NO CHALLENGE POSSESS A GREATER CHALLENGE TO THE FUTURE THAN A CLIMATE CHANGE !

Scenario 1 - Little girl Anjali, aged 7, dreamt of becoming a pilot one day. She wanted to study well and make her parents proud. But on a fateful day in 2013, cyclone phailin ruined her home and broke her family. Her dreams, just like her home, lay in ruins.

Anjali has been a victim of climate change.

Scenario 2 - In the faraway hinterlands of Vidharbha in Maharastra, Baswant Rao is mired in deep debt. He is hoping against hope to have a bumper crop this season so that he can pay off his debts. As fate would have it, monsoons refused to visit his farm and his crops died a slow death, leaving Baswant Rao and his family in unspeakable misery. Baswant Rao too is a victim of climate change.

Like Anjali and Baswannt Rao, climate change is wreaking on millions of lives and is leading to the destruction of our planet. It has become the greatest challenge to the survival of future generations. Therefore, this calls for a careful analysis of the problem.

In this article, we will examine what exactly do we mean by climate change? What are the driving factors and how it is posing a major challenge to future generations? In the end, we will explore solutions as to how we can overcome this challenge to build a sustainable, prosperous future.

Climate change: meaning

Climate change refers to long-term alterations in weather, temperature, and rainfall patterns. There is strong scientific consensus (97%) that this change is purely driven by human actions. The trend for the past century has been unmistakable the temperatures are on the rise, rainfall is more and more erratic, and the majority of the land is increasingly under the threat of desertification and loss of biodiversity. So what are the reasons and consequences of climate change?

Climate change: a daunting challenge

Social factors- one of the prime reasons that contribute to climate change is poverty and deprivation. Without adequate resources and means, the poor are compelled to adopt unsustainable practices. For example, slash-and-burn agriculture is prevalent mostly among tribes of India because they do not have access to fertilizers, farm equipment, and weedicides. Similarly, the poor take to open defecation because of a lack of access to toilets. From a nation’s perspective too, developing nations such as India and Nigeria contribute to climate change because of the absence of technology transfer from developed nations.

This had led to an unprecedented challenge to our biomes. As temperatures rise consistently, it is leading to the desertification of farmland and depletion of the groundwater table. UN agencies estimate that by 2030, almost 60% of productive landmass faces the threat of desertification.

This poses a serious question on the viability of food chains thus posing risk to future generations.

In the same vein, as the glaciers melt at the poles, waters are rising to unprecedented levels putting island nations such as pacific island nations, and Maldives at risk of complete submergence. Scientists project that the future refugee crisis will not be due to wars but due to climate change. If the Syrian refugee crisis tells us anything, it is that such unprecedented displacement of people is a major threat to social order and global peace in the future.

Economic factors- On the economic front, unfettered consumerism, globalization, and blind pursuit of development are posing severe threats to future generations.

Consumerism is the dogma that tells us to consume and buy more than our needs. Global retail chains such as Amazon, Walmart, KFC, etc, have made more and more people part of this consumerism frenzy.

It leads to severe strain on earth’s resources, and irredeemably pollutes its ecosystem through the generation of waste. To illustrate, every year, an area equivalent to the state of Maharashtra is cleared in the Amazon forest to cater to our ‘needs’.

As forests are cleared and ecosystems are disrupted, it disturbs the carbon sinks of the earth. Thus we fall into the inevitable vicious circle of lack of carbon sinks leading to a future rise in carbon dioxide, thus leading to climate change and global warming.

With increased levels of carbon dioxide and unchecked mining, we are witnessing a rise in inequality, and pollution levels in the atmosphere and marine ecosystem. For instance, today, New York square consumes more electricity in one week than Zimbabwe does in a whole year. Also, the inevitable rise of respiratory diseases and lifestyle diseases is posing a major threat to public health.

Ethical factors- Climate change is also driven by being unethical. Mahatma Gandhi famously said that “our earth is not an inheritance from our ancestors, but a loan from future generations”. But what ethical example are we settling for our future generations?

Industrial farming of animals is one of the major drivers of climate change. Millions of gallons of water and thousands of acres of food are being used not to feed the hungry, but to raise animals and slaughter them later.

With erratic climate patterns, rainfall, and storms becoming the norm, such practices are vulnerable to destruction thus threatening not only us but also the future. Intensive farming strips the agricultural land of its life, rendering it useless for the future.

International factors- climate change is a global phenomenon and no one nation can solve it. However, ever since the world came together at Rio in 1992 to draft the UN Convention on sustainable development and subsequent climate protocols such as Kyoto, Montreal, etc., the contribution of developed nations has been found wanting.

The United States, the world’s biggest polluter never signed the Kyoto protocol and also recently pulled out of the Paris climate agreement. The UN climate fund of 100 billion dollars to be transferred to developing nations never took off.

This stubborn attitude of developed nations is posing a major challenge to the future. Developing nations also need to pursue development to lift their people out of poverty. Why mustt they be punished for what is largely a contribution of developed nations? Such an impasse, therefore, has the potential to debase the international community’s ability and will to take on climate change.

Having discussed how climate change is posing a major challenge to the future, let us turn our attention to how best we can solve it.

The world has a human development index and even a happiness index. What we need right now is a sustainable living index. People must be made aware of their lifestyle’s impact on the ecosystem (carbon footprint) so that they take to a life characterized by the 3 Rs -reduce, reuse and recycle.

There must be a worldwide movement to educate people on climate change and produces they can adopt to mitigate it. Innovative measures such as vertical farming (growing plants on buildings), using energy-efficient buildings and switching to electric vehicles, and solar energy can go a long way in making our lifestyles sustainable.

Finally, the international community must recognize the core principles of equitable climate emission norms that are common but differentiated responsibilities and obligations to transfer clean technology to developing and least developed nations. India must do its part in meeting emission norms as per our INDC (intended nationally determined contribution) through effective implementation of the National Solar Mission's national mission on electric mobility and promoting sustainable agriculture practices.

The nations of the world have come together before to abolish practices such as slavery and collaborated in the declaration of human rights for all. To meet the challenge of climate change, the need is now more than ever for the world to collaborate and ensure that we leave a planet to our future generation that is better than what we have inherited. Only then we can ensure that millions like Anjali and Baswant Rao have the means to live a prosperous life.