Arun Krishnamurthy quit his job at Google in India to create his own climate change organisation.

The Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI) was established in 2007 to help clean up India's lakes and ponds.

Arun began in his home city of Chennai but has now restored 130 lakes across 14 states from Delhi in the north to Kerala in the south.

Clearing lakes of manmade pollution can help regulate local temperatures and replenish underground water sources used by homes and businesses.

Well-maintained lakes can also help reduce flooding as they can be used to maintain healthy water levels.

In the coming years, two million people are expected to be displaced by flooding in India every year as a result of climate change.

"It's not just about saving the planet anymore," Arun says.

"It's about our life and our livelihoods from the urban rich to the urban poor."

Just Diggit is an organisation that employs millions of farmers across sub-Saharan Africa to dig holes in the continent's drought-stricken farmland.

One of the farmers, who lives in Loitokitok, Kenya, told the Paste BN Daily Climate Show: "I remember when I was young in the '90s, when I was growing up, there was a lot of rain".

"Everywhere was grass and there were no droughts like now."

Every year the world loses 12 million hectares of productive land to deforestation or climate degradation.

But according to the Nature Conservancy, we can reduce the effects of climate change by 37% through nature-based solutions.

To counter land loss, JustDiggit is digging holes – or bunds – to help rainwater soak into the soil and encourage vegetation.

When new greenery grows, more carbon is absorbed, more shade is created and evaporation levels reduce, which all make temperatures fall.

So far, Just Diggit has restored 60,000 hectares of African farmland and aims to cover the whole continent in the next 10 years.

Those 60,000 hectares have seen 6.5 million new trees growing and millions of farmers able to return to their land.

Located at the edge of the Persian Gulf, Kuwait has experienced dangerous levels of global warming in recent years.

In 2016 it became the hottest place on Earth when temperatures exceeded 54C (129.2F).

It also has poor recycling rates – with each person producing 1.5kg of rubbish – twice the global average – every day – and 90% of it ending up in landfill.

Electrical engineer Fatemah Izelzela founded her firm Eco Star to encourage people in the emirate to recycle their plastic, paper and metal by giving them plants as a reward.

The businesses grows plants and trees in polytunnels and delivers them to locals in exchange for collecting their recycling.

So far it has recycled 130 tonnes of waste to help Kuwait rebalance its carbon footprint.

Three-wheel rickshaws and electric bikes – known as last-mile transport – account for 1.25 million vehicles on Bangladesh’s roads.

Common across large parts of Asia, last-mile transport helps reduce carbon emissions by running on electric instead of diesel or petrol.

But according to Cassetex, last-mile vehicles are "becoming a burden on national electricity infrastructure" and still contributing to carbon emissions.

"There is no value in all this innovation or solution if it is not sustainable," co-founder Gopal Kumar Mohoto says.

As a green alternative, the Bangladeshi start-up has invented a vending machine that allows last-mile drivers to swap their electric batteries for ones powered by solar energy.

Motorists don't pay for the batteries themselves, only the energy they use, which can be done on a mobile app.

By targeting one million vehicles nationwide, Cassetex hopes to save 0.47 megatons of carbon every year.

Inna Braverman was just two weeks old when the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened.

She suffered a respiratory arrest but was saved by doctors.

Now in her 30s and living in Sweden, the Ukrainian entrepreneur has started her own hydro energy company – Eco Wave Power.

Hydro power is one of the cleanest on earth, with 60% of renewables produced in 2020 coming from hydro sources, according to Our World in Data.

Inna says hydro power has the capacity to produce twice as much energy as the world produces today.

It works by using floaters that sit in the water and move with the waves.

When they move, they send hydraulic fluid to an on-land accumulator, which will eventually build up enough pressure to power a motor and generator.

Although Inna's focus is on hydro power, she believes the solution to the climate crisis lies in combining all the different types of renewables to make all of our energy production sustainable.

Latin America and the Caribbean contribute less than 10% of global emissions – but they are among the worst affected by climate change in the world.

Central America's low-lying coastline means rising sea levels are already starting to wipe out communities there.

According to the World Bank, 140 million people worldwide will be displaced by climate change by 2050 – many of them in this region.

And with extreme weather events increasing in destruction and frequency every year, millions more are losing their homes to hurricanes and earthquakes.

Seres was founded by two activists in 2009 to empower young people in El Salvador and Guatemala to build sustainable communities that can fight against the climate crisis.

They say their mission is to "catalyse and cultivate" youth leaders who can educate themselves and their peers about the environment, human rights, sustainable building, food sovereignty and access to water.

Co-executive director Sara Hurtarte says climate change is "about taking responsibility for our fellow human beings and translating that into action".

She hopes that "the rest of the world can follow our example", which she says would mean the 17 sustainable development goals set out by the UN in 2015 – could be achieved by their target of 2030.

While leaders meet in Glasgow this month, Ella Daish has been doing her bit for the climate crisis for three years now.

In 2018 she was doing deliveries for Royal Mail when she noticed people's household waste getting bigger and bigger.

Each UK household throws away 40kg of plastic each year – and period products are the fifth most common item polluting Europe's beaches.

While tampons are only used for four to eight hours, they can take up to 500 years to break down.

With 90% of tampons and pads made from plastic, Ella decided to lobby supermarkets and retailers not to stock non-sustainable period products as a way of reducing landfill and helping fight climate change.

So far she has convinced Sainsbury's, Aldi and Superdrug not to sell plastic-based period products.

CREDITS

Reporting:
Lara Keay, News Reporter

Videos:
The Daily Climate show team

Graphics:
Jenai Edwards, Designer