A message of hope in the era of climate crisis
I live through my 20s witnessing the creation of many historical milestones; Paris Agreement, Sustainable Development Goals, Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, the COP26, and the list goes on. It seems that we are changing and we, the youth, has become the centre of the changes.
When I started college in 2013, nobody seemed to understand the way our environment works, changes, and affects our lives. In fact, when people found out I majored in forestry, they couldn’t believe what kind of job I will end up in as they believed there was just a limited option for people like me.
Then suddenly, the youth marched to the street, Greta Thunberg screamed that the world leaders have taken our future, people changed their topic of discipline to climate science by using any resources and skills they have.
When the pandemic started, people started to realise the importance of having the greeneries around their housing complex, they started demanding more urban forests, parks, small flower gardens. In the past two years, I witnessed changes; from commuting to staying home to get jobs done, from ignorance to more cooperation and understanding among people, from being disconnected to becoming more connected with the help of technology, from knowing nothing about climate change to know that everything is connected to climate change. I feel that we can see these changes in the COP26 held in Glasgow in October — November 2021. I was impressed on how massive it was and how people have changed their way of thinking.
As a good environmentalist I am (and also because my job needs me to be on the upfront of this kind of matter, no worries, I enjoyed it!), I was following the COP26 and the side events. This year, COP26 was aimed to secure global net-zero emissions by mid-century to keep the 1.5 degrees within reach, to adapt to protect communities and natural habitats from the adverse effects of climate change, and to mobilise finance to support all of these goals.
COP26 was the biggest climate conference that many people have hoped could accelerate and improve the world leaders’ ambition to limit temperature warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 1850–1900 levels by 2100. It was already made clear and even signed by the world leaders in 2015 under the framework of Paris Agreement.
Fast-forward to six years later, the people were outraged by the fact that the government was not putting enough effort to achieve the 1.5 degrees goal. Institutions provided advice and recommendations, and the youth took over the streets whenever they get the chance to encourage the world leaders. So, in the COP26 this year, the world leaders would probably feel the pressure from the public, yet the results were not quite as we all expected.
Fossil fuel would still remain in the pipeline of electricity generation
We said that we would keep the 1.5 degrees within reach by aiming net-zero emissions by 2050. It means that we will be responsible to balance emissions with removals, so that there will be no more excess emissions when we do our economy.
Phasing out of fossil fuel and transitioning to renewables and electric vehicles are at the utmost importance. However, some countries defend the narrative related to the phase-out of fossil fuel as their economy rely on it and they can’t just cut the people whose income rely on fossil fuel. On the similar note, there is a need to remove public subsidies on fossil fuel, but countries do not really agree. At the end, there is an ambiguous state of fossil fuel in the final text of COP26. So, as long as fossil fuel is still staying within our energy mix, we can’t really be sure whether the net-zero goal can be achieved by 2050.
While natural solutions such as forest protection and zero deforestation may help with achieving the 1.5 degrees goal, the implementation is still constrained by financial and social barriers.
Keeping the goal of 1.5 degree alive will not only need the reduction of emission from current economy activities, but also removing the carbon that has been accumulated in the atmosphere since many years ago. Protecting forests, vegetation-rich and carbon-rich area (such as wetlands and peatlands) are at the most important options to be implemented in the run up to 2050.
However, as we speak, there are forests in Indonesia and in Brazil being cut down to make ways for palm oil and soybean plantation. These countries store a massive forest area, biodiversity, and a massive amount of carbon. When they clear the forest, imagine how much carbon would fly and make a living in our atmosphere. We have a term for converting forest to another type of land, it’s deforestation. Curtailing deforestation under the zero deforestation goal would be the top priorities to avoid the conversion of forests to another type of land for the sake of business. However, countries whose economy is dependent on commodities that require additional land were not really into the zero deforestation goal. Despite that there’s a mention of zero deforestation goal, there is no certainty on how countries would work their way to it.
On the similar topic, forest protection and conservation with respect to biodiversity would remove the accumulated carbon, store carbon, and can help increase our survival under climate change in terms of our adaptation ability. Forests would help replenish the soil and conserve clean water which decrease the occurrence of forest fires and droughts. Forests also regulate the local climate which will lower the incidence of heatwaves. The response to this measure in the COP26 is overall positive, there has been a mention of best practices around the world and increased cooperation. However, it’s still not enough, projects still need to be scaled up which most of the time is constrained by financial supports to cover management costs.
