By – Abhilash Borah
Imagine a world where there is no water to drink. Imagine a world where individuals are fighting against each other just to get a glass of water. And imagine a world where there is no peace, and just chaos, disturbance and fights among individuals, regions, nations leading to a catastrophic disaster that is all certain to log out humanity from the system we call, mother-earth. Complete self-activated deletion from mother-earth system!
Observations and scientific evidences have repeatedly informed the civil society that the earth is transforming, that precipitation and temperature trends of the planet has altered beyond its normal pattern and manifesting into heat waves which have never been felt in the countries of temperate regions like France andGermany in 2019, and extreme cyclones like Fani in Indian subcontinent to Hurricane Dorian in the American continent. The climate is changing its behavior abnormally and it’s not natural, and is unlikely able to cater to the needs of consumers who have been recklessly depleting, exploiting, and eliminating the life-giving resources that mother-nature has to offer to satisfy our more-than-required-thirst for objects.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]finds and repeatedly has disseminated that if the world doesn’t take active steps to mitigate rising greenhouse gas emissions where carbon-dioxide levels has already crossed a dangerous 400 PPM in the atmosphere, which have been since 1800s only rising exponentially, the world would have a further rise of average mean temperature by 2 degree Celsius. It is leading to a catastrophic existential threat that is certainly all set to open a Pandora’s box of unforeseen events like never before by 2050 and the end of this hi-tech 21st century where we are so much involved in upgrading our Artificial Intelligence to the next level that we have actually forgotten, or honestly, overlooked to upgrade our basic common sense and ethical understanding of what should be done when crisis is just at the doorstep, both for us and our future generation who are likely to live on this planet in the year 2999.
However, series of evidences, scientific calculations, and notifications have not been able to shake the fluctuating emotions of civilians who tend to use and throw plastics at its whims, and more importantly, global world leaders who sign up huge commitments on Memorandum of Understanding [MoUs] where promises into action are only left to be delayed.
In this instance, the nations have only postponed the things that are important. For say, Chile, which was supposed to hold the UNFCCC COP25 summit, due to turmoil in their regular political economy, was unable to take care of the highly important event, got ultimately shifted to Madrid, Spain which is widely revered for its tourism beauty and football culture by population across the globe, and it was highly anticipated that some “Real Madrid” winning moment would emerge from the climate negotiations. Where Real Madrid led by Cristiano Ronaldo does create wonderful headlines, but unfortunately what was supposed to be of “Real” concern didn’t materialize to “Real Madrid” talks and it just got postponed until further times. So the Madrid talks have failed and this is not a good omen. Nations have yet again failed to reach a definite consensus on how to tap its growing greenhouse gases emissions budget, take care of its commitments which is ethically of prime importance more than ever before, and how to take more active, evidence-generating steps to mitigate climate change.
Global superpower United States of America under its Supreme Leader Donald Trump, once upon a time, has already declared,climate change to be hoax, while small island developing nations et al.are gasping for funds which they were supposed to receive under the Paris Climate Agreement to build their houses, schools, other infrastructure, and economy with the help of developed nations. Real commitment is nowhere to be seen, and the funds released are too minuscule when compared to the promised $100 billion per year to developing nations.
And we are here at 2020 and the commitments, promises, and the so-called ambitious targets for a sustainable world seems too dull and amidst the failure of UNFCCC’s COP25 Madrid talks, all things are just going awful, haywire and gloomy as we enter the new decade of the 2020s. So, are things too bad? Yes it is. But there is hope as well, as legend says where there is a will, there is a way. And the will is shown by TIMES person of the year, Greta Thunberg who has been amazingly taking the lead to mobilize young minds’ opinions at the world stage and make sure the voices of young people for climate change is heard loud and clear, by leading the “Friday’s For Future Campaign” across the world from Latin America to the Southeast Asian region. It is unfortunately not taken seriously making a mockery of Greta’s achievementby the leader of the sole superpower of the world, Donald Trump of USA, which is ironically also most responsible along with other developed countries for creating the mess of emissions in the atmosphere which is now killing millions of children due to pollution, generating climate migrants/refugees turning people homeless, national security issues worldwide, and making women work harder to get the share of water to do the household chores in faraway sub-Saharan African regionetc., including men too to do the agricultural-cum-livestock works.
While things seems hopeless, it is inspiring to see countries like India and China are now taking the lead to transform its fossil fuel mobility industry into the electric vehicles frontier in a bid to remove usage of non-renewable resources. India has taken the leadership role in establishing the International Solar Alliance platform to fasten solar-enabled infrastructure across the world along with France. And China is fast forwarding its transportation infrastructure where it has 99% of the world’s electric two wheelers and more than 100 companies making electric-cars. That’s inspiring to know when both the just mentioned above countries are infamously known to be among the top three nations who emit greenhouse gases, along with most number of deaths related to air pollution.
So what do we need right at the moment? We all need strong compassion towards our ailing mother-nature than anything else, understand deeply and make an attempt to adapt to the changing climate and be honestly ambitious about our future to work towards where emissions are reduced, flora and fauna have their habitats intact, ocean acidification reduces, pollution stops creating respiratory problems, and where the biggest goals of the current generation, the highly earth-changing Sustainable Development Goals 2030 are on road to be achieved sooner.
Can we achieve the goals? Indeed, we can. The world now needs another “Montreal Protocol” moment. It is observed that ozone layer have shrunk and is about to fully restore its original health by 2070, and be ready to protect mother-earth from harmful ultraviolet radiations. This consensus which was signed in 1980s did prove that multilateral efforts can bring absolute results in solving earth problems, and indeed everyone must, once again, take the lead to overcome our differences and work collectively, towards a greenbolization world, with a greenbolized society. [green+globalization=greenbolization].
It is up to us what do we want. Do we want a world without potable water to drink? Or do we want to create a green, bright, and sustainable future. I choose the second option. Because the first option is simply too frightening, and I do neither wish for a world of conflict nor fights among our universal brethren. Let’s make a choice to upgrade our emotional intelligence and make it stronger than our quest for Artificial Intelligence applications in this anticipated happy New Year, 2020!
