The greatest existential threat to our planet is not as much the availability of resources to combat climate change but the mindset that there is someone else that would take mitigatory action.

In August 2021, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first of the four-part 6th Assessment Report (AR6), the key revelation was that human activity is changing the climate like never before. The report said that since the 1970s, our planet’s average temperature have risen faster than during any other 50-year period over the past 2,000 years. Global warming is “already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe”, the report said.

Indeed, 2022 witnessed heat waves in Europe, Siberia and North America; floods in China, Germany and Pakistan; and dust and sandstorms coupled with a water crisis in the Middle East. In other words, almost no region was spared. Be they heatwaves, like the ones recently experienced in Greece and the western part of North America, or floods like those in Germany and China, it is clear that their attribution and links to human influence has further strengthened over the past decade, the IPCC report concluded.

Food, water, energy and health are being severely impacted across the globe. All of us are experiencing such disasters in one way or the other. The most frustrating part of the story is that even after three decades of climate negotiations, the emissions keep rising; they threaten to fail the Paris Climate Agreement.

Of course, it would be inaccurate to suggest that no actions to slow down global warming have been taken so far. Indeed, there have been a catalogue of positive stories…

• The use of solar power in Europe has soared by almost 50% in 2022 to 41.4 GW from the 28.1 GW installed in 2021.
• Ninety per cent of countries that have pledged for ‘Net Zero’ decarbonisation are getting ready to start their journey on the road to carbon neutrality.
• The village of Modhera, in western India, has become the country’s first to run entirely on solar energy. India, the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, has thus demonstrated that it can walk on the path to meet half of its energy demands from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, by 2030.
• Despite rising battery costs, auto companies are rolling out more affordable electric vehicles, some of them with less than 50% range per charge are now reaching 500 kilometres.

Among the numerous positive stories, the one I would like to point out is the recent historic deal at the UN Biodiversity Conference, in the closing month of 2022, in Montreal, Canada. The deal was characterised as the “last chance” for Nature’s recovery.

Dr Rajendra Shende

Governments that participated in the Montreal event committed to protect 30% of land and water, considered important for biodiversity, by 2030. Currently, only 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected. It is a key step in protecting the world’s lands and oceans and in bolstering efforts to safeguard the world’s climate.

Many may question how biodiversity conservation can be considered as action to address climate change. Well, land and marine ecosystems are home to the vast majority of the world’s species. There are an estimated eight billion species of flora and fauna on Earth, many of which we have yet to discover. Forests, peatlands, coastal areas and the oceans absorb more than 50% of human activity-induced carbon emissions. “This makes them vital to meeting the Paris Agreement’s central goal of holding global average temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees C, compared to pre-industrial times”, states the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The agreement reached during the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (UN CBD) is termed as the ‘Paris Climate Moment for Biodiversity’, because the target year for biodiversity conservation is 2030, the same target year for halving carbon emissions.

For me, it is also about what I call as the Nature Movement for Climate Change. Indeed, in today’s modern world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), humanity is forgetting Nature Intelligence (NI). After all, except for 300 recent years, humans lived for the past 12,000 years without artificial cooling and heating in their settlements. Before that, Nature helped us to keep the climate cool. Naturally, it is our duty to turn to Nature for our cooling needs. And I am hoping Nature-based solutions figure in COP28, scheduled to take place year-end in the UAE.

The Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement (GST) is a key process for COP28. It would gauge the world’s collective progress towards the goals of the Agreement and agree on a new pathway to 2030. Surely, the new pathway should include Nature-based solutions.

UNEP has announced the ‘Sustainable Cooling’ movement, the development of a Global Cooling Pledge and a ‘Cool COP Menu of Actions’. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), head-quartered in the UAE, and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) would be key partners of the UNEP initiative.

We need to do all we can to swiftly move towards an era of comprehensive sustainable cooling. And we can’t afford to dither. Conventional cooling, such as air conditioning, is responsible for over seven per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Energy needs for space cooling and emissions will triple by 2050, the year to make the planet Carbon Neutral. I call the present situation ‘a paradox of warming by cooling.’

Expanding the facility of cooling will protect the most vulnerable communities from extreme heat, keep food fresh, vaccines effective, employees productive and digital data centres working. At the same time, as cooling expands, it would warm the Earth due to greenhouse gas emissions coming from excessive use of global warming refrigerants and, more importantly, the fossil fuel-based energy use for running air-conditioning and cold chain systems.

Solar Cooling; Solar Cold chains; natural ventilation; natural refrigerants; and super-energy-efficient appliances, including fans, air conditioners, refrigerators and mobile air conditioning units – must be implemented at the absolute earliest possible. Above all, we need to usher in a lifestyle change that respects Nature. When it comes to thermostat settings, we should learn to live at a minimum of 27 degrees C, never below that. Not wasting food would necessitate the requirement of less energy use in the cold chain.

No one is going to save us from climate change; the onus to take efforts solely rests on us.

The writer is former Director of UNEP. He is also the Founder-Director, Green TERRE Foundation; Prime Mover, SCCN; and Coordinating Lead Author, IPCC, which won the Nobel Peace Prize. He may be reached at shende.rajendra@gmail.com. He writes exclusively for Climate Control Middle East magazine.