Around the world, the state of environmental stress is unprecedented. As research and activism on “environmental justice” points out, the poorest and most marginalized communities are particularly vulnerable to environmental harm. This is particularly true for the populations of the countries of the South. The role of illicit drugs in relation to these environmental stresses is underexplored territory. Yet, as this report will show, drugs, and the policy responses to them, are an environmental problem.

This disconnection between anti-drug policy and environmental policy is largely the result of the institutional compartmentalization of the drug issue in the field of delinquency and repression, with little openness to other spheres related to the environment or sustainable development. . References to the environment in drug policy have remained rare and limited in scope.

It is slowly changing. A resolution on alternative development adopted by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) – the central drug policy-making body within the United Nations system – in March 2022 paid particular attention to the protection of the environment, encouraging “Member States to examine and address, within the framework of alternative development efforts, the harmful impact of the illicit cultivation of plants used for the production of narcotics on the environment, which can lead to deforestation and soil and water pollution, and to seize the opportunities offered by alternative development in terms of the conservation and sustainable use of the environment and the protection of biodiversity”. And for the first time this year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report 2022 includes a special brochure on the link between illicit drugs and the environment.

This report, which draws on TNI’s original research, fieldwork, interviews, and extensive literature review, aims to add to this emerging debate in the following ways:

• By examining the drug-environment nexus in relation to trajectories of agrarian change and the implications for rural workers, particularly in the Global South. This is in recognition of the fact that what are currently considered illicit crops under the international drug control regime often have a long history of traditional cultivation and use by rural communities and indigenous peoples around the world. . In addition to long-standing traditional uses, many others depend on the cultivation of illicit crops for their economic production and social reproduction activities. At the same time, these rural populations are often the most exposed to the risk of poverty, marginalization, discrimination and criminalization, while being the least represented in the policy-making spaces and in the decisions that affect them. Raising the voices and perspectives of these growers of illicit crops (or growers of banned plants) and the communities in which they are embedded is therefore a key objective of this report.
• By critically interrogating both drug policy and development responses in relation to the drug-environment nexus. From toxic eradication campaigns that spray the ground with chemicals, to interdiction efforts that push illicit cultivation into ever more fragile ecosystems, drug control policy has been responsible, directly or indirectly, for a number of number of serious environmental damages. Furthermore, crop substitution programs that ignore the fact that for millions of peasants, small farmers, landless people and migrant labour, drug crops are a development alternative to trade regimes and investment from which they are excluded or negatively integrated will ultimately fail. .
• By bringing knowledge and literature from, among others, the field of political ecology and critical agrarian studies and applying it to the question of drugs and the environment, it is hoped that new exchanges between these two spheres quite distinct until now may be stimulated. . Drugs are an environmental problem. By making this case, it is hoped that policy makers, researchers, civil society organizations and social movements from both fields can be encouraged to engage in a process of mutual learning and knowledge exchange. Through this bridging, new forms of solidarity, academic activism, and policy change can coalesce around, for example, movements for climate justice, agroecology, or peasant and indigenous rights.

