For more than a century, scientists have recorded evidence that the world we live in is warming up more and more every year. To put it into perspective, Earth’s temperature has risen 0.14°F per decade since 1880. Over the past forty years, the temperature has doubled that (0.32° F). Last year was the second-warmest year on record, right after 2016. Although many people are aware of the dangers of our world changing, not many people are doing things to help. The dangers of global warming include intense drought, destructive storms, heat waves, and most effectively, rising sea levels. 

India has been facing dangerous threats since the 1900’s, but people began to start paying close attention between the years of 2007-2008. Climate disasters caused 1,150 deaths in that year alone, and resulted in hundreds injured. Over the next ten years, the disasters hit harder and harder, killing even more. The progression of this has brought attention to government officials, including Prime Minister Narenda Modi. Yesterday, he proposed he and his countries’ goal to reduce its emission by one billion tonnes by the year 2030. These emissions measure economic growth within a country, and are used to compare with other countries. This goal was labeled as an ‘ambitious’ target because it will take lots of work and people, which is something that India doesn’t have enough of. 

All around the world, there have been protests campaigning why climate change is a real problem, and “not a joke” as described by Greta Thunberg, a Swedish activist. “To all of you who choose to look the other way every day because you seem more frightened of the changes that can prevent catastrophic climate change than the catastrophic climate change itself. Your silence is the worst of all.” She, and other protesters come together to spread awareness, and save the world. 

India is not alone. Thousands of people have come together to save one country, to the next. If these goals can be achieved, there will be a big change seen in the climate, but if not, big cities like New York will be underwater in less than twenty years.