Strong Connection Between Human Activity, Fashion Industry And Climate Change: UN Report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of the United Nations focused on the environmental impact of human actions, released a report earlier this week, pointing out the extreme conditions caused by human activity. The points made in the report are concrete: ‘The planet has surpassed more than 1 degree Celsius in average warming’, the effects of which are already underway. As per the report, extreme heat waves that previously only struck once every 50 years can now be expected to happen once every decade owing to global warming, along with more frequent heavy downpours and droughts.

Alok Sharma, the president-designate of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, said in a statement, “Our message to every country, government, business and part of society is simple. The next decade is decisive for climate action. We all need to follow the science and embrace our responsibilities to keep the goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius alive. This includes the fashion industry.” The 1.5 degrees Celsius goal mentioned by Sharma is in reference to the threshold that will lead to catastrophic environmental damage, as warned by scientists.

Increasing conversations revolving around fashion and sustainability, the industry’s sustainability targets are still discounted and lack urgency as suggested by scientists. Changes in the immediate future from fashion brands is the urgent need of the hour, as opposed to making the change in decades. “That sadly is not good enough,” adds Sharma in a statement.

As per another report, Fashion On Climate, by McKinsey & Company in partnership with Global Fashion Agenda (GFA), “The global fashion industry produced around 2.1 billion tonnes of GHG emissions in 2018, equalling 4 per cent of the global total. This is equivalent to the combined annual GHG emissions of France, Germany and the United Kingdom.” As per the report, upstream activities such as materials production, preparation and processing contributed to 70 per cent of these emissions, whereas the rest was connected to what’s known as downstream retail operations, which includes use-phase and end-of-use activities.

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