Key points and recommendations

• The impacts of so-called “forbidden plants” or illicit drug crops – mainly coca, opium poppy and cannabis – on the environment are a matter of concern. depending on the particular context, they have, to varying degrees, been associated with soil erosion, land degradation, desertification, water depletion, deforestation, biodiversity loss and increased greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and waste
• Despite this, drugs are rarely seen as an environmental problem. There is no mention of drugs in any of the recent global agreements on climate or biodiversity and in drug policy circles environmental issues have, until very recently, been debated only on the fringes. This disconnect stems from an institutional sequestration of drugs from crime and law enforcement.
• Greater coordination between UNODC, UNDP, UNEP, as well as a leading role for the task force supporting the implementation of the UN common position on drug policy, can help foster UN system-wide coherence, support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and global commitments to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• Greater synergies can be forged by assessing drug policy against a set of cross-cutting climate and environmental indicators, in addition to those developed around human rights, public health, sustainable development, etc human rights governance instruments such as the CFS Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in rural areas
• The development of an environmentally sustainable drug policy must stem from an approach centered on environmental justice: the recognition that the poorest and most marginalized communities, often differentiated along lines of class, gender and breed, are particularly susceptible to environmental damage. This is particularly true for the populations of the countries of the South
• In the realm of drug policy, this means that those who depend on the cultivation of illicit crops for their economic survival and social reproduction must be at the heart of decision-making processes that affect them. It also means that instead of focusing on the persecution/criminalization of people based on particular uses of plants, the underlying political and economic systems of oppression, discrimination and injustice that ultimately result in account of environmental damage must be examined.
• Critically interrogating drug control policies can bring important environmental benefits. All forms of forced eradication – whether by aerial fumigation or manual means – must end. These have proven to be environmentally destructive and ultimately counterproductive, given the well-known “balloon effect” whereby the crop simply moves to other, often more fragile areas on the ecological plan. meanwhile, the logic of the ban may also be called into question from an environmental point of view given the number of hectares of land “wasted” due to the destruction of seized products and the inevitable replanting that results.
• Ultimately, the power of drug trafficking organizations can best be challenged by removing their source of profits from prohibition while strengthening forms of access to and control over community resources to help counter the influence of these non-state actors, with special protections in place. for environmental and human rights defenders.
• In the realm of alternative development, there must be a clear red line drawn that the replacement of illicit crops with industrial monocultures or other large agribusiness complexes should not be considered an AD agenda. Rather, AD programs should actively seek to promote and strengthen sustainable production systems based on agroecology and regenerative practices combined with a comprehensive land reform program that supports territorial markets and more equitable access and control. natural resources (land, water, seeds, forests, etc.).
• While there are opportunities in advertising programs to tap into sources of climate finance, there are also risks associated with market-based conservation mechanisms and natural capital accounting that promote the commodification of nature to the detriment pro-poor outcomes. Public policies should reward models of agrarian environmental justice and community conservation strategies based on the principles of co-creation between man and nature.
• Ongoing drug policy reforms, particularly in relation to cannabis, open up the possibility of developing forward-thinking strategies to address issues of environmental sustainability. The high carbon footprint associated with growing cannabis indoors means that where possible, priority should be given to growing outdoors, especially in traditional growing countries in the South.
• Setting environmental standards through, for example, organic certification (including peer-to-peer forms of certification), eco-labelling, designation systems and fair trade can and should all be taken into account to ensure environmental sustainability in regulated markets. In addition, public agricultural research and seed banks should seek to conserve genetic diversity and local varieties.

Chocolate is everywhere you look. Different varieties are stacked on large plates in a display case. There’s cranberry white alongside peanut-salt whole milk and refined dark chocolate with cardamom, clove and pepper. Chocolatier Franz Kässer makes the delights and sells them in his store in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. But the customers have been gone for weeks. “We are wasting a lot of time,” Kässer says angrily.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a spa town in Upper Bavaria that lives mainly from tourism. Skiers come in winter, hikers in summer. “The tourist beds are occupied, but for three weeks it has been police, security guards and people preparing for the G7 summit,” Kässer says, explaining his problem. “Of course they don’t shop with us or eat with us, because they are served differently.”

And it’s not just him, he adds: “I went out to eat last night, there were three people sitting in the restaurant, where normally everything is booming at this time of year.”

Even the schools are closed

At least 18,000 police have been deployed to Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Elmau, the small village above the resort town in a hard-to-reach valley, to provide security for the G7 summit. Police cars are lined up everywhere and helicopters repeatedly slam through the air.

Heads of state and government are hermetically sealed at Schloss Elmau, a secluded luxury spa retreat, while in Garmisch the media center has been set up for the approximately 3,000 journalists who have arrived. Hundreds of manhole covers have been sealed with white stickers, no trash cans are allowed on the streets, schools are closed and students are forced to take their lessons online.

Police checkpoints have been set up at all access roads within a 16 kilometer (10 mile) radius. Motorists must stop, personal data is checked. The plan is to spot and screen troublemakers and potentially violent protesters before they reach Garmisch.

Lentil Stew with the Chancellor

“Many activists do not come because of the controls, they do not want to be searched and are also afraid of repression”, explains Tatjana Söding, who, together with Christopher Olk, pitched her tent in a protest camp on a meadow in the edge of Garmisch. Söding has just completed his master’s degree in human ecology, Olk is preparing a doctorate in international political economy. Both belong to the “Stop G7 Elmau” alliance, which plans to hold several protest rallies throughout the summit.

