Advancing science and renewable energies needed to tackle climate change: UNAM

Seriously protecting the environment, moving from fossil fuels to renewable energies, investing in basic and applied sciences, as well as progress in adapting to the transformations caused by climate change, are public policies that the state must implement to confront a problem. global, with researchers from UNAM warned of important repercussions on a local scale.

The inaction scenario could dramatically reduce our country’s agricultural production capacity, with yields dropping from five to 20 percent over the next two decades, and as much as 80 percent by the end of the century for some crops and states, the Climate Change Coordinator predicted. Research Program (PINCC), Francisco Estrada Purua.

A researcher at UNAM’s Institute for Atmospheric Sciences and Climate Change also warned that flood risks in the national territory are high and will increase significantly.

Currently, the expected annual damages in Mexico from river floods are seven billion dollars and coastal floods 130 million dollars. He said that Tamaulipas, Veracruz and San Luis Potosi will have the highest levels of risk due to flooding of the rivers, as well as the center of the country.”

During the teleconference, Ruth Cerezo Motta, a researcher at the Institute of Engineering, considered “the results and agreements of the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties, what after the elimination of climate change?” , that the meeting in Glasgow had both positive and negative aspects, such as progress in the Paris Agreement rulebook that had not been achieved in previous events, despite limitations in mitigation and the mechanism of loss and damage, a reform by states that historically pollute more towards states that did less.

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Cerezo Motta noted that talks on deforestation and the environment, signed by 103 countries, have been supported, and therefore improvements in the sector are expected.

The expert regretted that voluntary and non-mandatory procedures still prevailed in the agreements, which might affect their compliance.

Among the positive agreements, two stood out: burning coal in the world, where the twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties committed to phasing out the use of this fossil fuel and reduce methane consumption by 30% by 2050.

“There has been no progress in terms of mitigation, they have been very short and in the end the negotiations have been very strong. It is part of climate justice, the debt that some countries have in terms of pollution.”

Francisco Estrada Poriya insisted that the effects of this phenomenon on our country are numerous. It is not an acute problem, but it is long-term and growing; We will do significant damage to agricultural capacity, the potential for new diseases to emerge, through zoonoses, the arrival of vector (mosquito-borne) diseases into places where they have not been before, and we will have a serious problem in labor productivity by overcoming certain levels of labor, he explained. warming;

The expert highlighted UNAM’s work on this issue, whereby PINCC provides free access software to create models and future scenarios for climate change, contributing to the generation of knowledge and awareness of the problem.

Aileen Morales

"Beer nerd. Food fanatic. Alcohol scholar. Tv practitioner. Writer. Troublemaker. Falls down a lot."

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