Jakarta—The Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) emphasised the need for significant changes in production and consumption patterns to address three major environmental challenges: biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation, and desertification. This was conveyed in an online World Environment Day dialog on Wednesday, June 5.
On the occasion, MoEF Director General of Climate Change Control (PPI) Laksmi Dhewanthi reminded that World Environment Day, commemorated every June 5, should be a momentum to increase awareness and take real action to overcome the environmental crisis.
“We can answer the three challenges if we change unsustainable production and consumption patterns. So actually, the keyword is in our behaviour, how we change our style of production and consumption,” said Dhewanthi.
The theme of this year’s commemoration, “Land Restoration, Desertification, and Drought Resilience,” is very relevant to the issues facing the earth today. She also highlighted that climate change is an urgent issue that needs immediate action.
“The climate is always changing because there is such a thing as climate variability, but the changes will become faster because of many actions, many activities and actions of humans which then give additional burden to the environment so that the impact becomes even heavier,” said Dhewanthi, adding that there is an urgency for drastic action to avoid the average temperature of the earth’s surface to rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.
“The urgency of climate action is very real, but unfortunately, there is a lack of concrete steps. Therefore, the commemoration of World Environment Day should be a reminder for all of us to move faster and more concretely in facing this environmental challenge,” she concluded. (Hartatik)
