The alarm bells are ringing loudly. The Living Planet Report 2024, a biennial assessment by the World Wildlife Fund, has revealed that the average size of monitored wildlife populations has decreased by 73% since 1970. Latin America and Africa bore the brunt of this decline, mostly owing to the havoc caused by climate change and attendant phenomena such as changing rainfall patterns, heat waves, droughts and so on. If current trends continue, they could have catastrophic consequences that would destabilise the Earth’s life support systems and push it towards tipping points. The ongoing bleaching of over 75% of the world’s coral reefs, the deforestation in the Amazon, the collapse of the subpolar gyre and the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are all nearing critical tipping points. These tipping points, if crossed, would trigger the release of large amounts of methane and carbon and make large tracts of the Earth inhabitable. Coming back from this brink requires a strict adherence to the sustainability commitments made by countries at several climate summits as well as more stringent measures. As things stand, the aspirational goal of not allowing the average global temperature to rise more than 1.5° Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels has been breached for a whole year now. But governments around the world, besieged by indifference, capitulation to economic/commercial interests and the rise of the Right — climate sceptics populate the latter — are having to resort to populist measures that go against the interests of the planet to stay in power. The unpopularity of ecological concerns is the result of decades of delinking the ideas of development and environmental conservation when, in reality, they are intrinsically linked.
The State alone cannot make a difference. People must drastically change their lifestyles and consumption patterns to save the planet. In this regard, it is heartening that the Living Planet Report 2024 called India’s food consumption pattern the most sustainable among big economies, adding that if all countries adopt this diet, food production could become sustainable at least till 2050. This implies the broader adoption of a diet that prioritises alternative protein sources such as legumes and nutri-cereals like millet instead of meat. Food waste — an estimated one-third of all produced food — must be reined in as well. The resultant lessening of pressure on agriculture could ease the pressure on the planet.