For 2022, the theme of the World Earth Day is ‘Invest in Our Planet’ and that of World Environment Day is ‘Only One Earth’. The title of the article signifies that we have only one planet, i.e, ‘Earth’ which is living; it is degrading fast and now this is time to invest for its restoration towards a sustainable future.
Today, the state of planet Earth is catastrophic in terms of increased climate aberrations leading to cyclonic disasters, sea level rise, floods and droughts, rapid loss of biodiversity and agricultural productivity, and loss of resilience of the natural ecosystems, as the consequences of global warming and climate change. The United Nations (UN) declared 2021-2030 as the ‘Decade of Eco-restoration.’ Around 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, according to the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The report calls for transformative changes to restore and protect nature.
The scope of UN was expanded to many areas, beyond its primary aim of preventing wars, like human rights, peace, security, and sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development has now shifted its focus more towards the economic development, social security, and environmental protection.
After the first ever UN Conference on the ‘Human Environment’, held at Stockholm (Sweden) in 1972, to address issues concerning the global environment and sustainable development, the next most productive international conclave was the United Nations Conference on the ‘Environment and Development’ (Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. The two important legally binding agreements, the outcome of the Earth Summit, were (1) Convention on Climate Change, and (2) Convention on Biological Diversity. The Conference of Parties (CoP) 26 on Climate Change recently met at Glasgow (UK) in November 2021, while the CoP 15 on Biological Diversity will meet at Kunming (China) in August-September 2022. The theme of the CoP 26 was “Uniting the World to Tackle Climate change”, while that of it for CoP 15 is "Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth."
The state of global environment as it stands now is excessive environmental degradation, loss of resilience and inevitable strong sustainability. The 6th Assessment Report of IPCC (released in three parts in August 2021, February and April 2022) assesses the impacts (biodiversity, ecosystems, human communities, etc.), and reviews on adaptation, vulnerability and mitigation. The UN’s 17Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), officially known as transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, address to peace and harmony with nature, and sustainable future of a viable planet Earth.
With the modern luxury intensive lifestyle, non-communicable diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), kidney malfunction, Alzheimer’s disease, etc. are on the rise now. The Covid-19 pandemic during 2020-21 was declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organisation (WHO), making it one of the deadliest in history. Added to this misery millions of people die around the world due to avoidable environmental causes.
The quality of ambient air with Air Quality Index (AQI) value at more than 150 is considered unhealthy. The average AQI measured in 2021 indicates the value to be above 150 in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and a few other countries in Asia. Environmental pollution caused some 9 million people to die prematurely in 2019. Out of this more than 6.6 million were due to air pollution only, with India accounting for the highest share of these fatalities at 1.67 million (17.8 per cent), stated the Lancet Commission Report. Equally the water quality is also turning poor to severe in most of the human habitations.
Leaders of the world’s largest economies had met in Rome for the G20 Summit during October 30-31, 2021. The summit’s goal was to lay the groundwork for discussions at CoP26 towards limiting global temperatures to 1.50 C above pre-industrial levels, as agreed upon at the Paris Climate Conclave in 2015. But a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) apprehends the global temperature will rise by 20C earlier by 2050. However, the G20 leaders reaffirmed their commitment for effective implementation of the Paris Agreement, taking action across mitigation, adaptation and finance during this critical decade, on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge, reflecting the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. India is among the few countries of G20 which achieved their NDCs and targets.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed a five-fold strategy (Panchamrita) for India to play its part in helping the world get closer to 1.50 C by end of 21st century, at CoP26, Glasgow (UK) in November, 2021. Those are- India will (1) get its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030; (2) meet 50 per cent of its energy requirements till 2030 with renewable energy; (3) reduce its projected carbon emission by one billion tonnes by 2030; (4) reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 45 per cent by 2030; and (5) achieve net zero by 2070. The World Sustainable Summit organised by TERI in New Delhi during February 16-18, 2022 emphasized on the theme ‘Towards a Resilient Planet: Ensuring a Sustainable and Equitable Future.’
At the 2nd India-Nordic Summit held in Copenhagen in first week of May 2022, the Indian PM discussed with Nordic countries (Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, and the Raroe and Aland Islands) for collaboration on environmental sustainability including green energy, clean water, clean air and circular economy, which is critically
important, not only to maintain and support biodiversity, water and wildlife, but also as a basis for food security, human health and prosperity. They agreed to work together to fight and address climate change and to protect the natural environment in accordance with the Paris Agreement, the forthcoming Global Biodiversity Framework and UN SDGs.
Facing the ever-increasing challenges of climate change disasters is a Herculean task. In order to meet it the world plans massive investments of 94 trillion US dollars for disaster resilience in the Coalition for Future Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI). The CDRI was established in 2019 under the leadership of India with the support of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). The UNDRR is a multi-stakeholder global partnership of national Governments, UN agencies and programmes, multilateral development banks, private sector, and academics. CDRI supports countries to upgrade their systems to ensure disaster and climate resilience of existing and future infrastructure, in alignment with the SDGs, the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework (Sendai, Japan, March 2015).
(Dr Patro is president, Orissa Environmental Society, snpatro11@gmail.com; Mob: 9437190420)