Red Signal for Green Climate!

Not much news or noise seems to be coming from the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun. Three days of the COP 16 (Conference of Parties) meeting is over but there is hardly any visible sense of urgency. The countries seem to have accepted climate change a fait accompli.

The tone and temperament of submission was visible on the opening day press briefing. Christiana Figueres, the Executiv

e Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said, ‘Cancun will not solve everything and the outcome needs to be pragmatic, but Cancun also needs to keep ambition very much alive. The truth is – even if all the national targets and actions now on the table are honoured in full – and the world does expect them to be honoured – they will not meet the goal of avoiding a rise of over two degrees in global temperatures.”Though Figueres did express hope, ‘Cancun can deliver’ and that ‘It is in no one’s interest to delay further action.’

From Copenhagen (2009, COP-15) to Cancun (2010, COP-16) and then to Durban (2011, COP-17) and finally Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; it’s one after another set of meetings which remain but being literally just a meeting.

Have we lost the momentum of thought about greening our environment? It appears that the major polluters of the world have decided to unlearn and reassert their reluctance to actually do something when the need is to learn from the rapid decline of environment and reassure the world of binding action.

Writing about environment, we feel tad disappointed if it was one incident of misreporting on the part of IPCC Chair Rajendra K. Pachauri that has caused all the change in attitude.
The world seems caught in between the decline of the major economies, especially the USA and the rise of China. Recent developments in the Korean Peninsula, Wikileaks and heating up of the Sino-US-India controversies have pushed climate concerns on the back foot. It has brought the onus to green earth on individuals more than ever.

While none of the incidents above is insignificant, the fact remains that we can’t wait for global consensus to come first. Mexican hurricane, floods in Pakistan and fires in Russia are examples of increasing incidences of natural disasters brought about by climate change. Such incidents are on the rise world over.

There are some good signs as well. Deforestation in the Amazon reached lowest levels ever recorded in 2009. Among the developing countries India has been quick in releasing environmental assessment report. It has also agreed for carbon intensity cut up to 20-25 percent in the next decade. According to a recent release by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, there has been a net increase in mangrove forest cover on the east coast of India. The newly elected government in Bihar reaffirmed its election promise to enhance state’s renewable energy generation capacity in a major way. The environment ministry under Jairam Ramesh has cancelled many hydro electric projects due to violation of environmental protection norms, something that almost never happened earlier in India. Chinese companies are coming in a big way in manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines and efficient coal power plants. The Chinese government committed US $45 billion in upgrading the electricity grid in 2009 alone.

The fact of the matter is that we might doubt how severe and widespread the impact of the climate is going to be but there is no doubt about it being humanity’s biggest long-term challenge. The question we need to ponder upon is: Can we let it be sever and painful? Can’t we make it our greatest opportunity?

We might fail or succeed in saving our coastal cities and priceless environment despite all our efforts but at least we will not have the regret that we didn’t try to save what we had. Let’s make sure we give our best to give a clean and green planet to all our future generations and species of life, something they all deserve.

The article was published on iSikkim.com