Creative environmental activism required to tackle climate change in 2020

BY PAUL JUNOR

As we enter the third decade of the 21^st century, the climate crisis will continue to dominate headlines and governments all over the world. The rise of 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg has brought attention and fame as a symbol of the power of youth to force governments to act swiftly. She has been welcomed by many, and is now viewed as a catalyst to empower teenagers all the over the world to engage in local activism to build an environmentally sustainable future. The important role that environmental awareness plays cannot be downplayed as governments struggle to combat the global climate change crisis. It is essential that the international community come up to with real solutions.

Student participation in climate change rallies triggered by the Friday for Future Movement and the School Strike Movement has engaged youths worldwide to challenge international community.  Leaders from 64 countries, the European Union and more than twelve companies and banks excluding the U.S, Brazil, Poland and Saudi Arabia, met on Monday, September 16^th at the Climate Action Summit to come up with new, specific and bold plans. The main goal of this summit was to give rise to fresh green proposals a year earlier than the 2020 deadline that is in the 2015 Paris Climate assignment. On Sunday, the United Nations made the announcement that it will reduce its own carbon pollution 25% in the next years and 45% by 2030 (reported by Seth Borenstein in the September 22^nd Associated Press). The Secretary-General of the United Nations has declared that, “Climate change is the defining issue of our time”. This was seen in the 2019 federal election in Canada in which it was a dominant issue.

The Canadian government has ratified the Kyoto Protocol – an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change in December 2002. By signing the Paris Agreement in 2016, Canada made it official that for four years it will introduce a carbon pricing system, which is meant to curb Canada’s usage of greenhouse gas and other emissions. At the recent concluded UN climate change talks in Madrid of 200 countries between December 2^nd -13th, there was failure to resolve the issues. Canada’s Environment Minister reassured Canadians that it is committed to enforcing carbon pricing as one way to fight climate change.

Health units in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have participated in the 20/20 The Way To Clean Air, which is a campaign that provides a free 20/20 planner and connections to services to help individuals reduce energy use by 20% at home and on the road. Benefits include: greater home comfort, lower energy bills and reduced stress. The planner helps you find ways to carpool, take transit, walk, cycle, telework (that is work from home) and combine errands in one trip. In a report from the Atmospheric Fund (formed by the City of Toronto in 1991) examined emissions across the entire GTA region and recommends that the city needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions four times more quickly in order to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. For this to occur there has to be significant changes to Toronto’s transportation. According to George Kell, “Climate action is necessary to ensure that the next generation of Canadians live in a land that is beautiful and clean.