Need for pragmatic strategies on climate change (Part 1)

If there is a terminology that has become more common now, then it is climate change. This terminology is been mentioned a myriad times now than it used to be a couple of years ago. So many events globally are being linked to this phenomenon.

When we were in primary and secondary school, the only word we knew was climate and its cousins, like weather, temperature, rainfall and others. Climate change was not a very common word then. But nowadays, even a villager who has minimally attended education mentions the word climate change and can discuss a few issues pertaining to climate change.

This is mostly because most non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have sought solace in this issue because donors have also directed their funds towards climate change. You will rarely find a rural-based project without a component of climate change, whether wholly or integrated within health, agriculture and livelihoods project. Whether these NGO employees are really making an impact on the climate itself and the environment or that they are making an impact on social and economic climate in their homes is a discussion for another day.

Last time, I was at my usual joint chilling when one guy I know as a field officer for one popular NGO which likes integrated projects entered to do likewise. We talked about different projects they are implementing, especially the ones on water, sanitation and hygiene. I wanted to gauge some impacts they are making in their target population.

It’s through this discussion when I learnt that the NGO is also into the so-called “resilience to climate change” as one of their components. I tried to probe the guy into telling me specific interventions they are implementing and how they think they will link to possible global or even local temperature reduction, since this is the current basic indicator of climate change. The guy could not articulate what the NGO is specifically implementing on climate change and how these specific activities will bring the expected impact. The only thing he could say is “we are encouraging the community members to plant trees”. OK. So that what? He couldn’t articulate anything more than this, not talk about his disjointed English. With an influx of donor money in climate change projects, almost everyone includes that component, but on the ground, zero.

Just last week, the whole world gathered in Paris to discuss climate change, more specifically to agree on specific measures to be undertaken by the world to curb the current rise in global temperatures.

First and foremost I will discuss some preliminary concepts on climate change, including definition and common causes. I know some people will be amazed by some common causes of global warming. We will also look at the climate change as an environmental health challenge and an argument on why I think we are currently wasting time with all these global gatherings and some interventions being done by some NGOs. Hence, need for pragmatic interventions.

Climate change is basically a change in distribution on weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period, for instance, a decade. It may also be looked at as a change in average weather conditions or the time variations of weather around longer term average conditions e.g. more or fewer extreme weather events. The recent climate change has seen rising of global temperatures, hence referred to as “Global warming”.

There are many factors that have been found to be related to Global warming: Biological processes, variations in solar radiation received by the earth, plate tectonics, volcanic eruptions and most importantly human activities. n