Climate Action Matters

May 01, 2023

The world is racing against time in the fight against climate change despite governments from across the globe talking about the need to taking concrete measures to arrest it. Many countries have come forward to mitigate the imminent catastrophe awaiting humankind, by implementing proactive steps, including reduction of carbon emissions and preserving green spaces but that is not enough. The rising global average temperature accompanied by erratic weather patterns, be it unseasonal rainfall, heat waves, floods, drought, melting of glaciers, etc., tells that the world is not doing enough to arrest the human-induced climate change. While several Indian states have experienced weather events like cyclone, flooding, landslides, snowfall, storms and cold snaps over the past few months, many northeastern states including Nagaland are facing a drought-like situation. The pre-monsoon showers this year was just for a brief period. Monsoon has finally arrived in India's southernmost state Kerala after a delay of more than a week. What does this mean for the people of the Northeast? Any variation in the rainfall can affect farmers in the region due to the practice of traditional farming like jhuming and absence of irrigation system. Late arrival of monsoon, insufficient or excess rainfall can have a huge impact on crop productivity in the region. However, extreme weather events and patterns are inevitable. This underscores the need for adaptation and resilience strategies to cope with the change. More importantly, the world needs to take concrete action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and it requires active participation of governments, business people and citizens across the globe.

In this fight against climate change, Nagaland has also been making small but significant contributions by carrying out tree planting drives at district, village and school levels. For a change, the Kohima Forest Division recently introduced an interesting initiative called Clicktoplant, wherein anyone from anywhere can plant tree saplings in Nagaland in the comfort of their rooms via online. This idea of allowing people, especially those who don't have the time and space, to plant trees through someone in the ground, by paying a nominal amount, is innovative and commendable. Now, the concerned authorities should ensure that Clicktoplant spreads out its branches to the entire state. For this, the committee that is supposed to execute the physical plantation of trees should not only plant the saplings in the fields, as ordered, but also tend and nurture them into trees. It also should maintain transparency in regard to spending of revenue collected from random people. Success of this project will encourage other states to come up with similar strategies. Everybody should join the fight against climate change, a very real threat to human existence.

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