“Seven heads of state pursue their own interests and their decisions affect the world population, which has no right to have a say”, criticizes Olk. “They talk about climate justice, but their own specific political and economic interests are at the forefront, which does not allow for real climate justice at all.”

It was pouring rain when Söding and Olk arrived on Friday evening. “It was a bit uncomfortable.” Now barefoot and in summer clothes, the two stand in the sun on the lawn and watch more and more tents being erected at the protest camp. Authorities approved 750 protesters.

What would the two say if they had the opportunity to speak with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in person? “I would invite him to eat a lentil stew with us and then we would talk about how we can make Germany part of a just world,” Olk says, laughing in disbelief. But talking to the Chancellor isn’t on the cards.

Instead, it was suggested to the activists that 50 of them be driven to Elmau, where they could demonstrate out of sight of heads of state and government, under guard. But they find this unacceptable. “Freedom of movement and assembly will be severely restricted,” criticizes Söding.

Tatjana Söding and Christopher Olk have joined the protest camp

Will the protest remain peaceful?

The plan is for the protesters to march through the town at the bottom of Garmisch, but they also want to try to advance through the mountain forest to Elmau in a so-called “star march”, in which several groups converge to an agreed point. from different directions. The police know this and have already announced that the activists will not go far. “There are a lot of police in Garmisch, and there’s a reason for that,” Upper Bavarian Police Chief Manfred Hauser said when presenting the security concept to the media.

Garmisch business people hope the protests will remain peaceful. “Many residents have left for a few days,” explains chocolatier Kässer. “But we had already planned all the holidays here in store when we learned six months ago that a G7 summit was to be held in Elmau for the second time.” The last time, in 2015, he added, they had been warned a year and a half in advance and could have planned differently: “I can’t send people on vacation now.”

Some 18,000 police have been deployed in Elmau and Garmisch-Partenkirchen

G7 always up to date?

Kässer is certain that there will be no third G7 summit here. “Never again G7,” he said fervently in his voice. “People here in town would disagree with that, and that’s supported by some local council members.” The chocolatier criticizes that the whole effort is not even up to date. “We’re supposed to heat less and take fewer showers, and here they’re wasting energy with hundreds of police cars driving around and helicopters doing training flights for weeks on end.”

Kässer does not deny that meetings of Heads of State and Government are necessary. “But please, not in this format,” he said. “There are hundreds of people in every entourage. Why don’t they meet their closest circle of advisors, and everyone else can meet on the internet these days, right?”

There are also places where such meetings could be better held, he said. “At (US Air Force Base) Ramstein, a NATO summit was organized at short notice with important personalities, and the American president was able to land directly on the site with his Airforce One. You do not have to impose all this to anyone these days.”

Two Northwestern University undergraduates – Isabella Twocrow and Kadin Mills – have received national recognition from the Morris K. and Stewart L. Udall Foundation, a federal agency that supports studies in fields related to the environment, tribal public policy and Native American health care.

Twocrow is the first-ever recipient of Northwestern’s Native American Congressional Internship from Udall. The Udall Foundation and the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy select 11 students each year to spend a summer in Washington, D.C. Students in the program work alongside Native American and Indigenous policymakers to gain hands-on experience with the federal legislative process to understand the relationship between Native tribes and the US federal government.

Mills was awarded the 2022 Udall Undergraduate Scholarship, which is awarded to students for leadership, public service, and commitment to issues related to Native American nations or the environment. Northwestern’s first-ever Indigenous recipient of the Udall Scholarship, Mills will dedicate the $7,000 scholarship towards tuition, housing and other expenses while completing her studies. In August, Mills will also join fellow Udall Scholars and alumni at the annual Udall Scholars Orientation in Arizona, where he will meet with community leaders in the fields of environment, tribal health care and governance. .

Both Twocrow and Mills are Native American students at Northwestern, where they are very active in the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR) and the Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance (NAISA).

“These awards are the most prestigious of their kind,” said Patty Loew, founding director of CNAIR and professor in Medill’s School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications. “We are so proud of them. Their selection is a good reflection of Northwestern’s efforts to promote Native American research, teaching and outreach.

Isabelle Two crows

A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and co-chair of NAISA, Twocrow is a junior, studying learning and organizational change in the School of Education and Social Policy, with a minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies. After graduation, Twocrow plans to work in education policy to help reform tribal education systems, ensuring that Native American and Indigenous students have equitable access to education. Higher Education. She discovered this passion in high school, while navigating the college application process. Now, Twocrow works in undergraduate admissions as a student outreach coordinator for Native American and Indigenous students and as a project management aide in the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, where she is currently co-designing a “Native 101” workshop for the campus community. .

