A study of lifestyle changes in Xavier Institute of Development Action & Studies, India to mitigate global warming

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined by the United Nations as tools to transform the world by 2030, outline Goal 13 to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts by regulating emissions and promoting developments in renewable energy”. But the seventeen goals are all interrelated and it is our cumulative efforts that can make them achievable in the next 13 years.As a civilization we have thrived upon decades of denudation and degradation, gradually, but immensely, yet quite indifferently. This indifference might be debated upon as the recent times has seen ever-growing concerns to address the crisis at hand, but this is no more than burning the night oil for a saving grace. If we look back, then it will not be difficult to analyze that the exploitation of the resources and the processes of degradation accelerated from the era of Industrial Revolution, dating back to 1750, but it took us more than a century to feel the repercussions of our actions. The first time ever the terms “global warming” and “climate change” was addressed as an internal issue of concern was in the Rio Summit, held in Rio-de-Janeiro in Brazil in 1992. Since then, the world has witnessed a series of environmental protocols, treaties and summits, each one raising a doubt on the validity and effectiveness of the previous. Meanwhile, the ever-impending population surge has compounded the environmental stresses. To combat the changes we are introducing in our ecosystem, the research focuses on implementation of minor and doable actions in the mundane yet regular activities of our daily life, which have a direct impact on individual carbon footprint. The research establishes the success of these measures in Xavier Institute of Development Action and Studies (XIDAS) by comparing the scenarios before and after implementation of a “Green Lifestyle”, which will help us achieve sustainability beyond environment protocols and beyond international treaties.