Hope issues on Women equality and fight against Climate Change dont get left behind post elections.

Women and Climate Change should not get left behind in the new US agenda!

Small Island Nations will suffer the most if action not implemented soon enough! COP 22 should transit from political negotiations to implementation! Hopefully the new President elect will endorse commitment to slow down climate change.

Elsie Gabriel

Whirlpool, turbulent weather, turmoil, call it what you wish! Last week has been politically hectic all over the world and presented many challenges all around the globe. With a new President elect in USA and Climate Change negotiations in Morocco, both running neck to neck, rolling out a carpet full of challenges for women and the weather, if you may say so. It presents a world which simply states that both are connected and the outcomes are crucial.

The UN Climate Change Conference in Marrakech is the crucial establishing step for governments looking to operationalize and cement the Paris Climate Change Agreement adopted last year. While the Paris Agreement gave clear road maps and a final destination in respect to decisive action on climate change, many of the details regarding how to catapult forward as one global community in that common direction still need to be resolved. Therefore the dialogue and decisions in Marrakech hold immense potential to accelerate and amplify the immediate response to the challenge recognized in the Paris Agreement. This meeting is therefore expected to move ahead from political negotiations to actual implementations, and that is one incredibly important factor which will make it a success.

But what will happen if the new President elect does not join the fight against climate change? Have you ever wondered? We can only hope that the new President will give more importance to slow down climate change and endorse not only funds but policies to save our planet from over heating.I am very hopeful that he will be surrounded by an office which will guide him into facts and figures about the already done coastal damage, hurricanes, floods, and heat waves. As a business man I am a firm believer that the new president elect will focus on clean energy business prospects even more. I am not betting on the odds. All am I am saying is that we citizens, women more than anyone else must keep the faith and the hard work towards food securities, mitigation, community programmes and education to fight climate change. This is our biggest challenge yet and we must get ready for it by working harder and setting higher goals. Believe in the power of ‘one’ and keep chugging.

I would like to share where the loopholes are being sighted so far at the climate change negotiations year after year. As an Indian, coming from a nation which is a huge peninsular, surrounded by coasts fights against climate change faces a big task here, with small islands scattered all around it. And I want to tell you why we women whether in the classroom, community or research must go on focusing on coastal lands in order to push governments to save them.

Although it was the leaders of the smallest and most vulnerable countries that did make a splash in Paris last year, it is yet to be seen how an eventual climate change agreement may shape up to save them.

Legally binding international agreement with quantifiable targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions was surely rolled out but with floods, droughts, coral bleaching worldwide, how far have we succeeded, specially those members of AOSIS is the question?

These negotiations open against the backdrop of extreme climate impacts across our lands, Cyclones wreaked havoc in the South Pacific earlier this year; droughts in parts of the Caribbean and the Western Pacific continue to cause water and food security crises; a massive coral-bleaching event has turned reefs bone white across the tropics. The diplomatic community has expressed how seriously it takes climate change. Now we have to turn this political momentum into action at home.

If the talks in Morocco fall short these island countries may lose faith. It is no argument that these island countries will be doomed unless greenhouse gas emissions plunge. It is true that the small Islands are least in their contribution to climate hazards but stand in the forefront in bearing the climate change brunt.

I have been researching and diving in the small islands of Neil, Havelock and South Andamans here in India recently and diving to the depths of the oceans here will confirm that the corals are so bleached and scanty, fish still comprise a huge segment of the rich underwater biodiversity but you can literally feel them lurking around in search of the lost blooming corals. I have dived before in Cairns, Bali, Mauritius, Maldives but never before have I seen such bleaching. India too has many small island nations and should be an active member of the association of small islands, the Indian sub-continent has Andaman and Nicobar groups of Islands on east have more than 530 smaller islands, and Lakshadweep islands on west coast. In these Islands the climate change plays important impact on mangroves, fisheries, coral reefs and aquaculture. There is a action driven need for evolving an ecosystem-centric and location-specific adaptation strategies for these Islands to deal with the climate. Meeting the children at the Tsunami Village set up by the government in South Andamans was a real eye opener, hearing first hand stories of helplessness and peril.

Expressed sympathy for island nations ravaged by climate change is not enough, it’s less clear how far he can go to help them. These islands, organized as the 39-member Alliance of Small Island States and severely jeopardized by sea level rise, have long tried to strike a difficult bargain in climate change meetings and they want the global temperature goal to be holding warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, rather than 2 degrees.