“It is important to defend our sovereignty and our treaty rights. I want to protect the rights of our people to land, water, health care and education.” —Isabelle Twocrow

“I am honored and privileged to have received this internship in DC with the Udall Foundation and look forward to exploring, experimenting and learning more about tribal public policy,” said Twocrow. “I am beyond grateful to have this opportunity and cannot thank you enough for the support I have received here at Northwestern – from NAISA, CNAIR, and other Native American and Indigenous teachers.”

With the Udall internship, she hopes to gain research and networking skills while working for the federal government. These skills will help prepare him for a future career in law and politics.

“With my North West degree and the knowledge I gained from the Udall internship, I hope to serve tribal nations, including my own, the Ho-Chunk Nation,” Twocrow said. “It is important to defend our sovereignty and our treaty rights. I want to protect the rights of our people to land, water, health care and education. The education of our young people, in the Indigenous way, is essential to rebuilding and sustaining our Indigenous nations, and I hope my work at Northwestern and DC can help in any way.”

Kadin Windmills

The first descendant of the Keweenaw Bay Indian community, Mills is a sophomore in journalism at Medill and Native American studies at Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He is passionate about social and climate justice – and advancing these causes through literature, storytelling and culture. On campus, Mills writes for the Daily Northwestern and serves as communications manager for NAISA.

When Mills learned he had been awarded the Udall Fellowship, he and Loew were visiting the Poarch Creek Reservation in Mobile, Alabama as part of a National Science Foundation-funded climate change project.

“When I learned that I was chosen, we shouted with joy in the court.” — Mills of Kadin

“I’m thrilled to have been chosen for the Udall Award in Michigan,” Mills said. “When I learned that I had been chosen, we cheered in the courtyard of the Tribal Administration buildings of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. I will always remember that and the lunch we had in celebration. From then on Patty introduced me as the “New Udall Scholar”. I thank the Northwestern Indigenous community and my loved ones for pushing me and believing in me.

In her spare time, Mills enjoys engaging in the arts – including singing, musical theatre, playing the saxophone, sewing and bead making. He is committed to pursuing a career related to tribal public policy.

FIRST ON FOX: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has spent $4.3 million from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package on environmental justice and climate change programs promoting activities such as tree planting, “pruning workshops” and achieving “greater acceptance of trees” in cities.

Last April, the EPA announced it was awarding $200,000 each to dozens of projects “focused on the impacts of COVID-19, as well as climate and disaster resilience” in “underserved communities.” through its Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem Solving Cooperative Agreement Program (EJCPS). . The program awarded a total of 34 organizations using $4.3 million in Biden’s U.S. Bailout Act (ARP) funds, as well as $2.5 million from the EPA’s annual credit for environmental justice.

An Indianapolis-based organization called Keep Indianapolis Beautiful received $200,000 for an initiative called “Greening Urban Neighborhoods” that included educating residents about “the benefits of trees” and increasing “the acceptance of trees in the city“.

Another organization, Tree New Mexico, based in New Mexico, received funding from ARP to plant trees in the “underserved area of ​​Albuquerque’s southeast quadrant.” This project included “pruning workshops” and “tree care education” with the goal of having more residents become “citizen tree stewards committed to caring for newly planted trees and older trees” and reduce the “heat island effect” that occurs in urbanized areas. areas.

THE EPA HAS SPENT $7M FROM THE U.S. BAILOUT FUND TO REPLACE DIESEL SCHOOL BUSES WITH ELECTRIC BUSES

The Houston-based Black United Fund of Texas has received ARP funds through the EPA program for a project to develop “a shipping container farm, residential gardens, green technology, planting of native trees and habitats, workforce development and public education”.

According to the EPA’s website, St. Paul, Minn.-based Hourcar also received ARP-funded EJCPS funds to launch “Evie carshare, a new all-electric carsharing program featuring 150 shared electric vehicles supported by 70 curbside charging stations, with a focus on serving low-income and BIPOC communities.”

The USASpending.gov website, which documents government spending, says the $200,000 in ARP funds for the grant were “compulsory.”

