CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate Change Fight: The Way Forward

Joint efforts towards improving future conditions

Convention on climate change

The COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference, which was hosted by the UK was in partnership with Italy and was held from 31 October to 12 November 2021 in Glasgow, UK. The COP26 summit brought parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

COP stands for Conference of the Parties. This summit was attended by the countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This treaty came into force in 1994.

After the conclusion of the Glasgow conference, many conferences and seminars were scheduled by different countries to discuss the possibilities of Climate change.

The Association of Asia Scholars also had a 3-day conference in New Delhi (India) from 25th-27th November 2021. It was held in hybrid mode. I was invited to chair a session. The topic was hot. It interested me. I accepted the invitation because after Covid-19 this was the first time we would have a conference where we would meet some people while others would be online.

Seasons have changed. Floods are occurring, It is hot when it should be cold in a country. It is snowing in countries that never had snow.

Recently in India in Pondichery and Tamilnadu there was heavy incessant rain. This was not the season for rains. I came across an article by Nicole Hilbig on The Flood of the Century“ — When Nature Strikes Back Because of the Climate Change and then I read Cristina’s post on When Disaster Strikes Heavy rainfall floods the province of British Columbia (Canada). I realized that every country is facing problems and this is all due to climate change.

There is a plea that something should be done to stop the climate change disaster. What should be done? First of all, we must identify the causes of climate change

Identification of causes of climate change

Human activity is the main cause of climate change. People burn fossil fuels and convert land from forests to agriculture.

• The Burning of coal, oil, and gas produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
• Deforestation. Trees help to regulate the climate by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. When they are cut down, that beneficial effect is lost and the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect.
• Increasing livestock farming. Cows and sheep produce large amounts of methane when they digest their food.
• Using fertilizers with nitrogen component produce nitrous oxide emissions.
• Fluorinated gases are emitted from equipment and products that use these gases. Such emissions have a very strong warming effect, up to 23 000 times greater than CO2.

The main cause of climate change is the greenhouse effect. Some gases in the Earth’s atmosphere act a bit like the glass in a greenhouse, trapping the sun’s heat and stopping it from leaking back into space and causing global warming.

Many of these greenhouse gases occur naturally, but human activity is increasing the concentrations of some of them in the atmosphere, in particular:

• Carbon dioxide (CO2)
• Methane
• Nitrous oxide
• Fluorinated gases

I had earlier written about clean technology. I am inserting a link to the article.

Issues discussed on climate change

The issues discussed were the policies in different countries to cover climate change. Their efforts to fight climate change. The changing perspectives and approach towards alternate energies and stories of efforts for change in various countries. The barriers to change and limitations. What were the takeaways?

The takeaways

The following takeaways are there that came through the discussants of different countries.

#1.Policies: The government policies of the countries as discussed were found to be excellent.

Where was the gap? The gap was in implementation. With all the conferences and discussions and policies, the efforts remained in school books and classes, some efforts at colleges and higher education but nothing that actually permeates down to a combined effort of state and people. All efforts are staggered and in isolation.

#2.Pollution: Deforestation brought in a lot of land for cultivation but we polluted air land and rivers. We have landed into the double problem of no green cover and filling the earth with pollution. The reduction of pollution is attacked from different angles in countries but in India, for example, people in cities are aware even if they do nothing about it.

The people in villages are not even aware that they are taking away the green forests and also polluting the environment by throwing plastic and other non biodegradable materials in the corner of their homes.

A small instance is the immersion of idols in water with material that is not biodegradable. The rivers are getting polluted but people are not bothered. All the prayers to the sun God and Goddesses are done at the river edges.

Developing and developed countries have both messed up the world with pollution through the use of deforestation and then brought in pollution. One of the worst being the use of plastics which is crushing the economies with its weight.

Have you bothered to see that the more we try to get away from plastics, we actually do nothing about it?

Today, all shampoo bottles, creams, milk packets, packed food, fruits groceries are all entering our homes with plastic film on them. You actually have to remove them in order to use them. Some isolated efforts of organizations to not use plastic in homes has no effect on people. Do we have an alternative for plastic in the world?

I just read today that a startup in Hyderabad has started making shoes from plastic.

I also read that Adidas is making shoes out of recycled bottles. In Berkeley, I saw that lot of recycled clothes were being sold.

Where is the problem then? The problem is that some companies are making an effort to recycle plastic no doubt but not everyone is doing it.Moreover the marketing and supply of goods have to stop the worldwide practice of covering the daily goods with films of plastic.

#3. Festivals and weddings without crackers: In many countries festivals and weddings are celebrated with much fanfare. There are crackers galore to mark the happiness of the crowd. Most governments make policies that there will be no crackers at festivities.

In India in Delhi certainly, people will be restrained but what about the smaller towns and villages? who will stop them from bursting crackers?

Where is the gap? Weddings in large cities have colored confetti, the band in a DJ truck, cold fireworks.

The new development is the use of the CO2 Gun. How do we make people aware that the word spreads around and everybody does the same practice? This is just an isolated effort.

#4. The Way Forward- World, Country, and State action: The way forward is to declare an emergency. We should not leave it to individual-level trial and error changes but work together like we have worked with cooperation during Covid-19. To create a seriousness

The gap is that some people are taking action but it gets dissipated as others are not aware or do not understand the problem of climate change. Take action and work together. We can still make changes happen. We only have to understand the seriousness of the effects of climate change.

Conclusion

Making policies and having world conferences are a thing of the past.

Climate change is going to continue to have drastic effects if we take these isolated steps.

The way forward towards climate change are coordinated efforts and not isolated efforts alone.

We need a three-pronged attack to bring in clear cool air, pure water and pollution-free countries to actually make the policies work.

We have to make a world pact to fight climate change just like we are fighting Covid-19.

The efforts have to be made in the world level, country level and state level called the WCS method ofcombating with climate change.

A sense of emergency has to be declared to shake the world that we need to save planet earth for ourselves and the future generations. Isolated efforts are to be applauded but they get dissipated. We require collective action.

With folded hands 🙏I appeal to all Save the world, save us from the violent effects of climate change.

©Dr. Preeti Singh, 2021.