IT'S easy to feel small before the great challenges facing our planet.
In a recent international survey, over half of 16- to 25-year-olds reported feeling very or extremely worried about climate change. Almost half reported that this climate anxiety affected their daily life.
The consequences of climate change are already starting to be felt around the world, as the current historic heatwave in much of Southeast Asia demonstrates.
With weather becoming more extreme and unpredictable, lives and livelihoods are threatened. Indeed, entire nations are at risk of disappearing beneath the ocean.
And the ocean itself is increasingly polluted and filled with plastics. The need for green action can hardly be overstated.
Large-scale efforts and international cooperation are needed if we are to keep temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the goal set forth in the Paris Agreement. Commendable efforts were made by the nations of the world at COP28, which must now be turned into concrete outcomes.
Much remains to be done, but quietly, the green transition is already well under way. We see this in Sweden, where CO2 emissions per person, even including the emissions from imported goods, have declined by 46 per cent since 1990. Over the same time, GDP per capita has grown by over 62 per cent. This reflects a wider trend of economic growth being decoupled from carbon emissions.
About 99 per cent of Swedish household waste is now recycled or turned into fertiliser or energy. This is a remarkable achievement, made possible both by government policies and the actions of ordinary people.
As people, companies, and local governments have understood the severity of the damage we do to our environment, they have found new and innovative ways to counter it.
This ranges from the engineers inventing new carbon-reducing technologies, to local governments investing in public transportation, to the simple everyday routines of turning off the lights. The change we're seeing is the sum of countless such actions, big and small.
One example of how a small, private initiative can go far is plogging, a mix of the Swedish word for picking up, "plocka", and jogging. Returning to Stockholm after living in the mountains for 20 years, sportsman Erik Ahlström found that he could see what the Stockholmers had become blind to: the litter lying around everywhere.
Ahlström decided to do something about it. First, he just started picking up the trash he saw on his morning runs. Soon, he got some likeminded people together in a running group, and plogging was born.
The opportunity to integrate sustainability into an everyday activity has made plogging go global. Around the world, plogging has brought communities together to take care of their local environment. Some have organised world championships: at the latest in Italy over three tonnes of trash were collected.
Ripu Daman Belvi, known as the "plogman of India", has taken a different approach. The more than 500 plogging events he has organised have had an educational angle, teaching disadvantaged children about sustainability.
Plogging is about more than just picking up trash, it's about reminding people that our environment is our responsibility, and inspiring people to take action.
Today on April 22 is Earth Day, when we celebrate such initiatives, and highlight the need for even further action.
"The theme of Earth Day this year is Planet vs. Plastic, and plogging is a great way to mark the occasion. Therefore, the embassy of Sweden will be hosting a plogging event together with Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, DBKL, and Bernama.
Government and civil society in Malaysia will come together with employees of Swedish companies and the diplomatic corps to clean up the park around Sungai Bunus. Afterwards, we hope the park will be cleaner than ever before. But above all, we hope it will serve as an inspiration for further initiatives.
Anxiety is bred by thinking that nothing we do matters. But the green transition is happening, and it's an effort encompassing all of society. As Alhström's invention of plogging shows us, we must not think that any action is too small. Even if it's just picking up a soda can on the roadside.
Large-scale change is the result of the actions of millions of people. Together, we can build a society moving, or plogging, towards a sustainable future.
The writer is Sweden's ambassador to Malaysia
