How can we avert ecological collapse and curb climate breakdown in a just way?

The Climate- Nature Emergency Hub is an educational resource and repository addressing the subject of global society’s existential crises of this century.

This Hub is a website that, first and foremost, introduces the concept of the Climate- Ecology Blueprint (scroll down to the bottom of this page to view). This ‘Blueprint’ provides the framework for a potential piece of synergistic climate-nature legislation for countries of the Global North.

The ‘Blueprint’ asserts that the respective country aligns its reduction of its share of the global carbon budget in accordance to the Paris Agreement – pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C increase above pre-industrial levels; it also calls to halt ecological destruction and to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, as adopted by the Leaders Pledge 4 Nature.

These climate-ecology objectives apply to a country’s full cycle of material consumption, whether production of goods and services that deplete the Earth’s resources and cause pollution have been undertaken within that country’s territory or outsourced to another country.

The Blueprint responds to the urgent need to reform and innovate decision making processes, and in so doing, deliver protection against ecocide and to safeguard environmental justice.

We recognise the Climate- Nature Emergency is a human-induced phenomenon that derives from a particular way of treating the Earth’s ecosystems and its flora and fauna, through unbridled exploitation of the biosphere  and societal over-consumption. We also acknowledge that societal consumption is inequitably divided.

The Climate-Nature Emergency Hub engages with a ‘Plurality of Knowledges’. Whilst the Blueprint constitutes knowledge on the principles of empiricism and the scientific method, we recognise the coloniality of dominating knowledge systems.

We advocate heterogenous ways of acting in the world to stem the worst consequences of the climate and ecological crises, within and beyond limits of policy and existing state structures. In line with acknowledging the creativity of all species, we seek to expand traditional avenues of policy making by incorporating Art as key for imagining  a future out of the crisis.

Flip tiles throughout the website! 

Atmosphere

Earth’s atmosphere is composed of about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and one percent other gases. These gases are found in atmospheric layers (troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere) defined by unique features such as temperature and pressure. The atmosphere protects life on earth by shielding it from incoming ultraviolet (UV) radiation, keeping the planet warm through insulation, and preventing extremes between day and night temperatures. The sun heats layers of the atmosphere causing it to convect driving air movement and weather patterns around the world.
(Ref. National Geographic)

Hydrosphere

We live on a blue planet, with oceans and seas covering more than 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface. Oceans feed us, regulate our climate, and generate most of the oxygen we breathe. (UNEP) ‘Only 0.5 per cent of water on Earth is useable and available freshwater – and climate change is dangerously affecting that supply. Over the past twenty years, terrestrial water storage – including soil moisture, snow and ice – has dropped at a rate of 1 cm per year, with major ramifications for water security (WMO)’.

Cryosphere

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) states that “over the last decades, global warming has led to widespread shrinking of the cryosphere, with mass loss from ice sheets and glaciers, reduction in snow cover,  Arctic sea ice extent and thickness, and increased permafrost temperatures”. In the Antarctic, populations of Emperor Penguins have declined by up to 50% in some places and one colony off the Antarctic Peninsula has disappeared completely. Presently, the most significant  threat to them is climate change due to changes in the sea ice on which they depend. (WWF).

Pedosphere

The pedosphere is the soil mantle of the Earth. This concept evolved from the basic scientific concept of soils as specific bodies in nature that developed in time and space in situ at the land surface due to processes resulting from interactions of soil-forming factors. These factors are parent material, climate, organisms, topography, and time; one could conceive of the pedosphere as representing the interface at the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere.

Soils are dynamic and diverse natural systems that lie at the interface between earth, air, water, and life. They are critical ecosystem service providers for the sustenance of humanity. The improved conservation and management of soils is among the great challenges and opportunities we face in the 21st century.(Ref. Nature Education ). 

Flora

Biodiversity includes the flora of mangroves which are under threat, yet this precious habitat provides valuable protection for communities at risk from sea-level rises and severe weather events caused by climate change. Research has shown that in their ability to store carbon (‘carbon sequestration’), coastal mangroves outperform most other forests. Mangroves are the only trees that thrive in salty waters and improve water quality by filtering out nutrients and sediments. They are also teeming with life: more than 1,500 plant and animal species depend on mangroves. This includes fish and birds who use the shallow waters beneath mangrove trees as nurseries. (Ref. UNEP)

Fauna

‘Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) are important pollinators of many native plant species and agricultural crops, particularly in temperate and high-elevation regions, and are associated with vegetation abundance and diversity. Over the past century however, several bumblebee species declined in range and abundance. Threats include habitat loss and fragmentation, pesticides, parasites, pathogen spillover, and climate change. (Ref.Climate change-driven range losses among bumblebee species are poised to accelerate, Sirois-Delisle and Kerr in Nature 2018)

PDF

A Blueprint for the Climate-Nature Emergency

(*derived and adapted from the Climate & Ecology Bill; please note: the  Climate- Nature Emergency Hub is not affiliated with  Zero Hour )

Choose language to read blueprint