisation, mobilisation and advocacy on the impact of Global Warming and Climate Change among Government Officials, Traditional Rulers and School Children in Nigeria carried out by Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Studies

Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation should be of major concern to decision-makers around the world. However, recognition of the critical nature of this problem, and of the potential opportunities of biodiversity management for meeting climate change policy objectives, has been slow to appear outside of the biodiversity community.

The interdependencies of biodiversity, ecosystems, human livelihoods and the climate system make it possible to address all these issues together. However, there is growing awareness that win-win-wins will not always be possible, and trade-offs are necessary. New decision-making and implementation frameworks will help realise potential co-benefits and ensure trade-offs are as equitable and ecologically sustainable as possible.

The international community has a critical role to play in this, especially in supporting capacity building and resources required for implementation. Governments and local communities should also act. The message is simple; climate change is unequivocal. Both mitigation and adaptation are needed to address the risks. Biodiversity and human wellbeing are inextricably linked and regulation must be central to development of adaptation and mitigation programmes.

Gas flaring in Nigeria

The recently unveiled satellite survey of gas flaring – a process commonly used to dispose of natural gas freed during oil production – has shown what has been suspected for years: it is an extremely wasteful, costly problem that has contributed to global warming. Conducted over a 12-year period spanning 1995-2006, the survey, commissioned by the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction partnership (GGFR), was carried out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Flaring emits around 400 million tons of CO₂ emissions yearly. Estimates from about 60 countries worldwide revealed gas flaring has been largely stable over the last 12 years – in the range of 150-170 billion cubic metres annually. However, 22 mostly lesser developed countries increased their use over that period, but 16 other countries decreased their use. In 2006 alone, oil-producing companies and countries burned close to 170 billion cubic metres of natural gas, equivalent to a whopping 27% of total United States natural gas consumption or 5.5% of total global production of natural gas.

“Gas flaring not only harms the environment by contributing to global warming but is a huge waste of a cleaner source of energy that could be used to generate much needed electricity in poor countries around the world. In Africa alone about 40 billion cubic metres of gas are burned every year which, if put to use, could generate half of the electricity needed in that continent,” said Bent Svensson, head of the GGFR partnership.

In the last few years, companies and governments have tried to eliminate flaring and reclaim wasted energy – by re-injecting it in the ground to bolster oil production, transporting it to new markets via pipelines, using it onsite for electricity generation or converting it into LNG (liquefied natural gas) for shipment. GGFR will continue to monitor worldwide gas flaring over the next few decades to encourage all to reduce the amount of waste and emissions generated.

Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Studies
W: www.center4climatechange.com