The phenomenon of climate change was unveiled a few decades ago, with its potential apocalyptic intensity worsening with each passing prediction by scientists. Over the years, studies conducted by climate researchers across the globe have concluded one consensus: the failure to combat climate change will translate to inhabitability of the world for all species, from the land to the oceans.
The gravity of the impending climate crisis has compelled supranational and intergovernmental organizations to establish various environment committees and commissions, for the national governments to institute environment ministries, for NGOs to specialize in the environment, and for all to hold multitudes of international conferences aiming to address environmental degradation. Certainly, during these times, the airports are crammed with the private planes of world leaders and billionaire businessmen who are ‘committed’ to the cessation of global warming.
The world is failing to fulfil their commitments to climate change mitigation. Countries, organizations, and corporations have signed numerous universal agreements and protocols, but its non-binding element impedes any significant actions to be undertaken. There are no set sanctioning procedures against signatory parties who violate these agreements. Their transgressions are beneficial to overload their pockets, but exponentially harrowing for the world’s future. The grim reality is that our countries are governed by senile politicians whose lifetime is on a lifeline. They will NOT be alive to witness and experience the devastation caused by the crisis, enabling them to trivialize the issue.
2030 is the deadline declared to reverse climate change before its irrevocability in destruction. Yet national governments refuse to prioritize the environment by implementing greener policies and strategies, instead green-lighting corporations, willing to sacrifice the planet for short-term monetary gains. Practicing the weakening and havocing late-stage capitalist system which emphasizes on infinite human wants by exploiting the finite resources the world offers will only foster greed, and push companies towards outright disregard for the environment. Oftentimes, the governments’ incompetence warrants such destructive behaviour by supporting lenient laws and regulations.
Although, there has been a climbing number of public protests on climate change, it has instead forced corporations to resort to misleading marketing through greenwashing campaigns – deceitful ‘eco-friendly’ marketing without diminishing their negative environmental impacts. Governments have also adopted the tenets of greenwashing. The most prominent example is the banning of plastic straws. Though it may seem as a positive step towards sustainability, the irony lies in the fact that the substituting paper straws are complemented with a plastic cup, which remains legal to use while evidently containing more plastic components.
In the 1970s, an era when scientists were widely regarded as experts (and not ‘conspirators’), the global populace received the warning of holes in the ozone layer in the Earth’s atmosphere, which filtered out the harmful Ultraviolet (UV) rays. Without serious prevention in production of man-made chemicals, the holes will augment further and humans will have to face UV rays directly hitting the earth’s surface, posing serious health risks. Instilled by fear, the international public and private sectors agreed to cooperate in effort to repatch the holes by banning the release of harmful man-made chemicals into the atmosphere. The success of the Montreal Protocol and the subsequent revival of the ozone layer evinces the international community’s ability to successfully collaborate to achieve common goals.
The planet thrives from balance. The summers and winters; the predators and prey; the land and the ocean; the day and night; the flora and fauna; they all contribute to the sustenance of a global ecosystem where every species has a reason to live. With the artificially charged climate change, millions of species will go extinct, destabilizing the planet’s balance and risking our very existence.
The post-2030 world will be dysfunctional. Many underdeveloped countries in the Global South are presently being plagued by the climate crisis due to the lack of importance placed on its obstruction by governments and corporations. Without access to adequate resources to mobilize in mitigation (funding for R&D of sustainable technologies, deficit of capital to install renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, or dams), poorer populations are facing famines, frequent 'natural' disasters (floods, wildfires, landslides, earthquakes), fatal heatwaves, and inevitably displacements. The poorest of the world’s population are facing the disruption of the global food supply as food prices increases dramatically from scarcity, generated by disasters such as pest infestations, floods, aridity, and more. These countries and populations suffer the worst of the crisis they barely partook in engendering. They are also equally vulnerable to displacement but unlikely to be accepted as refugees in ‘safer’ countries. Today, there are more refugees created from climate disasters than from war and conflict. With worsening violence across the globe, the accumulation of climate refugees and conflict refugees will be cataclysmic. The climate crisis intensifies the risks of pandemics as the melting ice caps release unfounded viruses which were previously frozen. The warm temperatures will also allow existing viruses to mutate. As seen during COVID-19 pandemic, it will be detrimental for the poorer countries who do not possess adequate infrastructure to assuage epidemics.
The brewing oceanic catastrophe will further exacerbate environmental issues. Coral reefs are a marine ecosystem imperative to maintain the balance in the ocean. They reduce the power of waves crashing onto the land, and provides a source of income for fishermen around the world as a habitat for diverse sea life. They are delicate and sensitive. As global warming worsens rise in temperatures, coral ecosystems are bleaching and dying, engendering a snowball of sea life deaths, and making life difficult for poor fishermen. In the Great Barrier Reef in the Pacific Ocean, the world’s largest coral reef system stretching across 2,300 kilometres, around two-thirds of the corals are bleached.
Climate change is transcendental. Its wreckage does not discriminate by sovereign borders. If unabated, this would be fatal to humanity's existences; and presently we are failing miserably in ensuring future generations can continue to live mundanely as we have. If the world is keen on its survival (and of billions of other species), we must remember we can only heal the planet by acting together. Climate change, climate crisis, climate and global warming issues, effects of climate change, effects of global warming, global climate change. Climate change, climate crisis, climate and global warming issues, effects of climate change, effects of global warming, global climate change. Climate change, climate crisis, climate and global warming issues, effects of climate change, effects of global warming, global climate change. Climate change, climate crisis, climate and global warming issues, effects of climate change, effects of global warming, global climate change. Climate change, climate crisis, climate and global warming issues, effects of climate change, effects of global warming, global climate change. Climate change, climate crisis, climate and global warming issues, effects of climate change, effects of global warming, global climate change.
