Ghaya Al Ahbabi, known as “Green Ghaya,” has emerged as a powerful voice advocating for climate action and sustainability.
Read the full story here:
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Read the full story here:
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I'm Ghaya Al-Hababi, I'm the youngest senior staff youth advocate for COP28, as well as
00:07the youngest sustainability ambassador from Y4Us at Masdar, and leader and founder of
00:12Furgonbutt community team.
00:14I was called Green Ghaya by Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Ali Al Na'imi, and getting called by
00:18him has a long story, and to summarize that up when I met him at a volunteering initiative,
00:24among all children there, I was the only one to feed a cat, so he came up to me and he
00:28told me that, you're going to be the next environmental leader, and here I call you
00:33Green Ghaya.
00:34At a young age, I had a really deep connection with the environment around me, by that nickname
00:40Green Ghaya, actually gave me the motive to start making an action towards our environment.
00:46It's something that I realized is that what we give for our planet, we're always going
00:50to get it back, and it's our choice whether if we want to live in a good and a sustainable
00:55way, or even neglect it and live it in a really bad way.
00:58I was actually only six years old when I wanted to be an environmental activist.
01:04By then I didn't know sustainability by its deep and dedicated meaning, but I wanted to
01:10have something with the environment around me.
01:13Talking about my personal experience at COP28, I was really, really honored.
01:18Leaders from all around the world come together to save our planet, to aware people of what's
01:23going on.
01:24COP isn't about talking and talking, it's about making an action, delivering to people
01:29that are really in need and that are facing the climate crisis right now.
01:33In the start and the beginning of every year, I have a list of goals that I want to do.
01:39By the end of each year, me and my family come together, and then we sit together and
01:44each one have a paper, and we write our goals.
01:47After we write the goals, we actually take the goals, for me personally, I take the goals
01:52that I want to focus on, and then separate them into parts.
01:56What can I do to achieve that goal?
01:57The first goal is to make my Green Bus community more diverse, especially that we've been getting
02:03requests from many countries, from many Emirates, from the UAE, that they want to join our team.
02:10So that's what we're working on right now, that's the first goal.
02:14Many people think that living in a sustainable way is actually really hard or really complicated,
02:20but once they adapt to living in a sustainable way, they realize that it's much more better.
02:24People could actually start adapting to a sustainable lifestyle by, for example, using
02:30solar panels in their house.
02:32Starting from their house, they could implement solar panels, they could even convert using
02:39normal energy to renewable energy, and even small steps, like for example, using bamboo
02:46instead of using plastic.
02:47Like, for example, there are many plastic products that people have been using in their
02:51daily lives, but instead they could use bamboo, it's more sustainable, and actually, once
02:57you throw it out, it can regrow again.
03:00The bamboo tree can regrow again.
03:02So that's something really, really important.
03:06Me and my fellow climate activists are always talking about climate change and its impact
03:11on our Mother Earth and our land, but now I want to actually talk specifically about
03:17the impact of climate change into our mental health and to quality of life.
03:22And it's something really, really important, that people are getting into depression or
03:27getting eco-anxiety all because of the impacts of climate change.
03:33The climate change has a really deep effect on our mental health.
03:36It can also affect losing one of our most crucial seasons in the UAE or even Gulf countries
03:42in general, which is the gale season, and it's known for the dates harvesting.
03:48And imagine we keep on getting the air depression more frequently in our atmosphere, unfortunately,
03:53the gale season will be gone, we won't get any harvesting dates, and I don't think anyone
03:59would want to lose their culture.
04:01And now in the European countries, they're facing a lot of heat waves, which is affecting
04:05their farming.
04:07When I get asked this question, I always say that you can start by small steps into achieving
04:11really big goals.
04:12But now what I'm going to say is think twice before you act, because whatever you do has
04:19a really big impact on our planet.
04:21It's your choice.
04:22You can start from today.