Opinion | Contribute to Mitigate Climate Change

Greenhouse gas emissions, such as those produced by the combustion of fossil fuels, operate like a blanket that traps the sun’s heat and raises global temperatures. Carbon dioxide and methane are the two primary greenhouse gases responsible for the current climate crisis. These result from activities like burning fossil fuels for transportation or coal for heating. Carbon dioxide is also released when land is cleared or trees are chopped down. Most human-caused methane emissions come from agriculture and the oil and gas industry. Greenhouse gases are primarily produced by the energy, industrial, transportation, construction, agricultural, and land use sectors.

Adaptive measures are necessary because of the significant impact that rising sea levels and associated threats have on coastal locations across the globe. Locally, where exposure to coastal dangers is most likely and where solutions must be devised, spatial planning is a crucial component of adaptation. But municipal spatial planning is a complicated process that involves several tiers of government and different decision-makers in distinct cultural, economic, and geographical settings. The extent to which spatial design takes into account rising sea levels, coastal dangers, and adaptability has to be evaluated. One may argue that much more work has to be done.

While local authorities and the federal government should work together more, local development policies frequently go against the principle of adapting. The intensity of climate change’s impacts will be determined by the direction humanity takes in the years to come. More emissions of greenhouse gases would worsen already severe climate change and have far-reaching consequences. However, the overall quantity of carbon dioxide we produce will determine the severity of those future repercussions. Thus, it may be possible to prevent the worst impacts if we are successful in reducing emissions. Scientists in the field of climate change have shown that humans are to blame for almost all of the warming that has occurred on Earth in the previous 200 years. Greenhouse gases produced by human activities are warming the planet at a rate not seen in at least two thousand years.

Global surface temperatures are now around 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than they were in the late 1800s (before the industrial revolution) and higher than they have ever been in the past 100,000 years. Each of the four most recent decades has been warmer than any preceding decade since 1850, with the most recent decade (2011-2020) being the hottest on record. Warmer temperatures are often seen as the primary symptom of climate change. However, an increase in temperature is merely the beginning. Since the Earth is a system in which everything is interconnected, changes in one region may have ripple effects across the whole planet. Droughts, water shortages, fires, floods, melting polar ice, hurricanes, and species extinctions are only some of the current effects of climate change.

Coastal areas are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change and its associated environmental threats. Many people in the globe live along the ocean and sea shores, which are at increased risk from rising seas and more frequent storm surges. As a result, national and regional governments must devise adaptation strategies that take into account future changes in the coastline’s morpho dynamics while also ensuring the safety of people and property in the event of a disaster and the long-term reorganisation of coastal communities. Spatial and urban planning play a crucial role in the adaptation process at several design and implementation stages.

