World Environment Day was observed this year on one of the hottest days in the northern hemisphere.
Europe sweltered, as did much of Asia and the Middle East. This is not irony but a fact that will be increasingly common in the coming years.
For years, climate change has been debated, accepted and subsequently denied by a host of stakeholders. The direct connection of climate change to rapid environmental degradation is undeniable today, except for a few for whom this knowledge is not profitable.
Unesco even focused on the impact of climate change on history when it noted that “Climate change is no longer a distant threat for World Heritage sites – its impacts are already visible across some of the world’s most iconic places”.
The evidence for climate change is all around us: in the increasing temperatures, the rising mounts of garbage in semi-urban centres, severe droughts and even more severe floods.
Nor is there any doubt that all this is human-made.
The endless construction that leads to fragile mountainscapes crumbling, the icecaps that melt as multi-storeyed cruise ships prance through pristine waterways are only two examples that strike at the root of environmental degradation: an insatiable human need for objects and experiences.
This is why climate action cannot just be an annual buzz word anymore. It needs to be part of everyday vocabulary, an essential core of daily life.
It is easy to be cynical about climate action when small individual actions do not seem to make an impact. Why, we often ask, are we left to recycle our old clothes when forests are grazed and minerals extracted from the earth without accountability?
And yet, individuals do make a difference. We know what to do: choose local products, be minimalist, avoid plastic and excessive shopping. It may sound like a drop in the ocean, and yet, it is perhaps all that can be done, given the enormity of the situation.
Perhaps the largest culprit is accountability. There is a tendency to push the ball down the road. Targets keep shifting. The Paris Agreement of 2015 aimed to keep the rise of temperature below 2 degrees. By all accounts, that is becoming almost impossible.
An important reason for the general malaise around climate action is that its benefits do not seem concrete and immediate enough. The idea of a stable global temperature seems to be too delayed to mean anything now. But it is what we do now that will impact the future.
The everyday impact of climate action is obvious to all: improved health devoid of air and water pollution, long-term savings resulting from good health, better infrastructure which takes into account seasonal flooding and even green neighbourhoods.
Surely, these are not small aspirations.
Implementing small habits as a way to solve the climate crisis may seem futile. But in the long run, it is these habits that will remain sustainable and scalable.
Most importantly, it is based on the belief that we as individuals can make a difference to the planet through our everyday practices.
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