Tackling Effects of Global Warming: Grass-roots Solutions

We have moved forward a little bit in tackling the effects of global warming when 1700 community activists from 62 countries agreed on the 12-Month Framework for Action on Climate Change. Members of the NGOs and civil societies met last week at the United Nations’ organized Conference focusing on,“Climate Change: How It Affects Us All”. It is good timing for the grass-roots solutions before the problems of global warming become irreversible. The agreed 12-Month Framework for Action at grass-roots level surely is a major step forward to protect our future ecosystems and infrastructures. Since we share one Planet Earth, leaders of each community will have to find appropriate action locally, aiming to stop people’s behavior which will end up polluting the Earth’s environment. Governments and industrial leaders have begun to take concrete action to reduce greenhouse gas or to find alternative sources of energy. Financial and development institutions give incentives to foster climate-friendly technologies towards the eventual phase-out of fossil fuels and nuclear-based technologies. Each community should make their own action plan to face the severity of impact of climate change, which is different from one community to the other, depending on geography and location. For example, sea level rise will affect the livelihood of the people who live along coastal areas or on small islands more than those living on mountain terrains, while the melting of the Himalayan glaciers will affect people in Central and East Asia more than people living in South America. This agreed Framework For Grass-roots Action has given us hope in that, together, we can combat global climate change. We are all responsible to change our own bad habit of excessive consumption, and bad practice of waste of clean water and other precious natural resources. Our positive action can prevent disaster for ourselves and for billions of other people who will face famine, mass dislocations and death that will come from global warming and climate change. This successful last week conference has increased the momentum leading up to the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Meeting to address the leadership challenge of climate change, which is scheduled for 24 September in New York, andthe United Nations Climate Change Conference at Nusa Dua in Bali from 3-14 December 2007.

Filed under Environment, United Nations, World Affairs |