Prioritizing environmental challenges beyond academia

The world's biggest environmental problem, with the potential to severely harm humanity, is climate change. It is a multifaceted crisis that intensifies other ecological challenges and directly threatens the survival and well-being of people across the globe.

- By FRANCISCO DE GUZMAN

Global temperatures rise due to increased greenhouse gas emissions. This leads to severe weather patterns such as heatwaves, droughts and heavy storms. Rising sea levels, melting glaciers and ice caps contribute to flooding and displacement in coastal cities and low-lying countries, risking the lives of millions of people.

Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, cyclones and wildfires. These events devastate infrastructure, ecosystems and human lives; impact food and water security and disrupt agricultural productivity through droughts, floods and shifting growing seasons.

Climate change also leads to water scarcity, especially in arid regions. Threats to biodiversity, rising temperatures and habitat destruction are causing mass extinctions of plant and animal species.

Loss of biodiversity weakens ecosystems, making them less resilient. Health risks include an increase in heat-related illnesses, respiratory diseases (due to air pollution) and vector-borne diseases like malaria. This strains healthcare systems globally.