29 Sept. 2019 Daily Etemaad 'Action on Climate Change Needed'

Action on Climate Change Needed

Asad Mirza

On September 20, 2019, the world stood up and took notice of the millions of people across the world taking to the streets for the Global Climate Strike.

Millions of people took part in an unprecedented global demonstration on Friday, 20 Sept., demanding urgent action to tackle global heating, joining a movement started by Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg.

The strike was timed to put pressure on the leaders gathering for the climate summit, which is being held ahead of the annual UN general assembly. Extinction Rebellion, a climate change group, and Thunberg’s Fridays for Future are striking across the world between September 20 and 27, asking governments to declare a climate change emergency and take definitive action.

UN Secretary General Guterres asked leaders to come to the UN summit with new commitments to put the globe closer to meeting the Paris agreement goals of limiting global heating to at least 2^oC, and as close to 1.5^oC as possible, compared with pre-industrial levels. He said it required countries to cut emissions by 45% by 2030, end fossil fuel subsidies and ban new coal plants after 2020. Donald Trump, who has pledged to pull the US out of the Paris agreement, will not attend the summit.

The United in Science report, says policies to reduce emissions must triple to meet the 2^oC target and increase fivefold to keep heating to within 1.5^oC. A separate report released last week has found emissions from coal power would need to peak next year and fall to zero by 2040 if the world is to meet the Paris goals. For developed countries that have the capacity to move more rapidly to cleaner sources, such as Australia, the US and those in Western Europe, it would mean ending coal use for electricity by 2031. Less developed countries would need to shut their coal plants across the following decade.

The signs and impacts of global heating are speeding up. World Meteorological Organization data says the five-year period from 2014 to 2019 has been the warmest on record. There has also been a significant rise in sea levels and CO² emissions.

On Friday Sept. 20 students across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata, among other big cities, staged peaceful protests at prominent city centers, heeding Thunberg’s call for mass protests to sound the alarm on climate change.

In India, New Delhi’s millennials got together near Lodhi Garden, a landmark in Lutyens’ Delhi, to chant slogans that Thunberg and others popularised in Europe. They then marched to the nearby Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, where the police halted them. The young climate-change activists sat down on the street, sloganeering and rejoicing in the collective spirit of this movement.

Through this week, several more protests will be held across major Indian cities.

Beyond walk-ins, the protest also saw participation from seasoned environmental activists. Bittu KR, an assistant professor of biology at Ashoka University, was one such participant, who said that Indian environmentalists, though diverse and often working independently, have concrete policy demands from the government.

While the protests are still gentle, the same group also organised a more forceful protest outside the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in New Delhi. A large effigy of Ravana, the villain who represents evil in the Hindu epic Ramayana, was carried outside the ministry to symbolise the demon that is climate change.

Climate change has become an increasingly important issue for voters in recent years, particularly in Europe.

Many liberal-leaning leaders lent their support to the protests aligning themselves with what may be emerging as a global youth movement. Massachusetts Senator and US Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren sent out a message of support to climate protesters in her state’s capital.

Those messages were not just confined to U.S. lawmakers. Around the world, protesters poured into the streets to demand their voices be heard. Campaigners also staged protests in most other European countries, Australia, Japan, South Africa, Canada and dozens of other locations. It follows a similar coordinated protest in March that drew many tens of thousands around the world.

Global leaders lent their support to Friday’s mass mobilization. The Elders, a group of world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela, expressed their support for the climate action. Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General and Deputy Chair of The Elders stressed the need to have the courage to boldly step away from the status quo and make the changes that are needed for our planet

In late August, UN Secretary General António Guterres called on world leaders to expand the ambition of their commitments to tackle climate change in the face of dire warnings from scientists.

“And so, it’s absolutely essential that countries commit themselves to increase what was promised in Paris because what was promised [there] is not enough,” said Mr. Guterres, referring to the 2015 Paris climate accords.

In India the government has launched several programmes to tackle climate change from cleanliness to cleaning the major rivers of the country. But here the concrete action is seen less and rhetoric is more. The funds that are earmarked for environment action are seldom utilised fully, and thus the targets also remain unmet. From the Clean Ganga Campaign of the 80s to current Namami Gange, a $4biliion project, to clean the Ganga, most of the action remains on paper only. Similarly, we also need to have a relook at our coal-based power plants throughout the country.

Another area in which the common man could indeed contribute in a huge manner is curbing the use of the AC, at home, in office or in malls. For that to be achieved we also need to have a relook at our construction style and compare how the modern buildings are contributing to an increase in temperature and ultimately the climate change. These glass-clad buildings need more electricity and air conditioning to provide a perspiration-free atmosphere to the inhabitants. We have to look back to the past and re-adapt practices, which our forefathers used. Sociologically this means that the nuclear family concept has not helped the society at all, instead of having two or three storied high houses, now we have towers going above 15 floors, which provide less space for a big family and also promotes our reliance on using more electric appliances and machinery.

It is high time, for the mankind to take a call and decide what practices to adapt, so as to increase the years of longevity of our mother earth, a point succinctly raised by the school children, across the world, as they are the future inheritors of this earth. One can only hope that the initiative taken in this regard by the young children remains relevant and pressures their elders to take corrective measures before it is too late.

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