Biography
Biography: Paul Saliba
Abstract
Since the earliest direct concern for climate change in the Earth Summit, a UN Conference on Environment & Development (UNCED), Rio de Janeiro 1992, this high profile world Organisation has been seeing the writing on the wall…alarm bells of factual and potential global eco degradation and have consistently been spearheading initiatives to translate rhetoric and exhaustive debate into solid and effective commitments to redress the environmental deficiency brought about by over exploitation and abuse of the world’s natural resources and disregard of ecosystems, the lifeline of mankind’s own sustainable survival.
CFCs (now phased out under the Montreal Protocol) and Fossil fuels are making way to less polluting and more sustainable energy sources, reducing deleterious emissions. Heavy industry is progressively shifting to economically and viable alternative sustainable sources of energy from benevolent Mother Nature that has blessed us with unrivalled powers inherent in the Sun, Wind, and Oceans.
Nevertheless, challenges still lie in the way of achieving environmental targets, particularly by under-developed and developing countries which have to cope with climate change adaptation and the extraordinary financial capital to diversify and transform their economies to conform with this new exigency. Other challenges could also be overlooked or underestimated, even in implementing action plans involving renewable energy sources.
This Paper looks at and attempts to analyze, from the perspective of an observant, these challenges and also at viable practical measures to address them in efforts aimed at achieving sustainability based on win-win situations, with a particular focus on the local scenario.