Climate Action for International Day of Peace 2019

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Every year on 21 September, International Day of Peace is observed across the world. This is a day devoted to highlighting the importance of peace, amongst people and nations.

The United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, these were established because it is impossible to achieve world peace without human rights and a lack of economic and social development.  The Sustainable Goals include poverty, hunger, health, education, climate change, gender equality, water, sanitation, energy, environment and social justice.

‘Climate Action for Peace’

The emphasis this year is on the importance of combating climate change to protect and promote peace.

Natural disasters displace three times as many people as conflicts; forcing millions to leave their homes and seek shelter elsewhere, threatening water sanitisation and food supply and impacting people’s health and wellbeing. Natural disasters place huge stress and tension on our resources and on people.

What's the relationship between climate change and natural disasters?

Climate change results in more severe and unpredictable weather patterns such as floods, storms, cyclones and droughts.  With population, production and consumption growing exponentially over the past 150 years, the impact of human actions has led to the highest level of greenhouse gases ever recorded.  Temperatures are rising world-wide due to greenhouse gases trapping more heat in the atmosphere.

  • Droughts are becoming longer and more extreme around the world

  • Tropical storms are becoming more severe due to warmer ocean water temperatures

  • Glaciers and sea ice are melting at a faster rate with the warmer temperatures

  • Sea levels are rising, threatening coastal communities and ecosystems

Climate change has far reaching consequences; impacting the ecosystem that provides us food from the land and ocean, access to clean water, destroying property and affecting human health.  To limit global warming requires rapid change in all aspects of human behaviour in order to ensure a more sustainable society.

We are all part of the solution to combating climate change but to be the solution, we must all do our part.  The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it, when we can each adopt sustainable habits that ultimately do make a difference.

Climate Action for Peace is a call for immediate action by all to adopt sustainable behaviour and to improve education on climate change.  By being more conscious of the choices we make and our behaviour, through supporting practice that promotes human rights and which has a positive environmental footprint we can help be the change that is necessary for a thriving planet. 

 

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