Opinion: Your actions can help stop climate change

At the last Climate Summit in Glasglow, there were many conflicting opinions about the actions that leaders and governments have taken to fight global warming. While the steps to be taken were discussed within the summit, outside of it there were hundreds of protesters led by environmental activists who demanded more drastic decisions to curb global emissions.

And it is not a secret that on many occasions world leaders have contradicted each other, that in electoral campaigns the proposals show a large budget to fight this problem, but that later, once elected, the budgets go down and even disappear. Nor is it a secret that the right-wing leaders of some countries, such as Brazil, basically deny a phenomenon that is bringing us ever closer to extinction.

But even with that counterweight, since it was thought and the Paris Agreement began to be implemented, emissions by 2100 have decreased. According to Climate Action Tracker estimates, we have made progress. A decade ago we expected 4 or 5 degrees Celsius warming by 2100, but today emissions are down and we expect 3 degrees Celsius warming by that year.

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These data show that paying attention to climate change does pay off. Although much of the fight against the climate race does depend on the regulations and policies that are taken in states and governments, individual actions have been essential.

Our eyes are open

The environmental and climate crisis is not something new. Since the 20th century, many scientists and activists have drawn attention to this. But in a world hit by two world wars and, consequently, economic crises, it was necessary to get ahead no matter what the cost. At that time, the consequences of 200 years of industrialization and exploitation of natural resources.

But with the social movements of the second half of the last century, environmental justice became relevant. However, this was not a quick road and it did not bear immediate fruit either. Negligence on the part of world leaders remains the common denominator. With the advent of the internet and easy access to information , disclosing these problems was much easier. Today anyone who decides to change the way they relate to the planet has the possibility to do so with all the necessary information.

It is not just about what world organizations have done, we know that this has been insufficient. It’s about what we’ve done as individuals. It is about the ability we have to make decisions on our own in favor of the environment. It is about the fact that these individual actions can also be political; More and more of us are demanding that something be done about it. And as we can see, those individual actions have borne fruit.