We celebrated Zero Emissions day 2024!
One of the main aims of our Connecting the Climate Challenge project is to support our network of schools with their climate action plans.
During one of our meetings, one of our partner schools told us that students in Nepal didn’t know much about greenhouse emissions and that they would like to celebrate Zero Emissions Day 2024 together to educate and empower their students on the subject.
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The aim of Zero Emissions Day (ZeDay) is to raise awareness about the harmful effects of carbon emissions on the environment and promote action towards reducing global carbon footprints. ZeDay is held every year on September 21st to encourage individuals, industries and governments to eliminate, or ate least minimise, the use of fossil fuels for a day in order to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The main objectives of ZeDay include:
- Reducing carbon emissions: By encouraging people to avoid using gas-powered vehicles, electricity from non-renewable sources, and other activities that generate emissions.
- Promoting awareness: To raise understanding on the environmental impact of our daily activities and realise how individual actions contribute to global emissions.
- Encouraging sustainable choices: Highlighting the importance of shifting towards renewable energies, sustainable transportation and habits.
- Fostering global cooperation: Bringing communities, governments, and organisations together to tackle climate change.
For this reason, that took place on the 20th of September at 8.45 am UK time/1.30 pm Nepal time, we organised an online session, Life without fossil fuels: Giving our planet a break, with the perfect speaker for the occasion, Dr. Maheswar Rupakheti. Dr. Rupakethi discussed with school students about greenhouse gas emissions and gave ideas on how to reduce emissions in our daily lives.
Dr. Maheswar Rupakheti’s short biography: Dr. Maheswar Rupakheti, born in a small village in Makawanpur, Nepal, is an internationally recognised climate scientist. In July 2023, he made history as the first Nepali climate scientist to be elected to the bureau of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. He earned a PhD in Atmospheric Science from Dalhousie University in Canada, an MSc in Environmental Engineering and Management from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand, and an MSc in Physics from Tribhuvan University in Nepal. Dr. Rupakheti currently leads a research group at the Research Institute for Sustainability in Potsdam, Germany, focusing on air pollution, atmospheric science, and climate change in South Asia, with focus on Nepal. He has over 100 scientific research publications to his credit. He is committed to helping early-career researchers from developing countries. He is also passionate about connecting science, policy, and society to co-create knowledge and actions to mitigate negative impacts of air pollution and climate change.