NO ONE needs to be convinced that the world is getting hotter. They simply have to go outside. And there is other, significant evidence that the world’s temperature is steadily rising as the result of human activity, through greenhouse-gas emissions.
As a result, the world is experiencing extreme temperatures, reducing snow cover, melting polar ice sheets and glaciers, and causing heavy rainfall, stronger hurricanes, rising sea levels, floods, droughts, colder winters and other severe, previously unusual weather events.
The heat also affects plants and animals’ habitats – expanding some and shrinking others.
Several bodies have united to reverse the trajectory of global temperatures, including the 196 countries that ratified the Paris Agreement at the 21st annual UN Climate Change Congress of the Parties (COP 21) in 2015. The Paris Agreement is a legally binding treaty on climate change with the aim of strengthening the global response to rising temperatures, chiefly through the reduction of greenhouse gas. The European Union (EU) is at the forefront of this effort, making promises to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
But for all the deliberations and commitments, the world has got hotter and carbon emissions continue to rise.
Statista, an online portal providing data on the global digital economy, industrial sectors, consumer markets, public opinion, media and macroeconomic developments, showed global emissions are at an all-time high, at 37.55 gigatonnes of CO2. (A gigatonne is 1,000,000,000 tonnes, and is often used when discussing human carbon-dioxide emissions. CO2 is the chemical formula of carbon dioxide, earth's most important greenhouse gas: it absorbs and radiates heat.)
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a measure to control carbon emissions through a fair-value price on specific commodities, based on the amount of carbon produced in making them. These include electricity, cement, fertilisers, aluminium and iron and steel.
As an oil-and-gas economy, TT depends heavily on oil and gas exports. Also, as a leader in petrochemical exports, CBAM will affect how TT trades with the EU, and may already be having an effect as countries wanting to avoid stiff penalties when trading with the EU need to begin reporting their carbon emissions, under a policy put into effect in October 2023.
As the region continues on its own energy journey, it is now imperative that it learns and adapts to the new rules.
Why is CBAM needed?
The 2023 global climate report from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said every month of 2023 was ranked among the seven warmest months on its records. The second half of the year, from June-December, was the hottest on record.
The NOAA said global temperatures were more than one degree C above the long-term average.
Earth's temperature has risen by an average of 0.06 C per decade since 1850. The rate of warming since 1982 is more than three times as fast.
Coming out of the Paris Agreement, the UN set
