CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION
What is Climate Action?
Action that addresses reducing greenhouse gas emissions in our city and addresses the co-benefits of a healthy, flourishing and equitable city.
Climate change is a global, urgent, and genuine problem that’s coming to a head.
With many scientists warning we are now reaching a tipping point, it’s up to everyone, individually and collectively, to do what they can to protect future generations.
In decades, the term ‘climate change’ is most often used to describe changes in the Earth’s climate driven primarily by human activity since the pre-Industrial period (c. 1850 onwards), particularly the burning of fossil fuels and removal of forests, resulting in a relatively rapid increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere. Climate change threatens people with food and water scarcity, increased flooding, extreme heat, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can be a result.
More frequent and intense drought, storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans can directly harm animals, destroy the places they live, and wreak havoc on people’s livelihoods and communities.
Contributing Factors
Drought
Storms
Melting Glaciers
Warming Oceans
The textile industry pumps between 1.22 and 2.93 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. The result is that, by some estimates, the life cycle of textiles (including laundering) accounts for 6.7% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
That’s the equivalent of every person on the planet taking a 2,500-mile flight every year.
And the problem is poised to get worse, as both textile production and consumption are increasing drastically. Since 1975 the global production of textile fibers has almost tripled: 107 million metric tons were produced in 2018, a figure that’s expected to reach 145 million tons by 2030.
“The reality of climate change is undeniable but each of us has the opportunity to take action and reduce our carbon footprint every day to help turn the tide and build a sustainable future." -P.C.