Anupama Nair
www.mediaeyenews.com
With the world ravaged by a ‘mere virus’ for nearly eighteen months, the world is celebrating World Environment Day on June 5th like we do every year. The United Nations started celebrating this day from 1974. The purpose of World Environment Day is to spread awareness about the threat to the environment due to rising pollution levels and climatic change in the world. Pakistan is the global host for the day this year in partnership with the UN Environment Program (UNEP).
“We cannot turn back time. But we can grow trees, green our cities, rewild our gardens, change our diets and clean up rivers and coasts. We are the generation that can make peace with nature. Let’s get active, not anxious. Let’s be bold, not timid”. This is the sentiment of the youth. Last year due to the Lockdown, the environment was “pollution free” for the first time in a century. The moot point is do we need a lockdown to keep our environment pollution free?
For too long, we have been exploiting and destroying our planet’s ecosystems. Every three seconds, the world loses enough forest to cover a cricket ground and over the last century we have been responsible for destroying our forests, rivers, seas and even atmosphere and even the ozone layer that saves the earth from harmful ultra violet rays of the sun. Where are we heading to? Are we destroying our precious planet?
Global warming is threat to the planet earth. What is global warming? Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth's climate system which was observed since the pre-industrial period due to human activities, primarily fossil-fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere. What is the result? Planet has been getting hotter. Example is, Europe’s summer temperature was always around 18 to 25 degrees. Now, every year it is around 37 to 40 degrees, The glaciers are melting everywhere, leading to rising sea levels.
Climate change includes not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather change, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, and a range of other impacts. All of those changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely on.
Pakistan the host of this year’s World Environment Day, stated that it will host World Environment Day 2021 in partnership with the UNEP. This year’s observance of World Environment Day will be on the theme of ‘ecosystem restoration’ and focus on resetting our relation with nature. It will also mark the formal launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.
Making the announcement on the margins of the virtual Fifth UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5), Pakistan’s Adviser to Prime Minister and the Minister of Climate Change, Malik Amin Aslam, joined the UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen, to acknowledge the urgency of preventing, halting and reversing the degradation of ecosystems worldwide and especially in Pakistan.
Led by the Prime Minister Imran Khan, the Government of Pakistan in one of the world’s most ambitious afforestation efforts planned to expand and restore the country’s forests through a “10 billion tree Tsunami “ within a period over 5 years. The campaign included restoring mangroves and forests, as well as planting trees in cities, including schools, colleges, parks and green belts. Pakistan had launched an Ecosystem Restoration Fund to support nature-based solutions to climate change and facilitate the transition towards environmentally resilient, ecologically targeted initiatives covering afforestation and biodiversity conservation. "We are honored to host this year's World Environment Day and lend our support to global restoration efforts" stated Aslam. It is an ambitious project indeed.
Inger Anderson, the Executive Directive of UNEP stated “2020 was a year of reckoning, facing multiple crises, including a global pandemic and the continued crises of climate, nature and pollution. In 2021, we must take deliberate steps to move from crisis to healing: and in so doing, we must recognize that the restoration of nature is imperative to the survival of our planet and the human race”. “Pakistan has shown real leadership in efforts to restore the country’s forests; we are grateful for their commitment to host World Environment Day 2021 and lead the charge for all nations to restore our damaged ecosystems through the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration,” she added.
On World Environment Day, PM Modi said ” India is emerging as leader of climate justice. The focus on ethanol is having a better impact on the environment as well as on the lives of farmers. Today we have resolved to meet the target of 20 percent ethanol blending in petrol by 2025," Many celebrities like Malaika Arora, Pratik Gandhi and Día Mirza pledged their support for the campaign “stop the melt”. A film will be made to create environment awareness and stop plastic usage.
What will we do—what can we do—to slow this human-caused warming? How will we cope with the changes we've already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the fate of the Earth as we know it—coasts, forests, farms, and snow-capped mountains—hangs in the balance.
Good article. Need of the hour.
Good article. Well written
nice and well written.