An Assessment of Climate Smart Approaches to Reduce Emission of Greenhouse Gasses

Abstract

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are natural occurring gases in the atmosphere which interact with the sun to trap heat. This keeps the earth warmer and makes it a habitable planet to living organism. Example of these gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and water vapor. Over the years there has been a spike in human activities as the human world advances and more technological breakthrough are being achieved, these result in emission of increasingly large amount of these gases to the atmosphere. These gases are increasingly trapped in the earth surface, this trapped gasses result in an effect that increase the earth climate and temperature, the heightening temperature result makes the environment unfavorable to human, plant and animal. A lot of strategies have been employed in reducing greenhouse effect such as afforestation, changing the energy source but as a result of developing increasing human activities, the effect are becoming less or minimal. Excessive evaporation of water, increase in rainfall, desertification of some environment and flooding of others, drought, erosion are some of the impact of GHGs to the environment. This also causes migration of animals to cooler region and evolution of some plants to adapt to the constant changing weather. This has impacted heavily on the ecosystem displacing balance of the biogeochemical circles. Many researchers over the time have discovered the role of GHGs in earth atmosphere. This paper examined the methods in mitigating GHGs and its impact on the environment. Different method has been employed in mitigating greenhouse effect but due to the high concentration of CO2 most of these method are centralized in it reduction, capturing or introduction of new renewable energy that will not increase the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere but most of these strategies are unable to be employed on a large scale. Another method is the use of living organism such as plant and microorganism. Plant generally use CO2 as energy source and are able to utilize it and reduce the concentration in the atmosphere, in this method plant is use to capture the CO2 in the atmosphere. Microorganisms has a wide range of adaptability to different environments, this is own to their capability to utilize different source of energy for growth and their ability to evolve in an extreme environment. Microorganism plays a key role in biogeochemical cycle, fostering plant development, degradation of organic matter, fixing atmospheric nitrogen and carbon, thereby reducing the emitted GHGs in the atmosphere. There is need for constant monitoring of the environment and developing suitable, low cost method in mitigating the GHGs emission in the atmosphere.