The answer is in front of us

2023. By far the hottest year ever recorded in Earth’s existence. We are sailing through unchartered waters and this perilous journey of the planet seems to have no hope. The burning of fossil fuels continues unabated at an even faster pace.

The United Nations Conference of Parties, better known as COP 28 (yes, 28 meetings have taken place), recently held in Dubai, was like a meeting of the rich and the dying, of the haves and the have nots. COP signals the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era by laying the ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by deep emissions cuts and scaled-up finance.

This is a great sign. As stated by Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jabe, “An agreement is only as good as its implementation. This historic consensus is only the beginning of the road.”

We are only as strong as our weakest link. The COP is making an agreement to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems and to triple the renewable energy sources. Let’s see how and when. There just may be a chance.

This war was lost even before it was fought. The Paris Agreement of limiting temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius is nothing more than a dream as it has breached 1.4 degrees Celsius this year. The scourging heat, the floods and fires continue, and climate calamities will become even more intense.

Already as we end the year, an El Niño warning is forecast for 2024. Our population is nearing 8 billion and growing, while the economy flounders and the Earth’s people die. We already are experiencing the shortage of critical supplies, including basic needs such as food and water, and the development model continues to burn.

The poor have become poorer and the rich – the few rich – only become richer. Not even the Species Survival Commission is aware of the countless species that have gone extinct. Sadly, the purge continues and humanity as a species will eventually join the endangered list.

The countries with rice and wheat have stopped exporting and will only feed their people. We have a shortage of rice, our staple diet, and the price is skyrocketing. Our forests and oceans, the carbon sinks of the planet, continue to be felled and polluted. Already the number of gyres, or dead zones, in our oceans are multiplying exponentially, disabling them from capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide. The marine food chain is unable to produce food and the marine species are dying. Red tide and algae bloom are rampant but business as usual continues compounded by war.

Yes, war for resources in Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, Yemen, among others. Who will rise to stop this carnage? More Arab Springs will unfold as the netizens have no recourse but to starve. Time and again we have said we are at the tipping point. It is a now-or-never situation as we enter the new year. Let 2024, the year of the lunar dragon, show us the right path. I can go on and on but what’s the point? The answer is in front of us. – Antonio M. Claparols, president, Ecological Society of the Philippinese