Political will key to fight climate change

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has again raised concerns about the state of health of the earth and said we need to make urgent and unprecedented changes to fight global warming. We didn’t really need a new report to realise that we are standing on the precipice as pollution takes down our planet and the gains that we have made as humans. The prolonged heatwave experienced in the northern hemisphere, growing intensity of hurricanes in the US, record droughts in Cape Town, and increasing floods in other parts of the world forcefully point out that there is an ever-growing link between extreme weather, global warming and climate change. And it will only get worse if we keep emitting carbon dioxide and not take corrective measures. The world is currently one degree Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels. If we fail to keep temperatures from rising above 1.5 to 2 degree Celsius in the next decade, we could have a doomsday scenario staring at us.

The widening gap between science and politics, however, is a bigger worry than anything else. Political will plays a strong role in ensuring that we as societies and countries remain committed to taking environment-friendly measures. The Paris Agreement of 2016 was a landmark initiative that brought nations together to agree on a collective goal, yet it hasn’t been enforced the way it should have been. US President Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement; and now Brazil could follow suit. A weak economy is pushing Brazil to explore new ways to prop up growth and opening up of Amazon rainforest for agribusiness is being seen as a possible solution. People at the individual levels could be making some progress, but in order to protect our future, we need a collective plan, one that prompts action through strict regulation, not simply advisories. There is a dire need for us to change. Isn’t it time we shed our biases and let go of our greed to simply take from the earth and give nothing in return? There is no point in forming new conventions or groupings, when the old ones are being tossed away. Perhaps nations regionally can come together with collective goals that help achieve bigger ones on a global scale in line with the Paris Agreement. The odds may be stacked against the earth, but doing nothing is inviting more disasters upon us.