Mama A. Touray
The Gambia Environmental Alliance, and partners whichinclude the Gambia environmental activists, veteran foresters, environmentalists, students, and others on Saturday held a daylong Climate Clock Rally taking the form of a march pass from Kairaba Avenue Highway (Vista Bank Building) to the Westfield Youth Monument.
According to a statement from the GEA, the urgency of the rally cannot be overstated, as the global Climate Clock is about to mark a momentous occasion as it ticks below 6 years for the first time in history.
Speaking at the rally, the President of the GEA said it’s quite evident that the country is facing a global disaster in the form of climate change, affecting every aspect of the society, ranging from agriculture, food security, and survival which is threatened by the devastating effects of climate change.
“It is important that our government authorities start taking climate action very seriously not only in the African region but in the global spectrum. We are lucky to be the smartest animals but the smartest animals are the ones destroying the world for the other animals” he disclosed.
Kemo Fatty, an environmental activist said the gathering aims to send messages across the world to urge leaders to act in time as young people have failed.
Global emergency, he said, is significant, and the global clock is six years, one hour nineteen minutes forty seconds.
“In one hour and a couple of minutes this clock is going to click down to five years and what does that mean to us, it means that if we do not start a business as usual, the lives that we have adjusted ourselves to, the plan that we have, the industrialization that has happened, we have seen so much carbon from underneath the earth in the form of cold, oil and gas and we burnt it and turn it into gas and that is making our climate worst,” he explained.
He continued that “most potent gas methane will come in the long run when we start having cascading effects. Right now the Gambia is experiencing the problem of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that has gone beyond levels, and these have not been seen in the past hundred years.”
Another speaker, Ousainou Gambia of Greenup Gambia, added that the event also ended with the climate clock clicking five years, and a pledge made by different young people to fight climate change by planting trees.
However, The Gambia Environment presser stated that the Gambia Climate Clock Rally is not just a march but a declaration of solidarity with millions of people around the world who are demanding immediate and ambitious climate action.