It is almost impossible to discuss where the world stands today and where it wants to go regarding “sustainable development” or a sustainable environment without first appreciating what happened in the past. This is one linear story, not “Breaking News” that sweeps the reader off their feet with a “staccato intro” before plunging them into background material, which they may or may not read. Here, the background is the story.
Most historians agree that the Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in 1760, with large-scale coal-fired factories producing goods and items that made life pleasurable on a scale that mankind had not experienced before. However, what man didn’t know was that the sky was not a free dumping ground for industrial effluents.
And while it is true that man has made tremendous strides in his quest for development in those less than 300 years, including sending rockets to explore the outer edges of our observable universe, this has come at a very high price and cost for his own survival and comfort on Earth, almost to the point of threatening his very existence. As we write, the situation is dire, and without action to reverse global warming, man risks self-annihilation through what he thought was reaching for the stars.
Global Awareness and Action on Climate Change
From the 1970s, world leaders realized that survival on Earth was impossible without taking joint action to reverse the damage caused by development. In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment recommended that people should live in small, de-industrialized communities for sustainability.
In 1987, the United Nations Commission on the Environment, chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister, Madam Gro Harlem Brundtland, and known simply as the Brundtland Commission, popularized the term “sustainable development” in its report. It is defined simply as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own.”
The Brundtland Commission was followed by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005. It was the first internationally binding agreement to commit to reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) after recognizing that global warming was real and caused by human activities. The Protocol targeted 37 industrialized countries and other richer nations for emissions reduction by an average of five percent based on the 1990 levels.
To achieve that, the Protocol introduced three major mechanisms:
- Emissions trading (carbon credits and climate financing).
- The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
- The lesser-known, Joint Implementation (JI).
It is often said the Kyoto Protocol gave life to the 1994 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that aims to “prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.” The Kyoto Protocol was replaced by the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement and Global Climate Commitments
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 members at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris, France, on December 12, 2015. It entered into force on November 4, 2016, with the US becoming a member that same year.
Its main goal is to hold the global increase in temperature to below 2.0 degrees centigrade and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to below 1.5 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels (by the end of the century or earlier).
So, we can see the world is in a race to save its very survival, although challenges immensely straddle that path. One of the recent challenges has been the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement by the Trump II administration, which has wiped out 3.0 billion dollars in climate financing and research.
2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.
But in a statement released in Washington DC on January 20, 2025, the day Donald Trump was sworn in as US president for a second term, World Resource Institute (WRI) President and CEO, Ani Dasgupta wrote:
“Walking away from the Paris Agreement won’t protect Americans from climate impacts, but it will hand China and the European Union a competitive edge in the booming clean energy economy and lead to fewer opportunities for Americans.”
WRI is a non-profit global research institution on sustainable practices for business, economics, finance, and governance in six areas: food, forests, water, energy, cities, and climate. It issues a series of reports entitled the World Resources Report each year on each topic to help human society. Established in 1982, WRI works closely with the World Bank.
Observers are quick to note, though, that the US won’t entirely vanish from the global climate initiatives as it remains a member of the UNFCCC, which requires the parties to report their GHG reduction efforts. It is true, though, that America won’t have much leverage on climate transition talks as it won’t be part of negotiations under the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change.
Worsening Global Climate Situation
We grew up taught and told that rainwater was the cleanest and safest to drink. That is no longer the case. Due to high levels of atmospheric pollution, rainwater is now the most dangerous.
An image of the effects of climate change, such as extreme weather conditions.
A friend, Milumba Rashid Milumba, told the writer recently that about three years ago, people in his Rufiji home village in southern Tanzania were shocked and awed when it rained black water. Nothing like it had happened before, and the incident prompted religious leaders to warn people via loudspeakers from the village mosque not to drink the water or even keep it for other domestic uses.
Contacted for comment, Reverend Prof. Dr. Aidan G. Msafiri, an environmental expert and UN Climate Change Ambassador, said he had not heard about the Rufiji incident, but that the phenomenon was not unheard of. He explained that it occurs when particulates from wildfires and volcanic eruptions floating in the atmosphere mix with water vapor, condense, and fall as dark or black water.
However, a little search on the internet showed that the phenomenon of black rain was first observed after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some 80 years ago, where fires and radioactive fallout combined to produce that type of rain, which is potentially hazardous.
When a nuclear weapon detonates, it creates a massive amount of heat and energy, leading to fires and the production of radioactive material. According to literature from the web, the fires create a “pyrocumulus” cloud, which is a type of cloud formed by the heat and rising air currents from the fires.
The early stages of the Industrial Revolution, depicting old factories with large smokestacks polluting air.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS OF GLOBAL WARMING
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION:
How factories in Great Britain started large-scale coal combustion in 1760 without understanding the detrimental environmental impacts, notably the pollution of the sky.
AWARENESS AND INITIAL ACTIONS:
By the 1970s, global leaders recognised the urgent need to address the environmental damage caused by development. This awareness led to the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment which advocated for living in smaller, de-industrialised communities to ensure sustainability.
BRUNDTLAND COMMISSION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:
In 1987, the Brundtland Commission coined the term “sustainable development,” defining it as development that meets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs, emphasising a balance between development and environmental preservation.
KYOTO PROTOCOL:
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which came into effect in 2005, was the first legally binding agreement committing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It recognised global warming as a human-caused issue and targeted industrialised nations to reduce emissions by an average of five percent from 1990 levels using mechanisms like emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism.
PARIS AGREEMENT:
This legally binding international treaty, adopted in 2015, aims to limit global temperature increases to below 2.0 degrees centigrade, with an ambition to keep it under 1.5 degrees. It highlights international commitment but also notes setbacks like the temporary withdrawal of the U.S. under the Trump administration, which impacted climate financing and global cooperation.
ONGOING CHALLENGES AND IMPACT:
Contemporary challenges such as the phenomenon of black rain—rain polluted by atmospheric contaminants from events like wildfires and volcanic eruptions, previously observed in severe instances like the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. This illustrates how historical and ongoing human activities continue to have severe and potentially worsening impacts on the environment.
