Earth Today | Public awareness said key to political support for climate action
Published:Thursday | May 4, 2023 | 12:25 AM
THE VALUE of public awareness, advocacy and the media to solving the global climate crisis has been punctuated by the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC is the United Nations body mandated to conduct assessments of the science related to climate change in order to inform policy.
“Rising public awareness and an increasing diversity of actors have overall helped accelerate political commitment and global efforts to address climate change,” reads the IPCC’s Synthesis Report of its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).
The report embodies years of work by hundreds of scientists to provide sound and current information on climate change realities; and reflects findings from three special reports of the IPCC that looked at global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius; climate change and land; and the ocean and the cryosphere.
“Mass social movements have emerged as catalysing agents in some regions, often building on prior movements, including Indigenous Peoples-led movements, youth movements, human rights movements, gender activism, and climate litigation, which is raising awareness and, in some cases, has influenced the outcome and ambition of climate governance,” it noted.
At the same time, the report said that engaging Indigenous Peoples and local communities using “just-transition and rights-based decision-making approaches” and implemented through “collective and participatory decision-making processes” has created the enabling environment for enhanced action at varying scales and depending on individual country circumstances.
It has also highlighted the essential place of the media in ensuring that global best efforts are made to arrest the fallout from climate change, even as it cautioned of the need for constructive engagement in that space.
“The media helps shape the public discourse about climate change. This can usefully build public support to accelerate climate action. In some instances, public discourses of media and organised counter movements have impeded climate action, exacerbating helplessness and disinformation and fuelling polarisation, with negative implications for climate action,” it said.
Climate change threatens a range of impacts to which Caribbean small island developing states are especially vulnerable, given their small size, struggling economies and geographic location. These are impacts that are already being felt and to varied degrees in different parts of the world.
They include increasing global temperatures, sea level rise and more extreme weather events such as catastrophic hurricanes – the likes of which have been experienced in the Caribbean over recent years. There are also associated impacts, including undermined food and water security, as well as impaired public health.
It is in this context that the IPCC has put forward the case for significantly scaled-up adaptation actions to enhance the readiness of vulnerable countries as well as mitigation actions that tackle greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. This latter is especially important since GHG emissions fuel the warming of the planet that triggers other impacts.
The AR6 Synthesis Report has also flagged the role of media and other stakeholders in helping to fuel the political will for ambitious mitigation efforts.
“The extent to which civil society actors, political actors, businesses, youth, labour, media, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities are engaged influences political support for climate change mitigation and eventual policy outcomes,” it said.