No More Excuses! We Need Urgent Climate Action Now, Says Dia Mirza

The authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report on August 9  which United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has termed as a “code red for humanity." The report issues a loud and clear warning that by ignoring the climate crisis, humanity may have put itself on the path of irreversible destruction.

Actor, producer and champion for nature, Dia Mirza responded to the report with this tweet, “Climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying. It is affecting every region, with many of the changes becoming irreversible, new #IPCC report finds.No more excuses! We need urgent #ClimateAction now.”

Says Dia, “In simple words, the earth’s climate is getting so hot that in about a decade, temperatures would be beyond the level of warming that world leaders thought they could prevent. What chilled me most was the reminder that we really have nowhere to run. The report clearly says that climate change is human-caused and “unequivocal,” and how well we do in the future depends on what action we take today to cut carbon emissions. The world has already warmed over 1.1° C in the past century and if we don't do something now, we will  cross  the 1.5° C warming mark in the 2030s.”

Even now, reminds Dia, we are seeing scorching heat waves, countries like Greece on fire, landslides, tropical cyclones and floods in India and globally and yet, we don’t seem to be working towards  reducing carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.  She says, “Sea levels are already rising alarmingly, ice sheets are shrinking, permafrost is thawing and extreme weather conditions are becoming increasingly frequent. We are causing harm to the planet that the report calls  “irreversible for centuries to millennia." The UN  Secretary-General  said as well that the climate  alarm bells are deafening and this report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet."

Dia believes  we must collectively come together, lessen and forestall the worst impacts of climate change by adopting clean energy and reducing irresponsible human activities. As she says, " if we begin at least now, we could  possibly still leave a healthy planet for our children to grow up in."