FEBRUARY 22 ― Climate change is likely to be the greatest threat of our century. Our planet is heating up, glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising.

Climate change is a significant variation of average weather condition, for example, the earth becomes warmer, wetter, or drier over several decades or more. The earth’s climate is now changing quicker than at any rate in the history of modern civilisation.

A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2018 shows that the world has until 2030 to implement "rapid and far-reaching” changes to our energy, infrastructure and industrial systems to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius of warming ― which could be disastrous.

In a nutshell, this temperature rise is called global warming.

It happens when carbon dioxide (CO2) and other air pollutants are released into the air and they absorb the sun’s warmth and keeps heat in our atmosphere.

Normally, this radiation would escape into space but these pollutants trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter. That is what is known as the greenhouse effect.

The world's top climate scientists believe that human activities are responsible for the escalation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 150 years. The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities is from burning fossil fuels for electricity and transportation, which makes up 82 per cent of the gases in our atmosphere that trap heat.

The effects of greenhouse gas emissions include the rising of temperatures, heat waves, drought, higher sea levels, abnormal weather patterns, increased intensity of natural disasters as well as smog and acid rain.

While some claim that greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon and it is necessary for survival on earth, experts point out that the amount of gases trapped in the atmosphere has risen steeply in recent history.

There is no magic bullet to address climate change, as it requires many solutions. Almost all the solutions that exist till today hinge on the way human behave, shifting the way human make and consume energy.

While it is impossible to inverse the effects of climate change, we, as the citizens, should put our heads together to help reduce climate change.

What can we do, as the living soul on earth?

Use energy wisely

After all, electricity allows us to light up our homes without the need for candles, let us watch television, and even charge or power the computer and smartphone.

While electricity does have its advantages, there are also some disadvantages.

As there is a direct connection between the energy used and the environment, consuming less power could reduce the amount of electricity that power plants have to make, subsequently reducing the number of fossil fuels that are burned each day.

Thus, it is crucial for us to unplug or shut down all the electrical devices that are not in use.

Due to the frequent heat waves, the usage of the air conditioner has ascended, as it improves both living conditions and economic productivity. But, do you know that the instant relief that the air conditioner offers us is offset by its harmful environmental effects?

Studies show that air conditioner denotes an increasingly large percentage of energy consumption in the building sector. It is responsible for 12 per cent of the sector’s CO2 emissions worldwide.

One of the energy efficiency tips shared by Tenaga Nasional Bhd is to set our air conditioner between 23°C and 25°C as this is cool enough and reduces energy consumption. Plus, we must ensure that the filters on the air conditioner are regularly checked and replaced. Cleaning a dirty air filter can save several pounds of carbon dioxide a year and let us breathe the clean air too.

With these tips, not only it conserves the earth’s natural resources and shields the ecosystems from destruction, but we also could save more by paying less for the electricity bills.

Practise recycling

Recycling is perhaps one of the easiest yet most effective ways to make our planet greener and healthier place to live. There are myriad of initiatives set up across the world to reuse and recycle just about everything, not to mention everyday products such as plastic bottle, can and newspaper.

Recycling can be started small at home and it does not require much effort if we spend some time to create a comprehensive recycling system. This system starts with having places to store the recycled materials in the house, whether this is a box, bin or bag.

Keep the recycling container next to the trash can and remind everyone at home to recycle as much as possible.

One of the main key benefits of recycling our waste is, it reduces the landfill waste.

In 2018, Malaysians generated a whopping 38,142 tonnes of waste per day, an increase from 19,000 tonnes of waste a day in 2005. Out of this, 44.5 per cent of the waste collected was food waste, followed by plastic waste (13.2 per cent) and diapers (12.1 per cent).

Decomposing these huge wastes release methane, a greenhouse gas which is significantly more harmful than CO2 that can cause nausea, headaches and vomiting among those who encounter high levels of it. Therefore, with recycling, we limit our contributions to landfill and help to reduce methane production.

Less driving

It is time where we fully utilise our public transportation especially hydrogen-powered buses, carpooling or walking. Technically, with this mode of transportations, there will be fewer emissions of CO2 and thus, fight global warming.

It is our responsibility to use our planet’s resources aptly for the next generation to be able to survive. Hence, we should consider all the available knowledge about sustainability and best practices to make our planet healthier again and apply them in our daily lives.

Every little bit we do helps to save our planet.

* Nurafifah Mohammad Suhaimi is a Research Assistant at EMIR Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.