The 2017 challenges facing the world
While Sri Lanka welcomes 2017 with a degree of uncertainty, the world seems to do so with even greater trepidation. The advent of a maverick business tycoon to the Presidency of the United States of America is being watched with bated breath throughout the world. European and Chinese leaders have already voiced concern and made adverse comments about the assumption of Donald Trump to the post of President of USA later this month, while Russia has welcomed him with cautious optimism.
This week’s US Government decision to expel Russian diplomats on allegations that Moscow interfered with the US electoral process, and last week’s US Government decision not to vote for a non-binding UN resolution condemning Israel on its controversial settlements policy have boxed the incoming President into a compromising position.
Many expect that some of the outrageous things Trump said on the campaign trail will be left behind as platform rhetoric – none more dangerous than his comment that the issue of global warming and climate change is a “hoax”.
The Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 which came into force last year where 195 countries promised to limit global warming is now at risk if one of the world’s biggest contributors to climate change pulls out of the Agreement, or does not abide by it. Among the most vulnerable are small island-nations. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has launched a campaign to ‘Help Save the Fridge’; a reference to the melting ice in the Arctic that is swelling sea levels and asking Governments, companies and citizens around the world to make the right choices about energy conservation and use.
Sri Lankans would have also experienced a warmer December than before with warm afternoons and cooling off only at night. According to the Met Department, the average Colombo mean temperature in December 2011 was 27.0 degrees Celsius and just four years later, i.e. in December 2015 it was 27.9 degrees Celsius – almost one full degree Celsius higher in such a short span. Last month's (December 2016) average temperature will only be available today from the Met Dept.
While this thrust towards doing something to arrest global warming is gathering momentum, now comes a new US President who pooh-poohs the entire exercise seeing things perhaps purely from a profit-oriented businessman’s perspective.
If climate change is a threat to the planet as a whole in the not-toodistant future, the immediate dangers to world peace, and peoples living on the edge comes from the wars, a refugee crisis on par with what happened during World War II, human trafficking, xenophobia, nuclear fallouts and what not -- the 2016 issues that will be entered into the 2017 ledger.
All is not gloom and doom though. Despite the news that grabs the headlines more often than not, vast progress has also been made, outside of the politics of the day, especially in the alleviation of poverty. So much so, private philanthropists like Bill Gates are optimistic that poverty as is known today can be abolished in his lifetime. Recent statistics on the eradication of disease, hunger and ignorance are positive.
Ordinary people – and not the politicians, are dictating terms nowadays around the world and setting the agendas for themselves. Whether the world flourishes or flounders remains to be seen. No. 08, Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 02. P.O. Box 1136, Colombo editor@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2331276 news@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479332, 2328889, 2331276 features@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479312, 2328889,2331276 pictures@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479323, 2479315 sports@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479311 bt@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479319 funtimes@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479337, 2331276 2479540, 2479579, 2479725 2479629, 2477628, 2459725