So, it is not all about protecting the big economies any more, is it?

We developing nations need great support of the USA new office. In our country India, overwhelming evidence shows that climate change presents growing threats to public health security from extreme weather-related disasters to wider spread of such vector-borne diseases as malaria and dengue. Developing country and their expansive populations, particularly in small island states, arid and high altitude mountain zones, and in densely populated coastal areas are considered to be particularly vulnerable. Great Himalayas, the world's third largest ice mass in the north, 7500 km long threaten to melt, and densely populated coastal areas in the peninsular south are always in the news of some natural disaster or the other. Numerous floods claimed thousands of lives and rendered millions of people homeless the number of people killed, injured, or made homeless by natural disasters has been increasing rapidly.

The Maldives are another example, which are located in the Indian Ocean about 600 kilometres southwest of India, realized something was wrong with the climate in 1987, when tidal waves inundated Malé, the capital. More than 80 per cent of the total land area, made up of almost 1,200 islands, lies less than one metre above sea level.Individually, these island countries like the Maldives have hardly any effect but staying strong together will help for sure.

It is sad but true, they are neither big emitters nor big energy suppliers. Who will pay for the effects of global warming damage caused to them is a big question at COP 22 again this year.

The COP 22 will be swinging between global warming posing a threat to future generations and devastations already happening to small islands.

If the temperatures rise, the waters will rise.The small island states may really go under water.The major cities will not be safe either.In fact, almost half of the world’s population can be at risk as 44% of the global population lives within 150km of the coast.If the invasion of the sea has to stop then, the warming must stop. Pollution too takes a toll on lives.It all adds up.Any lay person can fathom the intensity of the rage of the oceans, which will throw back into the ocean what we give and dump into it. Only two months ago,I recall meeting UNEP Chief Erik Solheim at our Mumbai Versova beach in Mumbai India,while cleaning up the plastics accumulated on the beach together with many NGOs, the plastic waste was more than few feet in depth into the sand buried refusing to let go, over the years it had formed a wall within the labyrinths of the beach used by locals and fisherfolks. All I could think of was what we give to the ocean we get back. The Ocean is not going to spare of and this example has truly made it very clear. Mr. Erik saw some hope in the cleanliness drives initiated here in Mumbai but was in shock at the damage, “We need to save our planet for the future generation. We need more consolidated efforts to get the community into action to fight climate change and pollution.”

If the temperatures rise, the waters will rise. The invasion will come from the sea. The invasion will be led by the sea. Community action can help stop water level rise, we must collectively rise to bring the damage done by bigger industries in our own backyards, to the governments notice every now and then.

India is surrounded by three sides we have no where to run! And most of the world cities will be vulnerable to this invasion. Therefore this brings us to the fact that there is another less dramatic but more destructive threat. It is sea level rise. And unlike the cyclone – the sea level rise creates hopelessness.It is happening inch-by-inch. Waters threaten to swallow the lands. United Nations Water asserts in their publication titled Climate change adaptation mainly about water… “Already, water-related climate change impacts are being experienced in the form of more severe and more frequent droughts and floods. Higher average temperatures and changes in precipitation and temperature extremes are projected to affect the availability of water resources through changes in rainfall distribution, soil moisture, glacier and ice/snow melt, and river and groundwater flows; these factors are expected to lead to further deterioration of water quality as well.”It adds “Water is the primary medium through which climate change influences the Earth's ecosystems and therefore people’s livelihoods and well-being.” The United Nations needs the support of the new President elect and its office for sure.

Yes it is we who have altered the Earth's climatology, its snow cover, sea and glacial ice and ocean volume, all fundamental elements of the hydrological cycle. As the global temperature continue to increase no one is exactly sure that how quickly the sea levels will rise and by how much. Get your communities and government into action, fight for climate change, be alert, report pollution. Enforce renewable energy. Educate the next generation to fight for climate change action. Be a part of the world movement. I am privileged to be trained by the Climate Change Educator and Evangelist Al Gore who kick started the fight against the climate change movement years ago and rang the first wake up call, today the world knows he is right and his leaders all over the world are working towards actions to fight climate change. I hear news that Al Gore will reach out to the newly formed USA office to rationalize that slowing down the rising temperature is very vital. Meanwhile COP 22 I believe will draw out a plan of action for technologies and carbon trades, but hopefully will give small island countries their due. Their plight is the unseen slow damage. True, it is frightening how much the ocean and seas can reclaim, slowly but surely!