QUITO, March 11 (IPS) – People often feel that climate change is elusive and concerning. I’ve heard it’s “too technical, too invisible, or too complicated” for us to care. As a Latin American mother of two, I confess that for me, relating to climate change is simpler than ever. All I did was try to imagine the world my children would live in in 2050 if we didn’t do anything now, and I immediately understood the urgent need for transformative action. bold global climate change.
IPCC WGII Impact, Vulnerability and Adaptation reports, which was released on February 28, gives us all a clearer picture of where we are now and what that future might look like. After reading the Policy Maker Summary and the various sections of the report, I tried to imagine what its findings would mean for my daughter Maya’s life. Maya is a six-year-old child living in Quito, a city in the Andean Mountains. She will be 35 years old in 2050 and she wants to be an adventurer.
The IPCC report, described by United Nations Secretary-General Guterres as “an atlas of human suffering” and a “reality check” by Debra Roberts, of the IPCC, taught me the following. .
Maya’s current:
- As an Ecuadorian girl, Maya is more vulnerable to climate change. Gender and other social inequalities (including race, age, and geographic location) increase her vulnerability and determine her ability to adapt to current and future impacts .
- Like the other 3.3 to 3.6 billion people in the world, Maya and our family live in a vulnerable country. Currently, about 40% of the global population is living in circumstances – such as poverty, inequality and weak governance frameworks – that make people more vulnerable. The difference is that mortality from extreme weather events is 15 times higher in vulnerable areas.
- Since Maya was born, she has witnessed terrible droughts and fires in the Amazon, rapid retreat of glaciers in the Andes, damage to people and infrastructure from landslides. large land in Quito.
Maya’s Future:
- Even with a 1.5ºC increase in average temperatures, which governments have agreed to be “safe,” the population affected by floods in Ecuador would increase by 300 percent.
- If she stayed in Quito, Maya could experience water shortages because our city relies heavily on high-altitude ecosystems – the páramos – and glaciers for drinking water and hydric balance.
- Maya may also be more exposed to dengue, malaria and other vector-borne diseases. Due to changes in temperature and rainfall, mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti will spread to places where they could not exist before.
- Even if she becomes an explorer, Maya may never see a living reef or study frogs in the Amazon rainforest. Rising water temperatures and more extreme weather events are putting coral reefs at risk, and deforestation and wildfires are threatening to turn the Amazon into savanna.
I confess that reading the IPCC WG2 Report made me sad, worried and angry. However, as my friend Natalie said recently, “This is reality shock, not game over.” While some of the loss and damage caused by climate change is irreversible, there are still “a brief and rapidly closing opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all” according to the IPCC closing statement. So in the face of such urgency, all I can do as an individual and as part of Hivos is turn my feelings into action.
So what does climate action look like to us?
The IPCC report on Impact, Vulnerability and Adaptation reaffirms the basic premise of Climate Justice Work: we need to puts justice, equality and human rights at the core of global climate action. This can only be done by focusing climate action on the priorities and institutions of those disproportionately impacted by climate change. In our view, achieving climate-resilient development requires work in three key areas.
1. Building political power and influence:
The IPCC emphasizes the important role of inclusive governance in achieving more effective and lasting adaptation results and enable climate-resilient development. As in Hivos, for example in All Eyes on Amazon program, we work to bring together diverse sovereigns and movements so that they can put pressure on governments and the private sector, to participate in decision-making processes on climate change and hold those responsible accountable. This includes movement building and advocacy work from the local to international levels, with a particular focus on women, youth, indigenous peoples and the urban poor.
2. Redirecting financial flows towards climate-resilient development:
Equitable access to finance, technology and climate markets enables climate resilient and adaptive development.
Through programs like Voices for climate action, ENERGY and Green buildingWe support programmatic and policy commitments to ensure climate action: i) impact the global climate finance architecture so that it fully and equitably supports people and communities most affected by climate change (adaptation priority); ii) promote investment and job creation in clean energy and local climate solutions driven by women, youth and disadvantaged groups in the Global South.
3. Inspire and mobilize civic action:
Public and political awareness of climate impacts and risks and their links to social justice are fundamental to climate resilient and adaptive development. Amid disinformation, knowledge gaps, and multiple crises, we work with a variety of voices and movements to reshape climate stories at the local, national and national levels. international. We look forward to investing in strategic communications targeting popular culture and strengthening the voices of diverse rights holders to drive climate change action.
Hope and simple actions drive change
Today, I asked Maya to tell me how she saw her world when she was 35. “I imagine more blue rivers, so many rainbows, and I find myself surrounded by many species. animal. I also want to work at my school,” she said. Her words, her dreams and her ability to connect with nature give me hope every day.
In addition to my work at Hivos, I also strive to promote change as a mother and a member of my community. I feel that doing some simple things can help. I talk to family and friends about the climate crisis and its impacts, I teach my children to listen to – and care about – the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, and I guide them. The path to becoming political actors may require change.
As a family, we also strive to minimize our impact on the environment and explore and enjoy nature as much as possible. In this way, we will not leave the window to Maya’s future discoveries of a livable and sustainable world.
Carolina Zambrano-Barragán is Head of Climate Justice in Hivos Strategy and Impact.
This opinion was originally published by Hivos
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