The delicate ecological situation of places exposed to severe population, economic, tourist, and urban pressures makes this a particularly contentious problem. However, preserving economic and social growth is essential. There has to be a comprehensive understanding of natural hazards, territorial vulnerability, risks, and catastrophes in order to plan for adaptive land use. The purpose of many recent investigations on coastal morphodynamics is to inform territorial risk management and spatial planning for the near and medium term. The human costs of potential outcomes like sea level rise, altered coastlines, or expanded floodplains have also been the focus of studies. However, there are still open concerns regarding how this expanding corpus of knowledge feeds into public policy. Coastal dangers are either ignored or only partially considered in the spatial design of coastal lands, according to a number of worldwide studies.
Many approaches to combating climate change have the added bonus of promoting human well-being and preserving ecological balance. The Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Paris Agreement are just a few examples of global frameworks and accords that help direct development. There are three main types of response to climate change: reducing emissions, adjusting to the effects of climate change, and funding the necessary adaptations. Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have risen during the last century due to the combustion of fossil fuels like coal and oil. The combustion of fossil fuels like coal and oil causes a rise in atmospheric CO2 because carbon is combined with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. To a lesser degree, higher greenhouse gas concentrations may be attributed to the clearance of land for agricultural and industrial purposes. Since 1750, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased by roughly 50% due to the industrial activity on which contemporary civilization relies. Scientists can trace this rise to human activity because of a particular isotopic fingerprint they have seen in the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is comprised of scientists from all over the world, reached the conclusion in its Sixth Assessment Report that the rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) during the industrial era is due to human activities, and that human influence is the primary driver of many changes observed in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere.
Our Role as Media, NGO and Educational Institutes:
Role of Media: The media’s representation of climate change in the news has had a significant impact on people’s and governments’ attempts to combat the issue at the local, national, and international levels. The dominant framework for public comprehension of climate science is that scientists are the paragon of reflexive self-criticism whereas laypeople are defensive, risk-averse, uncertainty-averse, and unreflexive. Even while more people are becoming aware of global warming, many are still reluctant to accept the compromises necessary for effective solutions like international regulatory treaties, investments in alternative fuels, and controls on carbon dioxide emissions. People do not need to become amateur scientists in order to think about policy decisions, therefore public participation must go beyond scientific knowledge. The public must actively ponder and reconcile potential acts with their own ideas and habits in order to get from awareness to judgement and resolve. The coverage peaked at an all-time high in 2007, and after briefly focusing on Climategate in 2009, it quickly faded back into obscurity. Unless a new narrative arises that frames climate change in terms more localised and personally relevant than long-term catastrophic environmental repercussions, regulatory activities, and politics, coverage of the issue may never again reach the heights it did in 2007. This news hook may come from potential threats to human health, economic development due to energy innovation, or energy instability, provided that journalists were able to present these threats in less than apocalyptic terms. Smaller and medium-sized newspapers may respond better to localised articles than the national wire stories that have been the norm in the past due to a lack of information about climate change’s effects on specific regions and the policies being implemented to address them. News media content’s ability to inspire people to take action and support proactive policies is crucial to the future of climate change mitigation. As a result, established media practices, such as framing, balance, and source, may help to reduce the dissemination of dense, partisan information regarding climate change research and policy. In order to assist journalists explain climate change issues in a manner that is more relatable, meaningful, and intelligible to the public, scientists and politicians should pinpoint certain frames.
Educational Institutions: There will be an increasing need to educate the people about climate change and its possible global and personal repercussions. Radio and television shows, both for an informed audience and for students, need to be produced and broadcast often. Writing for more than simply the scientific community is essential when publishing in popular publications as opposed to specialised journals. In order to be successful, cafe scientifique events should take place in less intimidating settings than university lecture halls, such as pubs and community centres. All of this effort will be wasted if the message is not conveyed effectively. There has been a significant push in British classrooms to increase students’ scientific literacy, preparing them to critically assess the claims made in the media and make informed judgements on topics as varied as nuclear power, alternative energies, and product endorsements. Students who take an interest in “how science works” learn about the funding process, giving them the opportunity to form judgements on whether or not certain types of research should get government support. These individuals are not just tomorrow’s main spenders and taxpayers, but also tomorrow’s voters. No matter how widespread this schooling trend becomes, scientists still have a responsibility to disseminate their results to the widest potential audience. Teachers and students alike have benefited from this chapter’s innovative concepts and the accompanying hands-on experiences. It gives students the resources they need to conduct their own experiments and create their own projects without having to use costly machinery or facilities. It is unfortunate that there is still widespread confusion about the Earth’s climate system since this information can be simplified to a level at which most people can engage with it. The concept of stabilisation wedges is a potent one that gives students hope for the future. Estimates offered, such as those for the amount of land needed, may be easily calculated using the created models. The ability to conduct such ”back of the envelope” calculations not only equips the student with a valuable life skill but also enables him or her to critically evaluate the merits of each provided choice. The resources needed to help new students grasp the underlying science of this issue are not yet in place, but their development is essential.
NGO: There has been a rise in the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as watchdogs over nations adherence to international climate accords like the Paris Accord. NGOs depend on ‘naming and shaming’ to encourage nations to live up to their climate treaty obligations and increase their climate mitigation efforts since they lack the power to impose legal sanctions. However, there is a lack of information regarding the how and why NGOs use climate shame. This piece makes two main points. We begin by arguing that national and international governmental climate records are likely to influence NGO climate shaming campaigns. Second, governments climate initiatives may both invite and repel NGO climate shaming, leading to conflicting expectations. Non Governmental organisations (NGOs) are more likely to shame climate laggards than climate leaders, but even climate leaders risk being humiliated if they make non binding climate pledges. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) need to carefully weigh the odds of success when making target selection choices. Since NGOs function in a context where human resources, financial resources, time resources, and media attention are few, choices on who to target include prioritisation. Since climate change is a global problem, the primary criteria influencing non-governmental organisations’ climate shaming choices are likely to mirror governments worldwide as well as national climate action performance. The worldwide pledges and involvement of nations in the governance of climate change are essential. According to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), a nation’s political will to address climate change may be gauged by its level of adherence to international environmental accords. Numerous academic works detail the efforts of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) to get governments adopt ambitious environmental and climate accords during international discussions. NGO shaming choices might be impacted by international obligations made by governments, according to studies on human rights shaming. Some overarching conclusions that can be drawn from the research done on the role of NGO’s by researchers across the world. The first is that NGOs will probably go after climate slackers in an effort to persuade them to finally do something. Second, our comprehension of environmental NGOs’ strategies towards governments hinges on climate legislation and international climate treaties. Third, the issue of NGO climate shaming is not only whether or when countries engage in global climate governance, but also how they do so. In a related fourth point, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) often shame members of climate institutions for making non-binding promises. Last but not least, governments that sign international accords and pass national climate legislation may do so just to escape criticism from non-governmental organisations. To what degree, for instance, governments agree to climate standards in order to avoid reputational consequences, may future research reveal? Our research provides more concrete consequences as the first thorough examination of climate shaming by non-governmental organisations. While we discover that climate leaders are humiliated less than laggards because they make more pledges to ICAs and enact more legislation, we also discover that climate leaders are subject to higher scrutiny by NGOs when they participate in non-UN climate institutions, such as when participating in weak climate action. So-called “low-cost institutions” are therefore not immune to the scrutiny of non-governmental organisations, as seen below. This highlights the need of paying attention to the sort of pledges that governments make when analysing how and why climate shaming is happening. This might be good news, since it suggests that there are consequences for making bogus climate commitments. Since criticism of governments or firms that engage in weak pledges, or selective disclosure in the case of corporations, raises the reputational costs and might induce changes in policy behaviour, it is necessary to examine similar targeted practices in other domains, such as corporate shaming. Furthermore, it can be concluded that environmental NGOs make up for the absence of domestic pressure by publicly shaming governments that promise international and national climate action but have restrictive settings for domestic activity. Such actions show that environmental NGOs target non-democratic nations in order to coerce their governments into making public pledges to climate action, a notion known as “leverage politics.” We also sound the alarm about a few things. First, countries that join ICAs and pass national climate legislation may avoid the full brunt of climate shame campaigns launched by non-governmental organisations. This might be problematic if countries make ICA pledges without intending to follow through on them, either to avoid international climate shame or to improve their image in the near term. Signing the statement is the easy part, the UN secretary-general has said. However, if governments chose not to abide by ICAs, it might damage their image.

