The echoes for a deal on clean energy are reverberating loudly with people from affected countries like India, Costa Rica and Colombia making a fervent appeal to nations to deal firmly with climate change.
People from Chennai, Alajuela (Costa Rica) and Bogota (Colombia) have come together in a video message appealing to the countries involved in hectic parleys at the COP21 climate change summit in Paris, to see the devastating effects of climate change worldwide and shift towards clean energy.
Global citizens movement Avaaz has arranged the initiative.
Emma-Ruby Sachs, Acting Executive Director of Avaaz said: “The people who marched in Chennai last weekend under 100% clean banners had no idea they were on the cusp of climate disaster. Now they are drowning while negotiators drag their feet in agreeing to a life-saving deal. It’s time to deliver clean energy by 2050 and answer the call of 3.6 million global citizens demanding a long term goal the world can celebrate.”
Chennai flood victim Karthik Subramanian says, “One small message to all the global leaders. Just please look around. This is the voice of an affected citizen. I don’t think we need anything much, other than clean India, clean energy, please save India.”
He adds, “This climate change has really affected me over the last month. People have been seriously affected. It has been draining, but still the situation is very bad. Be it summer or winter, the weather has been extreme, especially this year. I would tell the leaders who are seeing this video that clean energy is needed now and it should be implemented as it is the need of the hour.”
A concerned citizen of Bogota, Colombia, says, “We live in a world that man himself is destroying. And so the earth changes, the climate changes. And so this is why we are so worried.”
“The situation is really bad here, we are not able to survive here without any food. The situation is really bad. There has been no power supply over the last three days,” said another flood victim Vijay Prasad.
The effects of climate change can be seen as far away as Alajuela in Costa Rica too. An affected person said, “There was so much water 22 days ago. We have had nothing. The owner of the farm has lost two hectares of onions because it has been raining too much, he can’t take it any more so he is not going to farm any more. My family is affected too because my cousin used to work there. But because there is no work, they had to fire him.”
“This land is sick because the rainstorms were so strong. This is what the rainstorms cause: ‘rot’. The ‘rot’ gets into the root of the onion and spreads everywhere until there is nothing left.”
Reference is also made in the video to the province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica where a drought of epic proportions caused a national emergency to be declared in October 2014.
Besides the video message, marches have been conducted the world over, exhorting world leaders to change to clean energy completely.
The video can be seen here.