International Day for Climate Action: Lessons from COVID-19

COVID-19 presented the world with an existential crisis that many of us were not expecting. It has arguably challenged every aspect of our lives as we knew them, but it has also given us some renewed appreciation for the simple, yet important things in life, like nature and community.

As we live through the pandemic, we cannot forget that we are simultaneously facing another crisis — climate change. Scientists have warned us about the dangers of climate change for many years, and we have now reached a turning point where we must act boldly before it is too late. Awareness is no longer enough — locally and globally, we cannot afford inaction.

As a global problem that ultimately requires global co-operation and solutions, like the pandemic, climate change can feel overwhelming for individuals. Increases in intense weather events can make climate change feel very real and personal, but an ice cap melting in the Arctic can feel very far away and removed from our own lives. In context of the pandemic, as an individual, my actions to protect my health impact my health directly, the health of those in my community, and on a larger scale the health of everyone across the world — climate action is no different.

October 24 is International Day for Climate Action — a day where both organizations and individuals typically would gather to call upon our leaders for immediate and bold climate action. Given the ongoing pandemic, gatherings are not an option in the traditional sense, however, we are still able to call on our governments to take large scale action for a green recovery from the pandemic, and we are still able to act both individually and collectively within our local communities.

While climate change is a global problem, we can see both the effects of climate change and our efforts to mitigate it on a local level. At Conservation Halton, we confront climate change every day and integrate climate action and sustainability into everything we do. We want to encourage everyone to do the same.

Through the work of our monitoring teams, Conservation Halton is seeing water temperatures warm throughout the watershed — a trend that coincides with what we are seeing globally with the warming of the oceans. It is concerning to see these kinds of parallels, but encouragingly we can also see the positive effects of conservation efforts which helps to contextualize how local actions play a role in whether we will effectively address climate change together across the planet or not.

Combatting greenhouse gases requires both reducing the amount of carbon we emit into the atmosphere, but also sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Since 1960, Conservation Halton has planted more than 4 million trees on both public and private lands, sequestering more than 73 million kilograms of carbon from the atmosphere, while also filtering pollutants and moderating stream flows. We can all be stewards of the planet, and it starts here at home in our own backyards and communities.

The pandemic has forced us to think about and change behaviours in our daily lives that we previously took for granted, and it has shown us that our actions individually and collectively are powerful and can make a difference. These are important lessons that we should remember and apply on individual, local, and global levels as we push for climate action.

Awareness is no longer enough — locally and globally, we cannot afford inaction