Just before Democrats passed the ARP in March 2021, without any Republican support, Biden described every allocation of funds in the legislation as essential.

“We need Congress to pass my US bailout plan which addresses the immediate crisis – the emergency,” the president said at the time. “Now the critics are saying my plan is too big, it’s $1.9 trillion. So that’s too much. Well, let me ask them: what would they make me cut? What would they make me omit?

US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris deliver a speech on the US bailout in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building July 15, 2021 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Today, the ARP faces increasing scrutiny for its role in the ongoing inflation crisis, which hit 8.6% last month. Some economists, including former economic advisers to the Obama administration, have accused the ARP of overheating the economy.

“With our nation in the $30 trillion hole and money hemorrhaging federally, news like this should outrage all taxpayers,” Rep. Ralph Norman, RS, told Fox. .C., who sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. News Digital in a statement. “These examples are not proper functions of government and are just the tip of the iceberg. The EPA – and I would argue every agency – must be held accountable for how it uses public funds.”

Fox News Digital previously reported that the EPA also used $5.25 million in ARP funds through its Environmental Justice Small Grants Program in 2021 to award grants to projects that had next to nothing. to do with the fight against COVID-19 or the effects of the pandemic.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has spent $4.3 million from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package on environmental justice and climate change programs, including including “pruning workshops”.
(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

One of the nonprofits that received a grant under this program was Massachusetts-based organization Speak for the Trees for a project using “storytelling” and “tree walks.” , among other techniques, aimed at “increasing awareness and dialogue around inequitable tree canopy cover.” and its implications for the health of residents living in [environmental justice] communities. »

Clean Air Carolina, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, received a grant for a project to install a Level 2 electric vehicle public charging station and create an educational video as a way for “members of the community to get involved in mitigating air pollution”.

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In a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Wednesday evening, the EPA said all EJCPS program applications “have gone through a rigorous scoring and approval process to ensure that project activities and objectives are consistent with statutory authorities and to the language and intent of the ARP”.

“All applications selected for funding have been reviewed by EPA’s Office of General Counsel,” the statement said. “The EJ Grants Program funds community projects. A fundamental tenet of environmental justice is that communities speak for themselves and are best placed to know how to resolve the challenges they face. The EJ Grants Program, now with nearly three decades of experience delivering effective grants to communities across the country, has a reputation for investing taxpayer dollars responsibly and in places that meet community needs and support longer-term goals of community revitalization.

The Philippines has slammed what it describes as ‘delaying tactics’ by several key nations that have hampered the UN’s work for the mandated global program on climate change and called for action that would benefit vulnerable countries. .

Climate Change Commission Secretary Robert Borje says key issues such as financing climate loss and damage and improving ways to access technology and build capacity have not gained traction despite previous declarations of commitments by parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). .

“As key stakeholders engage in appalling delaying tactics disguised as discussions, we are undermining global trust in multilateralism and eroding the confidence of our people and young people in the work we do,” Borje said during the talk. the closing plenary of the 56th session of the Subsidiary. Organs (SB56) of the UNFCCC in Bonn, Germany.

He expressed concern about the effect of inaction on global confidence in climate change work and called for more “meaningful results”. He also cited the need to “unlock” climate finance for the developing world.

Borje said the Philippines remains committed to engaging all parties and called on nations to anchor their work and actions on climate justice ahead of COP 27 to be held in November in Egypt.

President Duterte said last April that industrialized countries should pay for the damage caused by their carbon emissions as poorer countries like the Philippines suffer from the impact of climate change.

The climate crisis is deepening, but it seems governments around the world, big and small, are still busy passing the buck. While the UN calls all nations to action, the poorest are left behind, waiting for the big economies to deliver on their promises and do their fair share. Everyone is basically accusing each other of stalling while the world burns.

When will the governments of the world pull together and work in unison to prevent one of the greatest threats facing humanity?*

Extreme heat has its moment in the sun. This year’s headlines have been as relentless as the temperatures: ‘Spain suffers record heat wave’; “Devastating heat wave in South Asia”; “Texas Breaks Heat Record”; and “Can you even still call the deadly heat ‘extreme’?”

This global coverage has drawn attention to a colossal challenge that will only grow in scale and severity. Nowhere are cooling measures more urgent than in our cities, where streets, buildings, industries and vehicles could raise temperatures by a catastrophic 4°C by the end of the century, putting the most vulnerable people world’s poor at risk.

