adminschemes and technology.
“Climate change is about people, children, families and our relationship with the world around us. Our human rights to live the traditional way are being violated by human-induced climate change.”
The Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests defines climate change as a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer).
Arthur Lee, Chevron’s principal advisor on climate change, states that the biggest challenge on climate change is that there is neither a single answer nor single solution. I would add and say the devastation is also multi-pronged.
Climate change means a lot of things to a lot of people in different regions. Natural disasters have intensified, posing a greater threat to the livelihood of communities, the continuity of business.
For the over four billion people in Asia and the one billion people in Africa, climate change means a struggling health sector, it means the planet is sick and so are the people. It means an increased burden on governments’ expenditure on social amenities.
We are all familiar with the cyclones that wreaked havoc during the onset of the last decade, the destruction to crops, infrastructure and social structures that resulted thereafter is well documented and to this day many communities are battling to recover from these.
Cholera, typhoid outbreaks and a long list of diseases add to the list of our planet’s woes.
Africa relies much on primary industry, and climate change to a farmer in Muzarabani means flooding it means hunger, drought famine, the list only gets worse.
Climate change implies the collapse of infrastructure in Asia that has caused headaches for financial institutions in that part of the world and the ballooning of national debts.
Climate change in Africa manifests in unemployment, it means further job losses for the employed and closure of opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs.
Despite the doom and gloom that climate change brings, it also presents an opportunity for humankind to do good.
We need to unite as nations to heal the earth by cutting back on our destructive tendencies and start turning into green nations
The world’s population currently stands at almost seven billion with Africa constituting 15 percent or one billion of that.
That is a lot of people and collectively we can make mother earth a better place to live on one day at a time.
We have the solutions and capacity to implement those solutions. All that is needed is the willpower to do so, so let’s go green.
- Prechard Mhako is the national head of www.igreenafrica.org. For inquiries on the Green Business Indaba scheduled for the HICC from April 12-13 2012, please email [email protected] or simply log on to www.xhib-it.co.zw
Online Reporter