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Don’t Just Talk – Act on Climate. A Call for People from All Walks of Life to Become Climate Leaders

08 November 2021

In this guest blog series that forms part of our Kosovo Climate Action campaign in October 2021, we invite experts and young people to share their views.

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Burim Ejupi is the Director of the Institute for Development Policy, a leading think tank and advocacy centre on the main social, economic and environmental issues in Kosovo and the South-East Europe region. Over the last decades, Burim has been researching the main challenges affecting economic growth and sustainable development in Kosovo, from the development of sustainable urban planning and green energy transition to mobilizing private sector investments for green growth. In this guest blog post he talks about the need for climate leadership to deliver impactful, scalable solutions for climate action.

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make”, said scientist and activist Jane Goodall. Leaders, governments and young people around the world have been sounding the alarm that we must dramatically curb temperature rise to avoid the irreversible impacts of climate change. The science is clear that we need to act now. And to do so, all of us have a critical role to influence those in a position of power but also lead by example to change the status quo.

As an experienced practitioner in this sector, I have dedicated over 25 years of my career in the civil society to research Kosovo’s most pressing issues on social, economic and sustainable development over the last decades. And believe me, there’s no greater threat to our future and the next generations than climate change.

Climate impacts in Kosovo risk to affect some of the most important results we have achieved on economy and prosperity. Agriculture and industry, which make up for a large share of our economy, are vulnerable to water shortages, heat waves, drought, and flooding. Rising temperatures and unregulated harvesting impact the extent and health of Kosovo's extensive forests, but also generate food insecurity for the people.

Kosovo urgently needs a strategy to curb its greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate impacts deriving from water pollution, environmental degradation and resource exploitation. As a largely fossil-fuel dependable society, Kosovo’s efforts should be accompanied by moves to decarbonize the energy sector, and exponential shifts towards renewables. Scaling of actions and climate solutions requires clever policies, as well as climate leadership by businesses, leaders, researchers and cities. Kosovo has been making modest progress over the last years, but needs to step up its actions to match the ambition reflected in global commitments.

Now is the time we come together to decrease our footprint collectively. This is a a call to institutions, businesses, organizations and stakeholders to take collective action on the world’s greatest crisis and to work together to build towards a safe and healthy planet for the next generations. We need to work jointly to provide leadership through concrete actions, and lead by example to set pathways for carbon neutrality in Kosovo and beyond. At the same time, we need to advocate for increased ambition on climate mitigation, including through new and innovative ideas at all levels – individual, organizational, institutional.

We, as civil society, have a powerful role to translate awareness into action at Kosovo and international level, and I firmly believe that change can also happen from within. Addressing the climate crisis also means taking collective actions to reduce our personal consumptions of fossil fuels, support our local economy by choosing more local products, reducing the amount of food that we waste.

At INDEP, we are looking to step up our commitments on climate action, particularly to better integrate climate considerations in the high school curriculum. We pledge to work with the Ministry of Education to achieve this objective, and develop tailored courses, classes and educational content to help increase awareness on issues related to green energy, climate action and environmental protection among young generations.

I invite all of you - Kosovo institutions, practitioners, businesses, mayors, the people of Kosovo - to join me and many others in making a personal pledge to stop or reverse the outcomes of climate change. We must stand together today for the sake of a livable tomorrow. Join us in making a difference in our community and all of Kosovo by filling the Voluntary Commitment Form and spread the call for action in your networks.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the United Nations.

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What are you doing to combat climate change? Tweet about it by tagging #KosovoClimateAction. Or ask your employer to join the Voluntary Commitments