Climate change is one of the most repeated words which we hear day by day on social media, television and newspapers. Whenever we face flooding, heat waves, tsunami or droughts the major reason behind these disasters is mentioned to be ‘Climate Change’. People are calling it a crisis of our time and it is.
According to the scientists, we are at the mid of sixth mass extinction, with up to 200 species going extinct every single day. The extinction rate today is 1000 to 10000 higher than the past but majority of us are seeing it as a normal natural act. In fact they don’t know that it is the consequence of man-made catastrophes.
After 1950, when the industrial revolution was started we have been breaking the records of carbon emissions and have not stopped since. We have been burning more and more fossils fuels like coal and oil to power our homes, industries, and consuming more meat, dairy products while our population has tripled in past 70 years.
The worst outcome is that these fuels and others release CO2. All these factors are rising the earth’s temperature and even 0.5 rises in world’s heat can bring intolerable woes.
The question is have we taken the effective steps to overcome this crisis? The answer is quite disappointing. Back in 2015, world leaders signed so called ‘Paris Agreement’ in which the big pledge was to cap temperatures rising by 1.5 degrees and countries will set their own target to stop the carbon emission. But six years have passed but this agreement has failed to accomplish even its major goal and temperature is continuously rising.
Now again the global powers are meeting on 12th November at Glasgow, Scotland under the umbrella of UN’s COP 26. But there is no hope for betterment in this conference because more than 80% of carbon is emitted by global powers like China, the US, and Russia. Due to their economic tussle and non-serious behavior, they are not agreeing to do the effective steps like cutting down fossil fuels consumption.
Even If you look at the developing countries like Pakistan, Nigeria, Bhutan, and many others, they have taken significant steps. But when the global powers are not willing to play their role then how the developing countries can be able to sustain their steps which are already facing the worst consequences of climate change than the global powers.
It is estimated that till 2030 the temperature will reach up to 2 degrees which was actually expected in 2100 in various agreements. The global powers have to take serious steps for the sake of future generations. They have to think that their capitalism-based goals will face failure in a dead world. They have to shift from fossils fuels to other non-harmful resources like wind energy, electrical energy, and solar energy.
Written by Wajid Ali | Lahore
