Friday, September 20th protest was the largest climate action in the history of world. It is reported that a total of four million people took part in the protests in several countries. Presently, it is inspired by the young activist, Greta Thunberg, and the protest will continue for a week. The climate movement was kicked off during the Rio De Janeiro Earth Summit in June 1992 after scientist reported a hole in the Earth’s ozone layer. At the Paris climate conference (COP21) in December 2015, 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal. However, president Trump withdrew from it in June 2017 stating that it undermines the USA economy.
The temperature and the sea level have changed on the earth surface in past without human activities. The last time the sea level was higher than today (by about 7m) was during the Eemain, about 130,000 years ago. There lies the climate conundrum. A minority of scientist believe that the present change is natural as in the past and nothing to do with human activities. Hence, Trump and few others believe that present climate change is a hoax. However, it is certain that the human activities has accelerated the change which may be due to nature. The acceleration happened from the middle of 18th century onward to coincide with industrial revolution. West Europe and their newly created countries (so called industrialized nations) are mainly responsible for polluting earth’s atmosphere.
Narsibhai Patel
New Malden
