Fighting Climate Change

In an inspiring initiative to fight global warming and climate change, 47 of the world’s most economically disadvantaged nations have pledged to use only renewable energy in the future. The united pledges are members of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), and they include Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Haiti, to name a few.

At the United Nations climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco, the member nations shared their Marrakech Vision, a plan stating they agree to be converted to fully green economies between 2030 and 2050. The CVF members also declared their cooperation to help meet the goal set last year by the UN-led Paris Climate Change Conference to keep the global temperature rise in this century below 1.5°C (2.7°F).

Global Shift

The members of the CVF are nations that are particularly susceptible to adverse changes in the environment, whether these be due to geography or the state of their economies.

Some member countries have expressed distaste for the lack of urgency and progress from more well-off nations. “We don’t know what countries are still waiting for to move towards net carbon neutrality and 100 percent renewable energy,” said Edgar Gutierrez, Costa Rica’s minister for the environment, according to BBC News. “All parties should start the transition; otherwise we will all suffer.”

The CVF members have also expressed concern over the possible pullout of the United States from the Paris climate agreement as president-elect Donald Trump has promised to stop funding initiatives against global warming. “$2.5 billion dollars was supposed to be in the mail, but now that the mailman has changed that might be a bit of an issue,” said Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “If the U.S. pulls out and the others cut, it creates uncertainty and that can hinder ambition.”

Of all the things to dispute, a global union to solve climate change and protect human life and the Earth should not be one of them. We all live on one planet, after all.