Climate Change Is The Only Constant

Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has emerged as one of the most monumental challenges of our times. The planet continues to reel from global warming caused by human activities. The effects can be seen in the frequency of natural disasters blamed on climate change.

- Nazery Khalid

Hardly a day goes by without media reports about some environmentally triggered disaster causing untold damages and sufferings in some parts of the world. Even during the current times when the Covid-19 pandemic dominates the news, reports about natural disasters induced by climate change, partly triggered by GHG emissions, continue to come thick and fast. In recent weeks, the global media has been busy covering various climate change-induced incidents such as devastating forest fires in Greece and Turkey, floods in Haiti and Manhattan in New York, hurricanes in the Southern part of the USA, the heatwave in countries with mild temperatures, and prolonged drought and crop failures in some countries, to name a few.

Evidence of a distressed planet are aplenty and compelling scientific data are there for all to see, from record-breaking temperatures year after year to rising ocean levels to the thawing of what was once permanent ice sheets in the North Pole. Some of these changes could well be irreversible and could threaten lives, livelihood, coastal areas and even entire nations, as is the case of small island nations that could well become inhabitable or even disappear from the face of the planet should they become submerged by the rising seas.

Against this alarming backdrop, pressure is mounting on industries,corporations and businesses to do their part to reduce emissions from their activities in the fight against climate change. Focus is trained sharply on the marine industry – a key facilitator of trade and a backbone of the global economy - to reduce their carbon footprint and reverse the destructive and deadly effects of climate change.