1 commentWCC-3 Blog: Introducing Yara
As human beings, we tend to label everything. We care about animals; once a number of a certain species decreases, we call it endangered and we go out of our way to preserve it, care for it, and prevent it from extinction. We create limits, boundaries, and laws with consequences.
Clearly, we’re selfless, because when it comes to preserving our earth, our survival, and our life, we think twice. In fact, we spend years thinking. Sure, we come up with protocols, and goals, but we set time limits, and the reality of the situation is that it doesn’t have a time limit – it doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon.
This brings us to our need of sustainability. We must reach a point where we can meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It’s not just about recycling; paper and plastic can only be recycled so many times. Our plans shouldn’t just take into account the effects of climate change today, and in the future, they should also consider the needs of the future generation – our generation.
A lot of suggestions are made to combat climate change, but God forbid the idea of introducing a carbon tax comes up. Suggestions are shone away repeatedly, and mocked: what can the tax do if the 4 countries with the highest carbon footprint/capita don’t even have a tax system? People living in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain have a higher carbon footprint than any other nation on our precious Earth. UAE ranks first with the highest ecological footprint/person, too. But the luxurious life of water-fanned outdoors, and 24 décor lights for villas is catching up with the region. The lifestyle is getting old, and unfortunately, there’s no such thing as Earth Botox.
Upon mentioning the words ‘carbon tax’, in the gulf, Im either faced with blank expressions, or a shrug with “Thank God our government doesn’t believe in taxing us.”
What the government does believe in however is awareness: the Kuwaiti government launched the ‘Tarsheed’ Campaign to reduce electricity and water usage. With a budget of $35.5million, the campaign managed to use strong advertisements, print, and phone calls and text messages (in six different languages), the campaign managed to successfully reduce electricity consumption in the country. It’s quite an achievement, considering that over 30% of the people don’t even pay utility bills in Kuwait.
Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research even managed to draw up a proposal to stop the desertification of Kuwait, by building a green belt around the country along the border, by 2012.
Slowly, but successfully, companies are becoming more eco-conscious, all over the Middle East region. Cisco Jordan recently banned plastic bottles at their company, so did Hasan Abul Kuwait (A major construction company). Some companies are even becoming paper-free, whereas others are taking the plunge and turning their lights off at night.
It’s one thing for the companies and people, to green their image by planting trees all over it, but it’s another to change the inside. It’s no about the end product, but about the cycle that the product goes through in production, and if the cycle is messy, lengthy, and polluting, then what’s the point? It’s similar to putting a cherry on top of a foul cake.
It’s time to use the statistics and turn the talk into action: 73% of us want stronger action against climate change, 75million expected to be displaced by 2050, and 300,000 die a year from the effects. That’s why we want more action, its ‘cause we need it. Hopefully, the world climate conference will be the ideal platform to get the real message out there, the message that calls for action.
One Response to WCC-3 Blog: Introducing Yara
An interesting point raised by Prof. Micheal Sandel during 2009’s Reith Lectures is that a conscious moral choice such as you are talking about will be stronger than implicating a fiscal cost.
For instace, Sandel pointed out—if we find there is a problem with people throwing litter into a lake, we can incur a fine of $100 per piece of litter discarded in this way. This would be done with the intent of discouraging pollution of the lake.
But the very rich among the sightseers might decide that $100 is worth the convenience of being able to discard their rubbish at will by the lakeside. In some examples Sandel brought to light, incurring a fine caused offences to rise, because people saw it as an exchange of property rather than a moral consequence.
The £100 becomes a cost, for a service, rather than a punishment for doing something that ruins the beauty of the lake.
For this reason I think it’s a good idea to exhaust the unmovable fact that we’re going to have to live in this world we’re building. And the decision by the Kuwaiti government to start this environmental movement by informing people of the obvious moral choice seems a good one. Not least because a moral choice will remain potent regardless of fiscal fluctuations, but because it gives a choice of spirit to build off, instead of a force of coin.
You can listen to the lecture in question here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kt7sh