The search for solutions is already underway, but it must be stepped up. At last year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), the Cool Coalition – a partnership of 120 organizations led by the UN Environment Program and including RMI – released a comprehensive guide to sustainable district cooling. And in Davos last month, the Cool Coalition and the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center launched an online heat action platform that makes it easy for policymakers and planners to identify the most relevant to them.

To stay ahead of the problem, city leaders will need to adopt many measures, including smarter urban design. To draw fresh air into a city, planners and developers can orient streets and building heights with prevailing winds and develop more strategically placed green and blue spaces. They can also create more shaded suburban corridors for pedestrians and cyclists, and plan more diverse mixed-use developments that lend themselves to efficient neighborhood cooling systems (and less heat-emitting automobile traffic).

Planting more trees in concrete jungles could also make a significant difference. Urban forests and parks can be 7°C cooler than treeless neighborhoods, and a tree-lined street can be 3°C cooler than a treeless street. Cities from Freetown and Athens to Melbourne and Milan are already reaping the benefits of using urban nature as a cooling mechanism – one that also improves stormwater management, sequesters carbon, increases biodiversity and provides recreation.

Another common sense measure is to resurface our cities so that they reject heat rather than absorb it. The typical asphalt road absorbs up to 95% of the sunlight that falls on it, and concrete roads and sidewalks absorb up to 75%. These hot surfaces disproportionately harm outside workers, those without personal vehicles, and the poor who live in neighborhoods dominated by these materials. By using lighter colored building materials that increase the reflectivity of these surfaces by just 10%, we can reduce their temperatures by up to 5°C, a potentially life-saving difference.

Better buildings are also essential. Cooling a poorly designed building with air conditioning is like running a faucet through a leaky bucket. In contrast, good building design can completely minimize the need for air conditioning. For example, light colored reflective “cold roofs” are inexpensive and can reject 90% of the thermal energy that lands on them, making a huge difference even where other measures are not viable, as in informal housing.

Passive building efficiency measures such as orientation, insulation, reflection, shading and ventilation are not new. But we need to enact more ambitious building codes and performance standards, and invest in the institutional capacity to enforce them.

In addition, air conditioning, where it is used, can be made more climate-friendly. As it stands, it is both a key enabler of productivity and a major source of urban heat and emissions. By 2050, air conditioners could consume as much energy as the combined economies of the United States, Germany and Japan today.

The most common refrigerant they use is nearly 2,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming agent. Accordingly, regulators must set standards that exclude the worst-performing units from the market; and the public and private sectors must work together on marketing campaigns, financing solutions and incentives to entice buyers to adopt climate-friendly products.

City planners and developers should also consider district cooling systems, which serve many buildings with a single cooling installation. Since these systems can offer economies of scale without heating city air as much as individual air conditioning units, they should be the default technology choice in large new commercial and mixed-use developments, townships and the campuses.

Finally, policymakers in some cities should consider various last-resort options to protect the most vulnerable. In India, people joke that the reason Bollywood movies are so long is that the filmmakers want to give people the opportunity to spend four hours in an air-conditioned room. But, as this spring’s devastating heat wave showed, the value of cool space is no longer a joke.

Cities in areas prone to extreme heat will need to invest in a range of common spaces that are accessible to the most vulnerable when heat and humidity exceed survival thresholds. These can be cinemas, shopping malls, schools, places of worship, swimming pools, parks, transit centers or dedicated cooling centers. Emergency power generation, potable water, medical supplies, heat and health education materials, and trained personnel would make these spaces even more useful in an emergency.

Extreme heat is arguably the biggest climate justice issue we face. Of the 1.7 billion city dwellers currently exposed to extreme heat, most live in fast-growing cities in poor countries, and most lack access to the air-conditioned buildings and cars that people in advanced economies hold for granted. Addressing these inequalities should be a top global priority.

The Cool Coalition is kicking off in India, where the government has already developed the world’s first national cooling action plan, and where state and city leaders are deeply committed to addressing the threat of extreme heat.

But there is still a lot to do. The launch of the US$10 billion Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet has shown that the international community is still able to rally behind major efforts to mitigate and adapt to change. climatic. The deployment of renewable energies and the improvement of access to clean energy remain essential objectives. But building thermal resilience and implementing sustainable cooling solutions have also become pressing priorities. We need to take action now to help our hottest cities cool down.

