Earth Day is an international day devoted to our planet. It draws attention to the environment and promotes conservation and sustainability.
Each year on 22 April, around one billion people around the world take action to raise awareness of the climate crisis and bring about behavioural change to protect the environment.
Participation in Earth Day can take many forms, including small home or classroom projects like planting a herb garden or picking up litter. People also volunteer to plant trees, join other ecological initiatives or take part in street protests about climate change and environmental degradation.
Official Earth Day campaigns and projects aim to increase environmental literacy and bring together like-minded people or groups to address issues such as deforestation, biodiversity loss and other challenges.
The global theme for this year’s Earth Day is ‘Planet vs. Plastics’, which recognizes the threat plastics pose to human health and with campaigners demanding a 60 percent reduction in the production of plastics by 2040.
From 23 to 29 April 2024, governments and NGOs from around the world will gather in Ottawa to continue negotiating the terms of the United Nations Global Plastic Treaty.
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Why is Earth Day important today?
As the millennium loomed, the Earth Day movement turned its attention to the growing reality of the impending climate crisis with a clear message for world leaders and business: urgent action is needed to address global warming.
It’s a message that is even more relevant today. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that without further immediate action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the world is on course for temperatures 3.2°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. This level of warming would be catastrophic for the planet and all life on it, including humans.
The year 2023 was the hottest ever recorded.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 finds that environmental risks make up half of the top 10 risks over the next 10 years, with extreme weather events, critical change to Earth’s systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse being the top three.
Nature is our biggest ally in fighting the climate crisis and has slowed global warming by absorbing 54 percent of human-related carbon dioxide emissions over the past 10 years. Yet, we are losing animals, marine species, plants, and insects at an unprecedented rate, not seen in 10 million years. Threats from human activity for food production and ocean use, infrastructure, energy and mining endanger around 80 percent of all threatened or near-threatened species.
Earth Day has become a leading light in the fight to combat climate change and nature loss. As we celebrate its 54th anniversary, we must make use of this truly global movement to act, as citizens and governments, as consumers and businesses, and as individuals and communities. Our survival could well depend on it.
Source: World Economic Forum
