UB Don Concerned About Climate Change

Ludo Kwapa | Monday April 1, 2019 15:02

Speaking at Earth Hour event at Ba Isago recently, Atlhopheng stated that this year’s theme calls for individual and collective responsibility, to build inclusive societies that are prosperous and in harmony and nature.

It also called on people to deal with insecurities such as food, water, energy and drought.

“The theme for this year is CHANGE THE WAY WE LIVE, it comes at a better time as we are currently faced with the challenges of climate change and rapidly declining Biodiversity,” Atlhopheng said. Earth Hour is an annual environmental campaign that brings attention to effects of climate change.

It reminds people the importance of caring for the environment as it brings about the inspirational power of individual actions that collectively become an exponential force for positive change.

Atlhopheng added that the heritage of Batswana is being lost, as they can no longer relate with nature. He indicated that some of the effects of climate change are prolonged droughts, severe and frequent heat waves together with irregular rainfall patterns.

Atlhopheng said it was important that the youth were made part of the campaign as they were the future of the earth..

Shedding light about the national development plan, Atlhopheng indicated that the plan includes climate change resilience programme and it has to be incorporated when building infrastructure and leading in terms of energy efficiency across all sectors that will make sure that the society is protected by building more resilience.

He added that the initiative to combat climate change calls for the involvement of government, private sector, civil society, youth, the media and multi stakeholders.

In addition, Atlhopheng stated that the developing interventions for remediating degraded land, which basically involves restoration of degraded ecosystems, will ensure the use of a variety of approaches and technologies. He said the efforts are for land degradation neutrality.