"Climate change is intensifying." Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), believes that the intensification of climate change is a major challenge facing mankind in this century. According to the United Nations Climate Report, in the past 50 years, the global temperature has risen twice as fast as that of 100 years ago. Since 1850, due to the extensive application of fossil fuels, the content of carbon dioxide in the air has increased by 35%.
Although we cannot predict how far the sea level will rise, it has become an indisputable fact that the sea level will continue to rise. Members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) who won this year's Nobel Peace Prize predict that the sea level will rise by 65,438+08 to 59 cm by the end of this century. Every time the sea level rises 1 cm, the coastline will retreat 1 m, which is quite serious for coastal residents. Take Bangladesh as an example. Nearly170,000 residents live at an altitude of less than one meter.
Floods, droughts, famines, storms, the extinction of a large number of animals and plants, and large-scale population migration are all real threats to mankind caused by global warming, and we can only blame ourselves. Susan Solomon, an official of the National Oceanic and Meteorological Administration (NOAA) and one of the authors of the United Nations climate report, pointed out: "There is no doubt that human beings must take responsibility for climate change."
Challenges facing mankind
We know that climate change is inevitable, but we can try our best to alleviate the serious consequences caused by climate change-the key is to use innovative technologies to achieve efficient power generation and efficient use of electricity. Rong Huaide, president of Academia Sinica and a member of the management committee of Siemens AG, said: "Now there are many innovative solutions. There are such examples in the fields of power generation and transmission and distribution, as well as construction, lighting, household appliances, transportation and industrial electricity. Siemens has about 30,000 patents on environmental and climate-related solutions and invests more than 2 billion euros in related research and development activities every year. "
If the 10 energy-saving technologies in Siemens' business portfolio can be applied continuously, the technology-related carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by10 billion tons, equivalent to 40% of the current emissions. This gap with the environmental protection standards called for by scientists can be greatly narrowed. Most scientists believe that human beings must do their utmost to prevent the temperature of the earth's atmosphere from rising again. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Impact, said: "If we can't stop the temperature from rising again, the disaster will be beyond our control." If we want to prevent such a disaster, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 50% of the 1990 s by the middle of this century. In addition, since 20 15, greenhouse gas emissions must show a downward trend. Georg Rosenbauer, a carbon dioxide expert at Siemens Power Generation Group in He Run, warned: "It is time to consider long-term changes, otherwise we will have no choice in 10 years."
Unfortunately, we are now in a dilemma. Experts predict that by 2030, the global demand for primary energy (such as coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear energy and renewable energy) will increase by nearly 50% compared with 2004.
Provide more energy for power plants.
Rong Huaide, a member of Siemens Management Committee, said: "We must adopt a set of technical solutions to ensure future economic growth and social prosperity and turn the challenges brought by climate change into our opportunities." For example, for energy production, it is estimated that by 2020, despite the increasing utilization of renewable resources, two-thirds of the world's electricity will still come from thermal power plants.
Therefore, by realizing the high efficiency standard of modern power plants, carbon dioxide emissions can be minimized. If all power plants operate as efficiently as possible, the average annual carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 2.5 billion tons, which is equivalent to 2.5 times of the total emissions in Germany.
We already have the relevant technology. Siemens has equipped the newly-built combined cycle power plant with the world's largest Siemens gas turbine, which can achieve 60% power generation efficiency. In contrast, the average power generation efficiency of thermal power plants is only 38%.
If the new technology in the future can decompose carbon dioxide and find a suitable repository to store it underground, then coal regeneration will be possible. Since 2003, Siemens has installed wind turbines with a total installed capacity of over 3,300 MW. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by 8 million tons every year. Siemens experts believe that by 2050, as long as the technical application of wind energy is further strengthened and developed, the contribution of wind energy to climate protection will be 75 times that of today. Using the latest HVDC transmission technology to reduce the energy loss in the transmission process will also help us save more energy.
Human opportunity
Protecting the climate also has economic significance. About a year ago, Nicholas Stern, head of the economic service department of the British government and former chief economist of the World Bank, published a climate change economic report named after him, showing the world economic situation under climate change. The report points out that the consequences of climate change will consume 5% to 20% of the global GDP. Stern said that if no action is taken to stop climate change, mankind will pay a heavy price of up to 5.5 billion euros every year. He warned: "The actions taken by human beings in the next few decades will trigger large-scale economic oscillation and social structure turmoil at the end of the century and the next century." RajendraPachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), also holds the same view. Because climate change is capricious and unpredictable, only reducing emissions can only be said to delay the occurrence of phenomena that affect sustained prosperity for several months. Stern predicts that the cost of energy innovation only accounts for 1% of global GDP at most. Even if some countries still don't believe that climate change will bring incalculable serious consequences, they have to consider the rising energy prices. A large part of the continuous rise in energy prices may be due to the rising cost brought by the "emissions trading" system.