New Year priority: The battle against climate change

1 January 2022 

We begin a New Year today with a wish and hope that our elected political leaders will make a New Year resolution to sincerely, sacrificially and selflessly serve the people especially those who are caught in the poverty trap and are not able to obtain basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, education and health facilities. The living cost has soared sky high to unprecedented levels and with the powdered milk price being raised again, from small restaurants say they will serve only plain tea and not milk tea because the price is too high. 

Our leaders and others need to remember that selfishness or self-centredness lead to other vices such as greed and corruption. We hope they will make a new year resolution to turn full circle from self-centredness to other-centredness so that they could give feet-washing leadership and service to the people.  Then we could focus on the main issue for this year—the battle against climate change. 

In a statement the United Nations says that for too long, we have been exploiting and destroying our planet’s ecosystems. Every three seconds, the world loses enough forest to cover a football pitch and over the last century we have destroyed half of our wetlands. As much as 50 per cent of our coral reefs have already been lost and up to 90 per cent of coral reefs could be lost by 2050, even if global warming is limited to an increase of 1.5°C. 

According to the UN, ecosystem loss is depriving the world of carbon sinks, like forests and peatlands, at a time humanity can least afford it. Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown for three consecutive years and the planet is one pace for potentially catastrophic climate change. The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic with its new variant Omicron has also shown just how disastrous the consequences of ecosystem loss can be. By shrinking the area of natural habitat for animals, we have created ideal conditions for pathogens, including coronaviruses, to spread.

With this big and challenging picture, the world environment movement focuses on the ecosystem restoration and its theme is “Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.” Ecosystem restoration means preventing, halting and reversing this damage – to go from exploiting nature to healing it. This world environment movement has launched the UN decade on ecosystem restoration (2021-2030), a global mission to revive billions of hectares, from forests to farmlands, from the top of mountains to the depth of the sea. Only with healthy ecosystems can we enhance people’s livelihoods, counteract climate change and stop the collapse of biodiversity.

From forests to peatlands to coasts, we all depend on healthy ecosystems for our survival. Ecosystems are defined as the interaction between living organisms - plants, animals, people - with their surroundings. This includes nature, but also human-made systems such as cities or farms. 

Ecosystem restoration is a global undertaking at massive scale. It means repairing billions of hectares of land – an area greater than China or the United States – so that people have access to food, clean water and jobs. It means bringing back plants and animals from the brink of extinction, from the peaks of mountains to the depths of the sea. But it also includes the many small actions everyone can take, every day: growing trees, greening our cities, rewilding our gardens or cleaning up trash alongside rivers and coasts. Restoring ecosystems carries substantial benefits for people. For every dollar invested in restoration, at least seven to thirty dollars in returns for society can be expected. Restoration also creates jobs in rural areas where they are most needed. Some countries have already invested in restoration as part of their strategies to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic. Others are turning to restoration to help them adapt to a climate that is already changing. 

The decade of restoration from 2021 to 2030 aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. It can help to end poverty, combat climate change and prevent a mass extinction. It will only succeed if everyone plays a part. As the former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt has said a nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.