Climate change and Earth Hour: What is the connection?

Lets take a look at the climate change and meaning behind the Earth Hour:
To begin with Climate Change which is a phenomenon which takes place when green house gases (the most common amongst which is CO2) that are released into the atmosphere, form a layer preventing the heat from the earth’s surface to be reflected back to the sun. This phenomenon popularly known as the ‘greenhouse effect’ causes the earth’s temperature to rise, giving way to many potentially catastrophic changes in weather patterns, oceanic currents, rainfall patterns etc.


Before going into further details lets try to analyse who/what factors are responsible to these. There are essentially five greenhouse gases that are most commonly observed in the atmosphere. These include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor and cfc’s. The sectors responsible for the emissions of these gases can be informally divided into the: the power sector, industrial sector, transport sector and household sector.


How does the power sector contribute to the release of co2 in the atmosphere?
From amongst all these sectors the power sector contributes 50% of India’s carbon emissions. In India, coal fired power plants dominate the power generation capacity. This makes the power sector extremely pollution intensive since coal as a source of energy has a very high global warming potential. In India 53% of the installed capacity and 70-80% of generation of power is from coal fired power plants The share of renewable sources of energy in the power sector such as wind, solar, geothermal etc comprises only a mere 7.7%. These sources of energy are not only renewable but also clean.


How can the power sector reduce its co2 emissions?
Thus the need of the hour is to look at ways which can help in the mitigation of, and adaptation to climate change. From amongst the mitigation options available to a country
Shift to low carbon sources of energy: One option for mitigation is to shift dependence away from fossil fuel ( coal, oil and natural gas) based power generation towards generating power through renewable and cleaner sources of energy such as wind, solar, geothermal etc. However this shift is expensive because the technology is not readily available or extremely costly to purchase and therefore cannot be implemented in the short term without adequate financial and technical assistance from the developed world.
Become more efficient in your use of energy: That is, to use less energy to provide the same level of energy services, for example, by using energy efficient appliances or investing in insulation to prevent heat loss in buildings thus reducing the energy used for heating.
Adopt an energy saving attitude: Use energy only when it is absolutely essential and not be wasteful in its use. This is the messaging of the Earth Hour, an initiative that hopes to instill behavioral change in the energy consuming attitude of people by asking them to use their power efficiently and switch off the non essential lights and other energy consumer devices when not in use.