According to the United Nations, climate change remains the planet’s defining crisis of the time where the problem is becoming worse and quick than the expectations. The world continues to suffer from the devastating damages of climate crisis. Flooding, droughts, famine, desertification, and land sliding and other unexpected natural disasters remain to be recurrent events across the globe.
Everyone across the corner of the globe is not immune from the shocking penalties of climate change. Rising temperature which is the result of climate change is fueling environmental degradation, weather extremism, natural disasters, economic disruptions, conflict, and food and water insecurity. This indicated that it is time for bold and continuous actions to reduce the climate change driven consequences of our planet, earth.
United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres during the 2020 UNGA disclosed that with practical actions and measures, human beings can win the race over climate crisis. However, due to lack of practical actions, the world is losing the race on climate emergency.
Despite everyone across the globe knows the urgency of taking actions to save the world from further damages of the worsening climate crisis, still leaders of the developed world continued talking too much and make unpractical promises. Climate change and climate crisis remains the agenda of researches, seminars, annual conferences and speeches of world leaders. But, due to lack of practical actions to implement the talks and findings of scientific researches, climate change is worsening and climate driven natural disasters remains to be top challenges across the globe.
The world talks too much with regard to climate change; it is time to take practical actions to live the promises and the talks. The planet demands applicable climate mitigation and adaptation actions so as to reduce the impacts of climate crisis. Climate crisis comes from the actions of human beings and the solution to save the planet from further crisis remains on the hand of human beings, according to researchers.
In this regard, conserving forests and reforestations remains among the top scientific solutions to combat climate change and desertification, though not the only one. Deforestation, land degradation and desertification are the top problems in climate crisis which can be addressed through conserving the available forests and reforesting and afforesting the destroyed areas.
According to an article entitled “Can tree planting solve climate change?” published at Zurich on May 2024, planting trees is a scientifically valid and beneficial approach to mitigating climate change with a making it part of a broader strategy that includes reducing fossil fuel emissions, transitioning to renewable energy, and protecting existing forests. Hence, tree planting is considered one of the most effective tools for combating climate change and restoring biodiversity.
According to the article, trees are natural carbon capture and storage machines, absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through photosynthesis and then locking it up. As to researchers in the field, to create healthy ecosystems and effective capture carbon, reforestation and afforestation projects is crucial. Mass plantation helps to nurture nature. Scientists concluded that mass plantation which helps to restore forests, ranks among the most effective climate change mitigation strategies of the time.
According to a report released during the recent World Economic Forum, the world would lose over 12.5 trillion USD and would over 14 million people due to climate change by 2050. In addition, due to climate driven weather, over 500 million people living in a hot weather will be exposed to communicable diseases like malaria. According to the report, deaths due to flood and drought would worsen.
The report revealed that, by 2040 due to climate change driven disasters, Asian countries would lose 3.5 trillion USD, Europe 2.6 trillion and South America over 2.2 trillion USD. The report concluded that if the world implements proper and timely actions to combat climate crisis, there is a chance to reduce the damages that the world may experience in the future, calling for an immediate actions across the globe. This indicated that our planet is at a critical stage due to climate crisis and taking practical actions is an urgent task.
In this regard, Ethiopia is striving to fulfill its responsibility in combating climate change. Its economic reform measures are climate friendly and invest more on removable energy sources. As part of its comprehensive efforts to combat climate crisis, Ethiopia gives due attention to increase the forest coverage of the country with mass plantation. By launching Green Legacy initiative in 2019, Ethiopia increased the nation’s forest coverage by nearly seven percent.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) “Forests are vital for the planet’s health and human well-being.” Pants are crucial to provide oxygen, store carbon, and regulate the climate, helping to mitigate climate change. While calling the public to attend the 23rd of August mass plantation day targeting to plant 600 million seedlings in a single day, the premier stated that forests are home to a vast array of biodiversity, offering habitat to millions of species. He calls the public that to protect the existing forests and continue increasing the forest coverage by planting trees.
According to PM Abiy, the goal of Ethiopia’s Green Legacy for this year is to reach 40 billion trees counting from the beginning of the initiative in 2019. So far, Ethiopia has planted over 32 billion seedlings and to reach 40 billion targets, Ethiopia is working to plant 7.5 billion seedlings this plantation season. As part of the national campaign, Ethiopia has set to plant 600 million seedlings within a single day, today. PM Abiy calls the adult population to plant over 20 trees and children to plant 10 and above trees for this day.
According to experts in the forest sector, planting 600 million seedlings in a single day means installing a plant that can absorb over 13 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide. According to researches, a tree has a capacity of absorbing over 20 kilograms of carbon dioxide annually, despite it varies across tree species and the weather condition. This indicated that, if the 600 million seedlings set to plant today grow properly, it saves Ethiopia from further climate crisis by absorbing over 13 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide annually.
Accordingly, planting trees is among the vital and timely actions to combat climate change and to save the planet earth from further damages. Increasing the forest coverage is all about protecting the precious blessings of nature.
Despite planting billions of trees by itself is an appropriate solution for the current climate crisis, it should be supported by scientific researches and climate change concerned international organizations should also support this ambitious initiative of Ethiopia. It is crucial to fund like Green Legacy initiatives by the developing countries so as to promote actions of climate change.
BY DARGIE KAHSAY
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 23 AUGUST 2024
