History books are currently being written by time on how humans have been responding to climate change. The climate crisis is the defining catastrophe of our times, a pivotal event that is bound o have colossal impact on the future of mankind on the earth. With glaciers melting, sea levels rising and air becoming warmer, one can easily sense the premonition that is being sounded by nature like a clarion call for action. All the hopes and fears for the future rely on the steps that we take today, and any thought of delaying action is no longer complacence but a contract of annihilation.
Humanity needs to realize that we are still on a two-way path, albeit on the verge of it. There is still a bleak hope of undoing the harm that we have already meted out to the planet in titanic amounts over the pat so many centuries. Currently, it is a battle that we are losing rapidly, yet it is one that we can still win. No nook and cranny of this planet will stay immune to the deleterious consequences of climate change and calamities like natural disasters, pandemics, weather extremities, political upheaval and economic disruption will emerge in every corner of the planet, as a result of the disintegration of social fabric owing to climate change. The infinite cost of climate change is touching new irreversible highs with every passing day and the earth is being slain with endless climate-averse activities by humans. Every year, billions of tons of Carbon Dioxide get added to the atmosphere, which escalates the global warming phenomenon around the globe. With Ozone layer facing depletion and with the society failing to achieve independence from fossil fuels for energy requirements, the attack on climate looks incessant. The last four years have been the hottest on record for mankind, and this statistic will continue for the years to come, unless concrete actions are taken to reduce the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
According to a September 2019 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report, we are at least one degree Celsius above preindustrial levels and close to what scientists warn would be “an unacceptable risk”.
Source: UN
Though the 2015 Paris Agreement advocated for holding global warming well below 2-degree Celsius and preferably 1.5 degree Celsius for the benefit of mankind, the current rate of emissions will easily push temperatures to rise beyond 3-degree Celsius by end of the 21st century. Global warming is having its own share of torture on us, as ice sheets and glaciers are melting at a rate faster than ever, and coastal cities are under an unignorable massive threat of getting submerged under the sea in the next hundred years. Sprawling cities like Abu Dhabi, Osaka, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Shanghai are staring at an underwater future today. As per a UN report, around 500 million people today live in areas affected by erosion, while up to 30 per cent of food is lost or wasted as a result. This can case enormous food insecurity and can have disastrous effects on the poor population.
“Almost two-thirds of the world’s cities with populations of over five million are located in areas at risk of sea level rise and almost 40 per cent of the world’s population live within 100 km of a coast.”
Source: UN
With people being denied food by the irreversible circumstances and with citizens losing trust in the government, political upheavals are destined to emerge, and social conflicts will increase, thereby making life worse on the planet. The aftermath of the catastrophe is just unimaginable and extremely terrifying.
It is high time that the human race takes cognizance of the doom it is staring at and make sincere efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change. There is still time for us to act responsibly and turn every stone to bring the required change in this world for a better and safer climate. It’s time for us to leverage scalable new technologies and nature-based solutions to leapfrog to a cleaner, more resilient world.
