Covering about 70% of the Earth’s surface, the world’s five great oceans have a complicated, but essential, relationship with our weather and climate. As the climate warms, so too do the oceans, which results in melting land ice, iceburgs and rising sea levels, a real and present danger for many coastal areas of the world. But on the positive side, the oceans have also dampened the effects of climate change as they naturally absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2), which would have otherwise entered our atmosphere and add to the greenhouse effect.

In certain parts of the world fresh water seems an abundant, infinite resource, literally ‘on tap’. In other areas water scarcity is the number one challenge facing the local human, and animal, populations. Water, more than any other basic essential resource, is the commodity that is most unevenly distributed across the globe. There are also some very sobering facts about fresh water: only 3% of the world’s entire water resource is actually fresh water, less than 1% of all water resources are safe to consume and more than 1 billion people do not have access to safe water supplies.

Most of us are aware of everyday actions we can do to reduce our carbon footprint: turning off lights when not needed; using our cars less for short journeys; turning the thermostat down; having short showers and insulating our homes etc. But much less is understood about the impact our diets could be having on the climate, and the fact that our meat eating habits could constitute a large chunk of our personal annual carbon footprint. The elephant in this particular room is the cow, the pig and the turkey!

Energy consumption drives modern civilisation. Without easy and reliable access to heating, cooling and power, plus oil for transport & energy for industry and commerce, society as we know it today would instantly collapse. The problem is we have become addicted to energy derived from fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas, and it is these sources, with their unfortunate by-product of releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide (the most important of the basket of 6 main greenhouse gases) when burnt, that is the cause of most of the rise in global temperatures we have seen over the last two hundred years.

The future of our planet is at stake, and COP21 is the meeting, taking place over the next 12 days, where the issues and potential solutions are to be debated and decisions made. Around 150 Heads of State, from countries both developed and developing, are congregating in Paris to find a route to action to ensure average global temperatures don’t rise by more than 2°C by the end of 21st century.

Guest blog by Eco Action Games @ecoactiongames ecoactiongames.org.uk/12COP21 #12COP21  What’s at stake at Conference of Parties 21 (COP21)? “…as world leaders gather today in Paris for the start of 12 […]