‘We may not be able to stop climate change, but we can slow it down”

Asking people to make it a habit to adhere to climate change emergencies, making small changes, Thackeray said, “We may not be able to stop climate change, but what we can do as corporates, citizens, industries is slow down what climate change is doing to us.”

NSE Foundation, a section 8 subsidiary of National Stock Exchange of India Limited, partnering with Global Alliance for a Sustainable Planet and UNICEF (Maharashtra), hosted a conversation around the environment and specifically the ocean and other waste management with designer Cyrill Gutsch, who has worked to rid oceans of plastic waste, and Erik Solheim, former executive director, UN Environment Programme.

“What we thought of earlier as weather anomalies are not anomalies anymore. There is a pattern. In Mumbai, we have never faced cyclones/storms in the past 100 years. In the last 13 months, we had three storms,” Thackeray said.

Hailing the work by Thackeray on launching electric buses in the city, Solheim said, “India has an enormous opportunity to become a world leader in green energy. India can lead the world in tree plantation, and use of solar energy in public transport as planned by Delhi Metro and buses in Mumbai.”

Cyrill Gutsch, founder of Parley for the Oceans, an initiative to combat plastic pollution in oceans, said that he is on his maiden visit to the country to start ‘Parley India’. The organisation designed eco-sensitive sneakers made entirely of recycled plastic ocean waste for Adidas.

Thackeray called Gutsch’s work awe-inspiring and added, “In Mumbai, we are looking at recycling tetra packs into benches/chairs to be used in our municipal schools.”