Summary Reader Response Final: Five years since Paris Agreement, world must get ambitious on climate action

 In the recent news release, “Five years since Paris Agreement, world must get ambitious on climate action”, Sharma (2020) addressed the world’s efforts to combat climate change by holding a global Climate Ambition Summit to discuss strategies for carbon neutrality. During the summit, 45 nationally determined contributions (NDC) and 24 net-zero commitments have been announced by leaders worldwide to reduce the impacts of climate change. Sharma stated that the British government has withdrawn its monetary support for the fossil fuel energy sector overseas. Additionally, he mentioned the United Kingdom’s (UK) and Singapore’s government exchange on educating each other regarding grid decarbonisation. He claims that Singapore plays a vital role in supporting regional energy transitions, keen on imparting its knowledge for a sustainable planet. Thus, he believes that contribution is not an individual effort, and it is proven by our existing pandemic to work together and achieve success.

The article suggested that to combat climate change the world has to work hand in hand, forming partnerships to achieve success. In my opinion, I agree that collaboration to share information and technologies between nations, organisations and people is essential to combat climate change. 

The biggest factor that contributes to the rapid decline to our climate is the emission of greenhouse gases by developing countries as they have insufficient knowledge, resources and technologies to reduce such emissions to the planet. "Poor developing countries release 63% of the global greenhouse gas emissions” (Javadinejad et al., 2019) this shows that developing countries contribute to a huge percentage of greenhouse emission. Research has shown that one of the common problems in developing countries are the lack of funding for their adaptation plans (Javadinejad et al., 2019) so if the developing countries are able to acquire more monetary resource, knowledge and technology through collaboration with developed countries, they will be able to effectively combat climate change.

In light of climate change to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, the collaboration of the world to develop climate-friendly technology (CFT) is one of the main key notions to combat it. During 2015 Paris climate summit, 20 countries agreed to work together and share information on CFT research and development activities called Mission Innovation (Jiang et al., 2017). Through these activities, the countries with advance knowledge on low-carbon science technology can connect with other countries to share their expertise for them to catch up. Furthermore, countries can exchange information on their finding in such technologies, educating each other on their mistakes and their successes, furthering each other’s comprehension of such technologies. For example, United State and India collaborating exchanging information on space cooling technologies and other energy conservation strategies (FACT SHEET: The United States and India – Moving Forward Together on Climate Change, Clean Energy, Energy Security, and the Environment, 2016). These collaborations will help boost the quantity and quality of CFT in the market which in return reducing the negative impact of climate change.

Lastly, we must not neglect how cross-sector collaboration will be able to push forward the world's climate agenda, as different sectors like the governments and multilateral institutions can set targets, frameworks and mandates for other parties to shift their demeanour and use their resources both efficiently and sustainably (Kim, 2020). As seen in the article by Kim, “Clean Up Mekong” campaign in Vietnam was a partnership between its local government and conglomerate company from Korea. They were able to boost garbage collections effort in Mekong river using solar power to supply energy to the trash-collection boats, which diesel engine are usually used. The problem of using these diesel-powered boat is that they leak fuel and release excessive greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere causing all clean-up effort to be counterproductive (Kim, 2020). These show how cross-sector collaboration between nation and organisation can help combat climate change.

The amalgamation of these advantages exhibit that collaboration between nations, organisations and people to share information and technologies is essential to combat climate change. By collaborating they can support each other when the other is lacking resources, or collaboration to develop new and innovative ways to negate the negative impact of climate change.

 

Reference

 

FACT SHEET: The United States and India – Moving Forward Together on Climate Change, Clean Energy, Energy Security, and the Environment. (2016). The White House. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/06/07/fact-sheet-united-states-and-india-–-moving-forward-together-climate

Javadinejad, S., Dara, R., & Jafary, F. (2019). Taking Urgent Actions to Combat Climate Change Impacts. 2, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.10315508

Jiang, J., Wang, W., Wang, C., & Liu, Y. (2017). Combating climate change calls for a global technological cooperation system built on the concept of ecological civilization. Chinese Journal of Population Resources and Environment, 15(1), 21–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/10042857.2017.1286145

Kim, D. K. (2020). How cross-sector collaboration is driving the global climate agenda. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/how-cross-sector-collaboration-is-driving-the-global-climate-agenda/

Sharma, A. (2020, December 20). Commentary: Five years since Paris Agreement, world must get ambitious on climate action. CNA. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/un-cop26-climate-change-commitment-net-zero-clean-energy-uk-13798700

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Self-Introduction

 Dear Professor Blackstone, I am Stanley Quek, a year one civil engineering student in your effective communication class, and I hope this letter will allow you to know me better. I graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic in 2018 with a diploma in aerospace electronics with a minor in business. I went from learning how to fly a plane to learning how to programme the different types of equipment utilised in the plane. You must be wondering why did I change my specialisation from aerospace to civil engineering when these two disciplines have little to no relations. My father’s business is specialised in warehouse renovation and revolves around civil engineering, but he has no formal education on it. Being a civil engineering student, I hope to bring forth my knowledge and be a great successor in his place. In terms of communication, I am very outspoken, and I am not afraid to speak my mind as long as it is factual. I view it as both a strength and a weakness because not every type of person
Read more

Critical Reflection

CVE 1281 Effective Communication module was a incredible learning experience. In this module, I have learned many techniques on articulating my ideas in terms of speaking and writing. The goals I had at the start of the module were to improve on my presentation skills and writing skills as I knew that these were some of the skills I needed in near future in workforce. Presentation skill was the most crucial skill I felt I needed to improve on, previously in my introduction letter, I mentioned that I aspire to take over my family business. As a business owner of a small medium enterprise (SME), presentations are no doubt essential as my family business is project based, giving a proposal presentation like the ones during our class to secure a project is part of the job. In this module there were many instances that everyone gets, to do small presentations and get feedback from peers, I found it a valuable experience to practice presentation skills like eye contact, vocalisation, body la
Read more

The importance of communication skills for engineers

 “Employers identify communication as one of the basic competencies every graduate should have, asserting that the ability to communicate is valuable for obtaining employment and maintaining successful job performance.” By Sherwyn Morreale, Michael Osborn & Judy Pearson, Professors of Communication (2000). This quote shows how communication is essential in the workforce, the ability to communicate effectively is vital in the workforce as it enhances your portfolio and increases the chances of employment. Good communication skills is the stepping stone to success in any jobs as this ability can help a workplace increase productivity, prevent conflict and reduce the error of miscommunication.
Read more