There is a need to distribute financial supports to those who need it the most as soon as possible
Financial support should be mobilised to the countries who need the most; small islands who suffer from sea level rise, rural communities who lost the access to food due to fires, drought, storms, and other natural disturbances, and to the homeless polar bears, orangutans, and many others. In 2015, rich countries agreed to share among themselves the responsibility of distributing the USD 100bn of climate finance to the low and middle-income country by 2020. Well, now it’s the end of 2021 and no rich countries have yet reached their share of the USD 100bn. Spirits to come out out of climate change should come from everyone, it won’t work if one country is ambitious in their climate goals but then they don’t have enough financial resources to implement the actions because the countries who promised a help do not mobilise the help.
Climate Action Tracker provides a practical briefing on the results of COP26 and a call to close the credibility gap to achieve the 1.5 degrees goal, which you can find here: Glasgow’s 2030 credibility gap: net zero’s lip service to climate action | Climate Action Tracker
However disappointing, it doesn’t mean we didn’t move forward. We’ve come a long way to this point.
But, you know what? We have come this far, we’ve made the biggest climate conference the centre of attention of the world. Despite the rather disappointing results from COP26, I believe we still can keep the 1.5 degrees goal within the reach.
Advancement in science and technology that closes the knowledge gap
We have been making a forward move from asking “is climate change real?” to “what can we do about it?”. It means we reached the agreement that we are all experiencing it and that the science has been right all along. Development in science and technology has played an important role in providing information to the public. Advancement in data collection using remote-sensing and data analysis using super computers helps us to understand how the Earth climate works at various resolutions. In science, we move from just relying on a single, deterministic modelling for a heterogenous nature to using a dynamic, holistic modelling that reflects the complexity of our nature.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body that provides a synthesis on the state of global climate, has recently published a report about the physical science basis of climate change with updated methodology. It emphasises the widespread climate change, its impacts, and the connection between human activities and climate. The thing that the report was received openly by the public showed that we understand what would happen if we don’t act, what sequences we will experience, and what should we do to avoid it.
Furthermore, we start to realise the value of data. The IPCC started democratising the data they use in the report so that public with access to the internet and to analysing program can make use of it. The same thinking has been adopted by many countries; the needs of a central and public database, using a standardised monitoring, reporting, and verification method, and a holistic maintenance of the data.
Connectedness that lets everyone to join the fight
Public awareness has grown so fast in the last couple of years. When I just started college, my study was being overlooked, now it’s the centre of attention because we understand a little bit more the connection between forests and us. There were occasions where people from computer science, data analysts, and other technical positions reached out to me on LinkedIn to know more about climate science and how can they contribute to it. It is impressive how everyone wants to contribute to it in any way they can.
People from various backgrounds, disciplines, and layers of societies came prepared to COP26. They knew what they expected and what they want to deliver in the conference. There was a COP side event held by the Global Landscape Forum (GLF) which I attended. I was among the very first people who attended the launch of GLF in 2017, a community that gathers people who care about forests and nature. It grew so fast only in the last couple of years, connecting local people in a country to decision makers. The scheme is a big help for the local people when decision makers assist them in scaling up relevant projects and extend the best practices to the other countries.
If there is anything we can be grateful of from the pandemic, it’s the various possibilities to stay connected and feel included into something as exceptional as COP26. I was staying in Berlin when the COP was held and I could still participate in it in real time. Imagine the local people from their country. Their voices were heard in the COP26 through a video call. Some of them even tuned in from their garden and showed use first-hand their land management, which is basically a real-time training and knowledge sharing. We heard diverse voices with the same hope and spirit, which could fuel our efforts to implement solutions immediately.
The fact that there were discussions about net-zero goals, zero deforestation pledge, methane pledge, fossil fuel phase-out, and financial support during COP26 also showed how policymakers, governments, and private industries care about the climate crisis. These are a hope to the wondering minds of the young generation who ask whether the Earth will still be there for us, and a for the homeless polar bear who wish to sleep on the cold ice again.
We need to act now!
Despite the rather disappointing outcomes from COP26, we have come a long way to finally recognise our role in tackling climate change. We know the physical basis of climate change, we know how certain actions can lead to what degrees of warming, and we also know the solutions. What we need to do now is to act. We need to propose solutions, take the road and push our government, call out for actions. We only need to take actions.
