WHEN global climate goals were crafted, stakeholders believed they had come up with the right tonic and panacea for tackling global problems.
Development stakeholders and practitioners came up with global goals, among them, the "goal of choice", SDG13-climate action, that has proved to be omnipresent and very important, within the climate development discourse. Climate action has to be inherently visible in all the other 16 goals for resilience building to take place.
Then as a meta-effect, each SDG has to be confined to and demonstrate daily actions embedded in the 170 daily actions.
For instance, SDG13 -climate action, appeals to daily actions, some of which are, drive less — walk, cycle, take public transport or taxi. Compost food scraps, organise for your school or company, plant new trees every year.
Trees give oxygen and take in carbon dioxide, spread awareness about ways to stop global warming and maintain your car to emit lesser toxic fumes. Therefore, each global goal has its own six or so daily actions and also contribute to 170 daily actions, to be performed, and giving directions to daily interventions.
Some circles within the global development community are either talking about extending SDGs or reframing them while the continent of Africa is talking about Agenda 2063, the Africa we want. These become ambivalences and anxieties of the global goals discourse communities.
The good thing about SDGs is that they do not operate in isolation as they best perform when integrated, contextualised and localised. But they have been overwhelming and sufficiently fatiguing within the context of 170 daily actions.
Although there are many daily climate actions to talk about, the main visible ones are land regeneration to avoid desertification, improve small-scale farming for food security. The others are to reduce emissions for just transitions and low-carbon economies. The problem is we are not witnessing enough restoration and regeneration. Despite these, there have been enough gatherings, meetings, conferences and campaigns. For these reasons, too much talk has overridden real climate action on the ground.
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Never-ending meetings both locally and internationally have killed the spirit of translating words into climate action. Collective and collaborative efforts on climate change are key and transformative. The number of climate-driven NGOs has multiplied giving room to noise-making, that is climate noise, chaos and lack of co-ordination.
Above all, climate change is where the money is through access to global benevolent funds, selling green energy technologies, double dipping, foregrounding the discourse of empowering women, children and the youths, chaperoning the discourse of carbon credits, among others.
While climate change money is meticulously accounted for, there is poor monitoring on the ground. That is why not much climate action translates to too much climate noise and jabbering on multimedia platforms. Although developing countries need more funding for climate action, food and forest restorations, there is lack of co-ordination regarding ongoing programmes.
That is why up to now there are fewer visible restorations on the ground to suggest the presence of a strong will to bounce back and recover. Against the background of climate talk and noise, there is an increasing wave of degraded landscapes threatening land and mineral security.
There is too much indiscipline and truancy in the extractive sector, leaving the country with gaping holes and gullies threatening to swallow a head of elephants.
Many developing countries are practising poor, reckless and careless land governance and stewardship. There is a need for locally-driven incentives to strengthen land restoration programmes.
Land restoration is fundamentally designed to fight land-based carbon emissions from thermal power generation. Furthermore, local communities have strong attachments and cultural connections to the land but a problem arises when restoration solutions depart from vital norms and values.
People need entitlements and ownership regarding the restoration programmes they participate in.
On the other hand, the government needs to successfully localise SDGs so that they directly appeal to the will and expectations of local communities.
These will be important in contributing to food security, food sovereignty, biodiversity conservation and climate stewardship.
Lack of successful, inclusive and local-centred restoration activities contributes to desertification and depletes a wide framework of resources, on the surface and underground.
When landscapes have been degraded, restoration becomes difficult as it is easier to destroy than to reconstruct. That is why it is important to have peace with the environment before everything becomes disintegrated.
Land restoration appeal to SDG15 — life on the land, accompanied by its daily actions like helping to fund projects to rehabilitate land and avoid pesticides that end up in rivers and lakes as they are harmful to wildlife.
There is also the need to make environmentally-friendly choices in favour of the planet. It is also significant to cut meat consumption as livestock have a huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions and revitalise the land by making composts to enrich soils.
Other essential and contributing SDGs are SDG6 — clean water and sanitation, SDG10 (reduced inequalities), SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities) and SDG 14 (life below water), among others.
