Once again the world environment day is here giving most of us a chance to reflect on something we really don't think about daily. For most people, climate change and the various negative effects it carries are still abstract concepts. Too distant or too large to comprehend on a daily basis. While the wisdom of 'doing your part' to safeguard the environment has been repeated ad nauseam, the urgency that should follow such a message has always been missing. Well, there is hope that this year (like all other years) could be the one where things change. On June 5 this year, the UN is set to launch its 'Decade on Ecosystem Restoration', a 10-year push to reverse the dangerous degradation of the environment. "Reimagine, recreate and restore" is the tagline for this initiative. The first thing this initiative aims to convey is that time is short for a change. When people think of their lives in the coming decade, most don't plan for the severe negative consequences to life that climate change could bring. But that is precisely the case. Within the decade between 2021-2030, climate change will stop being an abstract doomsday concept to most of humanity and become a very real part of the human struggle to survive. There are expectations of famines due to land degradation, increased risk of natural disasters, increased conflict between humanity and wildlife due to deforestation, a likely climate change refugee crisis and so much more. The effects on global food security and natural disasters, in particular, will bring significant impact to the day to day lives of people. But what can be done to prevent an event of this scale? What is humanity already doing and what does it plan to do in the future? The problem with solutions on this front is that none of the proposed solutions is big enough. Though scientists have some disagreement on the matter, most agree that the effect of human activities on the climate started as far back as the 1800s during the period referred to as the 'industrial era'. That means that there is a lot to catch up with on the front of reversing climate change and preventing further changes. The problem, as stated above, is that nations, organisations and people just don't do enough or plan to do enough to stop climate change on its track before things get serious. It should be noted that basically, no nation to date has succeeded in fulfilling the limited climate change pledges that are made. While every round of natural disasters is inevitably followed by another round of new pledges, there is very little progress on the ground. This is because saving the environment involves a little more than doing your recycling or turning out the lights when you don't use them. There is a need to make fundamental changes to the way modern nations produce their energy, grow their food, use and reuse materials. There are policy changes and related changes in lifestyle and the way humans do certain things. No, this does not mean that everyone will have to turn vegan as many fear whenever lifestyle changes are brought up though there is no denying that our current intensive system of agriculture will have to be changed in order to make it more sustainable for the land. But more importantly, the world is technically relying on solutions that don't actually exist right now. This may sound fantastical or even crazy but many people who engage with the issue of climate change admit that stopping climate change in the timeline that would keep its damage minimal would require technology that is either in development or hasn't even been conceived. The US Climate Envoy John Kerry pretty much said as much when he was on BBC. Kerry said that people shouldn't have to change their lifestyle habits significantly because of climate change. He said he's been told that 50 per cent of the emission reductions by 2050 are going to come from "technologies we don't yet have". Kerry was later criticised by many for having an extremely idealistic view of the solution. While it is true that a shift in habits will not be the exact solution needed to fight climate change, technology is also not the most reliable given the time frame. As experts put it, new-energy infrastructure technology takes time to penetrate the market with most current examples taking 30-100 years to penetrate five per cent of existing markets. Science, simply put, is not magic. What is needed is a combination of lifestyle changes, new regulatory frameworks and yes, a focus on new and more sustainable technologies. Whether people like it or not, climate change is not going to be a problem that anyone can ignore or stay out of when it comes time to be a part of the solution.