Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today. Indeed, it upsets

the functioning of societies and economies around the world, spawning from weather disturbances to social and economic  tensions, like falling means of subsistence or the exacerbation of conflicts. Through education, innovation and adherence to global climate commitments, we can all make the necessary changes to protect the planet. These changes are opportunities to assure sustainable economic patterns and promote greater prosperity across the globe.

 

There can be no sustainable development without sustainable consumption and production first. Commercial and residential energy use is the second most rapidly growing area of global energy use after transport. Agriculture and the textile industry are the biggest polluters of clean water in the world. By 2020, the OECD forecasts a 32% increase in car ownership and expects global air traffic to triple, which will inevitably result in more CO2 emissions. While around a third of all food produced in the world is wasted each year,  millions of people suffer from hunger. Individuals can introduce impactful changes in their daily lives to reduce their own waste and carbon footprint.

Human beings, like other organisms alive, are part of the ecosystem and depend on nature. Biodiversity is essential to human life, it provides many crucial resources for existence. More than 70 % of the world’s poor live in rural areas and depend directly on biodiversity and ecosystem for their subsistence. Today, the loss of biodiversity is a major global threat. With the current species extinction rate estimated to be 1,000-10,000 times higher than it

would naturally be, scientists assert that the biodiversity crisis has now passed the tipping point of ‘planetary boundaries’, with a risk of irreversible changes that will profoundly affect humans. Promoting a sustainable use of our ecosystems and preserving biodiversity is not a cause, it is the key to our own survival.

Worldwide material consumption has expanded rapidly, as has material footprint per capita. Urgent action is needed to ensure that current material needs do not lead to the over-extraction of resources or to the degradation of environmental resources. According to the UN, if human activity continues at the current rate, we will need 3 planets to sustain our lifestyles by 2050. We consume more resources than the planet can generate, and growing rates of pollution and waste only exacerbate the problem. As natural resources are not infinite, we all need to learn to ‘do more and better with less’, at all levels, through reuse and recycling.