Climate change is a hot topic around the world. We hear its debates and may have also been unknowingly affected by it at some point of our lives. Some say its a myth but most say its real. So what is it? And more importantly what are we doing to control it?

Climate change is a significant time variation in weather patterns occurring over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. Climate change is caused by increased greenhouse effect which in turn causes global warming. Global warming results in climate change. Pakistan is one of the countries, which is highly adversely affected by the overall climate change. We experience frequent flash floods, unexpected rainfalls, storms and record breaking high temperatures in the summers.

On September 23, 2014 the United Nations organized the Climate Summit 2014 around the world to bring this topic to light again. According to UNs official climate change website; The Summit was aimed at catalyzing action by governments, business, finance, industry, and civil society in areas for new commitments and substantial, scalable and replicable contributions to the Summit that will help the world shift toward a low-carbon economy.

So what is Pakistan doing to counter this challenge? The United Nations office in Pakistan, UNDP and the COMSATS Center for Climate Change and Research (CCRD) had joined hands to organize a Climate Change Summit Pakistan in Islamabad, on 22 September to ensure that Pakistan substantially contributes to the global discussion on the topic.

The United Nations Information Center in Islamabad is working actively to spread awareness to school children and youth about climate change in an easy and interactive manner. We are also planning to take solid steps to counter climate change like planting trees in Islamabad. You too can join us in our campaign to reduce climate change in the following areas:

SAVING ELECTRICITY

It is important that we dont waste electricity and only use when we need it. We should also replace ordinary bulbs with energy savers as they consume less electricity.

1. Carpooling

Carpool is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car. By having more people using one vehicle, carpooling reduces each persons travel costs such as fuel costs, tolls, and the stress of driving. Carpooling is seen as a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way to travel as sharing journeys reduces carbon emissions, traffic congestion on the roads, and the need for parking spaces.

2. Buying smaller and possibly energy efficient cars

This reduces fuel consumption and thus less fossil fuel is used.

3. Less air travelling

Air travelling especially air travelling with multiple stops is a big source of the most important greenhouse gas carbon dioxide which is responsible for causing climate change.

4. Buying and using locally produced foods

Lesser travelling, lesser food miles and thus lesser will be your carbon footprint.

5. Not wasting food

We waste about 40 per cent of the food we eat and wasted food ends up rotting in our landfills. This rotting is a main source of methane gas, another greenhouse gas.

6. Planting more trees

Trees act as carbon sinks so whatever carbon dioxide gas we produce can be cleaned up by planting trees.

We will guide the children to work effectively and efficiently on these problems. We will highlight important concepts such as greenhouse effect; greenhouse gases (GHGs) and global warming. Depending on the level and understanding of the children we will also introduce them to what carbon footprint is. We will then move on to tell them how greenhouse gases are warming the Earth and will introduce them to the concept of global warming and then how this global warming is causing climate change. We will also discuss the general impacts of climate change for example glacier melting and how it distorts natural habitat and raises sea levels, irregular rainfall, droughts and storms.

We will also discuss climate change with respect to Pakistan, how it is adversely affecting us and what we can do to mitigate this growing menace.

By Web Team

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