While some research has indicated that national climate legislation may cut CO2 emissions (UNEP, 2019), some results may be discouraging to those who wish to increase pressure on climate leaders, particularly democratic governments. The good news is that this suggests democratic institutions and actors may still have influence and bring governments to account. The discovery that NGOs direct their criticism towards countries without climate legislation is encouraging in this regard. The motivations and priorities of NGOs are too nuanced to be revealed. Some questions may help by explaining the underlying dynamics at play, such as why environmental NGOs focus on democracies with insufficient climate action.

NGO climate shaming may motivate governments to take action on climate change. Second, scientists can determine whether climate shame encourages nations to pass ambitious and tough climate policies or weak laws that enable certain states to escape reputational consequences. Finally, improving data on shame episodes is a crucial objective for NGO for successful mitigation. various governments may react differently to various levels of shame campaigns; therefore, it may be helpful to differentiate between mild and severe shaming events.
Anyways, the jeopardy that climate change brings to plants and our ability to maintain a stable food supply is likely to be the single biggest risk to the health of humans that it poses. The combination of heat waves and drought that is caused by climate change will be detrimental to the production of reliable crops all over the globe, including wheat, maize, and rice. It is imperative that all of us must work together to fix it before it is too late. It doesn’t matter whether a person, a group, society, the media, educational institutions, or an NGO; we all have a role to play in stopping this threat before it hits our homes.