The latest report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the University of Oxford has revealed that two-thirds of the world population consider climate change to be a global emergency. The ‘peoples’ climate vote’ showed that 64 per cent of the 1.2 million people polled from 50 countries want urgent action to combat climate change. Their fears and the calls for urgent action are justified. This is why. The consequences of climate change are catastrophic. In Rwanda, for instance, some 5,968.653 hectares of crops and 458 hectares of forests were damaged by disasters last year, while 290 people lost their lives and 398 others were injured. These are climate-induced disasters. Globally, air pollution kills an estimated seven million people every year. The World Health Organisation (WHO) data shows that 9 out of 10 people breathe air that exceeds WHO guideline limits containing high levels of pollutants, with low- and middle-income countries suffering from the highest exposures. Beyond the extreme weather phenomena, the climate crisis will also force humans to migrate, likely in patterns paralleling other animal species. Renewed global efforts and collaboration is urgently needed to avert this crisis. The good news is that some tools to deal with this problem are available. The Paris Agreement and the Kigali Amendment protocol are some of these tools. We need to put them into action. Some leaders are also demonstrating commitment to deal with this crisis, which threatens millions of lives. For instance, US President Joe Biden has directed his administration to send the Kigali Amendment protocol to the Senate for its advice and consent to U.S. ratification The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was adopted in 2016 and entered into force on January 1, 2019. It seeks to eliminate hydrofluorocarbons, the greenhouse chemicals better known as hydrofluorocarbons. In addition, an estimated 820 million people worldwide are hungry, representing 11 per cent of the global population, according to statistics from UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). To ensure food security, the world must combat climate change.
