In this digital age when a technological arms race is started among the countries, climate change is becoming a great risk for the sustainable future. These changing conditions are so adverse across the globe particularly in Asia that they can put a mark on the survival of life on this planet. Asia which accommodates nearly half of the world’s population and provides food security to the world is hitting the most with natural disasters during the recent decades. These alarming changes in the weather patterns in the Asian-Pacific region cause high levels of floods, melting glaciers and dramatically increase in the average temperature and sea levels. As in recent times, Strong heat waves in Bangladesh and south India are setting new records of temperature. According to the meteorological department of Bangladesh, the average rainfall in the monsoon season was 130.2 millimeter but this year due to abrupt changes the monsoon season seems no more as the average rainfall dropped to 2 millimeter.
On the other hand, the Middle East region is facing heavy rainfall as last night there was 10 centimeter rainfall in Qassim and the area close to Mecca. These are causing drought leading to food insecurity and water insecurity. Therefore during the time of escalating climate changes, the combination of collaboration and innovations by keeping national interests at side can be an efficient tool to ensure a sustainable future for our upcoming generations because these issues not only impact mothers but also their children. In this regard, a multifaceted approach is required to tackle these complex environmental issues which includes the use of advanced technologies, public-private partnership and mutual cooperation at international level involving financial support to developing and under-developed countries to combat environmental crisis as the developed countries share major part in factors contributing to climate change.
After the industrial revolution in the late 20th century in the world, the modes of production were shifted from agricultural resources to industries from which the emission of the greenhouse gasses contributed a leading role towards climate change. But with the advancement of technologies which are the backbone of the modern era, governments can use these advanced innovations to fight against climate change through mitigation and adaptation techniques. By using mitigation technologies, governments can reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses via altering non-renewable sources of energy to the renewable sources of energy. Such as Iceland generate its electricity 100% through renewable energy resources like hydroelectricity, Denmark produces 40% through wind mills, India has the world’s largest solar power plant and China as well as USA are also striving towards renewable sources. Countries like Japan, Germany and China are producing devices which use small amounts of energy such as light emitting diodes for daily uses instead of traditional bulbs. With the help of emerging technologies, countries are building carbon capture and storage devices, a major cause of global warming for industrial use or deposit underground. Examples of these countries include Norway which built its first ever CCS and Canada, USA and China are also using this technology to purify their air from carbon.
Using advancements in the fields of biological sciences, scientists are making resistant crops which can be helpful to combat food insecurity. They also developed early warning systems which can warn about the risk of flood, cyclones and tsunamis using data from satellites, radars and ground stations to prevent casualties. Governments are also investing in their infrastructure to manage its climate change resistance. For example, the Singapore government is investing in making seawalls and levees in coastal areas to prevent damages due to increasing sea level. But all these measures are meaningless without international collaboration as climate change is neither an issue of a single country nor it has boundaries. There are several agreements at international level such as the Paris agreement to reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses, the United Nation committee for the climate change and Red Cross for the climate change and at regional level such as ASEAN, SARRC and the Gulf Corporation. After every conference on climate change such as Cop 28, there is a warm handshake between the stakeholders showing the success of the conference and international cooperation but this is not enough to combat this serious issue which puts the future of mankind at risk. Due to the lack of enforcement, the implementation of these agreements made things complicated because the economy of the developed countries depend on the heavy industries such as oil industries, chemical industries, steel and aluminum production industries in countries like USA which is also a huge exporter of ammunition, Japan, Germany, Russia, China and Canada are causing serious threat to the environment sustainability. Along with these developed countries, many international brands just only use ‘Green washing’ policy to divert the attention of the public by building a narrative through advertisements that their products are eco-friendly and after use they recycle the waste of their products mainly plastic but in reality they don’t even recycle 10% of the waste. According to a survey report, Coca Cola and Nestle are the key patrons of the plastic waste in the ecosystem which ultimately disturbs the food chain.
Therefore, to seriously resist climate change seriously we need something more than the handshakes of the stakeholders. There is a need to transfer technology, knowledge and expertise from developed countries to the struggling world for their fight against climate change. Behind these, the developing countries also need financial support to resist and recover from natural hazards like floods. That’s why institutions like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank should assist them. In the fight against climate change, the public role is determining the success of government policies. Therefore, in the age of connectedness, governments should effectively use print and digital media along with social media to make them aware of the dangling threat to this world. They should encourage them to plant trees and preserve already planted trees and forest to control the temperature of the earth. They should ban the cutting down of the trees and the emission of greenhouse gasses up to a certain limit. However in culmination, it should be contemplated that the effectiveness of these measures prerequisite co-operation at national and international level irrespective of the national interests and stage of development.
Author is independent researcher and can be reached at asifasaeedvirk@gmail.com