We Are Living in a Climate Emergency

An emergency is a serious situation that requires immediate action. Exactly 40 years ago, scientists from 50 nations met at the First World Climate Conference (in Geneva 1979) and agreed that alarming trends for climate change made it urgently necessary to act. Since then, similar alarms have been made through in different years. Yet greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are still rapidly rising, with increasingly damaging effects on the Earth’s climate. An immense increase of scale in endeavours to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis.

The climate crisis is closely linked to excessive consumption of the wealthy lifestyle. Profoundly troubling signs from human activities include sustained increases in both human and ruminant livestock populations, per capita meat production, world gross domestic product, global tree cover loss, fossil fuel consumption, the number of air passengers carried, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and per capita CO2 emissions since 2000.

To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live, in ways that improve the vital signs. Researchers have found six key areas that are responsible for climate emergency or you can say we need to work on these areas.

1. Energy — Large conservation practices should be implemented; fossil fuels with clean renewables should be substituted; remaining stocks of fossil fuels should be left in the ground; subsidies to fossil fuel companies should be eliminated; and carbon fees that are sufficiently high to limit the use of fossil fuels should be imposed.
2. Short-lived pollutants — Emissions of soot, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, and other short-lived climate pollutants should be rapidly eliminated. This can possibly decrease the short-term warming trend by over 50% over the next few years.
3. Nature — Large land clearing should be limited. Ecosystems like forests, grasslands, and mangroves should be restored and protected as these would significantly play a role in the sequestration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; carbon dioxide is known to be a major greenhouse gas.
4. Food — Mostly plants but only fewer animal products should be consumed. This dietary change can considerably cut down emissions of greenhouse gases, including methane, and thus free up agricultural lands for growing human food instead of livestock feed. It is also important to reduce food waste — according to researchers, a minimum of one-third of all food produced reaches the garbage.
5. Economy — The economy’s dependence on carbon fuels should be changed to deal with human reliance on the biosphere. Goals should be shifted away from the pursuit of affluence and the growth of the gross domestic product.
6. Population- Increasing human population is also contributing to the depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation. More population requires more resources to get processed and disposed of in the environment in the form of pollution.