– Rushad Nanavatty is Managing Director of the Urban Transformation Program at RMI. Sheila Aggarwal-Khan is Director of the Economics Division of the United Nations Environment Programme. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.www.project-syndicate.org

You could be forgiven for thinking that Wall Street has had a climatic epiphany. Bank of America brags about its environmental credentials; Citigroup’s new CEO announces on day one that achieving net zero emissions is a top priority. The onslaught convinced many, even in the left-leaning media, that Wall Street will pave the way for a better, greener version of capitalism.

Since April, more than 38,000 customers from Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo and Bank of America have joined a campaign called Customers for Climate Justice, demanding that their bank stop funding fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, if you look beyond the green veneer, you’ll find another story. In 2021, JPMorgan Chase provided $61.7 billion in financing to the fossil fuel industry, Citigroup lent $15.1 billion to the companies fastest growing their oil and gas operations, Wells Fargo and Bank of America provided the hydraulic fracturing industry with $12.9 billion.

In May 2021, the IEA, the world’s most respected energy modeller, announced that to have a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, no new oil and gas fields can be developed. . Yet within three months of the IEA’s announcement, Citi, Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley helped facilitate $36 billion in financing to the companies that are opening new oil and gas fields fastest, including Exxon-Mobil, Aramco and BP.

But let’s stop here. Maybe we are unfair. Leading climate scientist James Hansen may have testified before Congress in 1988 that global warming required urgent action, but the banks have only recently pledged climate action. Maybe we shouldn’t judge them on what they did last year, but on what they say they will do in the years to come. Fortunately, as the biggest banks have now all set climate targets for 2030, we are in a position to do so. Unfortunately, this is where banks’ climate pledges go from bad to ugly.

Four of the largest US banks – Chase, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs – have set 2030 climate goals for the fossil fuel sector using a metric known as “carbon intensity”, committing to achieve between fifteen percent and twenty-nine percent reduction in the “carbon intensity” of the oil and gas companies they finance.

The thing to know here is that reductions in “carbon intensity” and reductions in “actual greenhouse gas emissions” are not the same thing.

Imagine that you are the CEO of an oil company. Your company owns 500 oil wells; it has no gas deposits. Chase gives you a $1 billion loan. You use this loan to purchase 50 new oil wells and open a new gas field that you intend to fracture. You now own 50 oil wells and a fracking operation. Your overall contributions to climate change have increased dramatically. Yet because gas is often considered less carbon-intensive than oil (a fatal mistake, considering methane leaks from gas operations), Wall Street estimates that your company’s “carbon intensity” decreased.

Chase, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have set 2030 climate targets that they can meet even if their emissions increase.

Only two of the major US banks have avoided the carbon intensity mess and set “absolute emissions reduction” targets: Citi and Wells Fargo. Of these, only Citi has said it is considering ending funding for fossil fuel customers – and only then will it be done as a “last resort”. Given that the oil and gas majors have spent $70 billion developing new oil and gas fields in 2021, it’s unclear how Citi and Wells Fargo think they can meet their climate goals without abandoning companies that are expanding their fossil fuel operations.

Given the long history of rapacious greed on Wall Street, Wall Street CEOs may simply not care about ruling the climate crisis. There are things they care about though. Namely, their brand and their customers. That’s why it’s heartening that so many people are now speaking out against Wall Street’s role in the climate crisis.

Since the Stop the Money Pipeline Coalition launched two years ago, it has grown from a coalition of around 30 organizations to one of more than two hundred climate, environment, human rights groups. Indigenous Peoples and Racial Justice. This AGM season, there have been disruptive protests at shareholder meetings of Town, Wells FargoBank of America and Hunt. A few days before the AGM of Citi un activist bird dog of the bank’s sustainable development manager has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people on social networks. This type of tireless organization represents a brand risk for banks, which is important to them. They also care about their customers.

Since April, more than 38,000 customers from Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo and Bank of America have joined a campaign called Customers for Climate Justice, demanding that their bank stop funding fossil fuels. Many more have signed Third Act’s Banking on our Future Pledge, promising to cut up their credit cards and switch banks if they don’t. If you’re dealing with one of the world’s biggest funders of fossil fuels, you should join these campaigns.

Because that might be the only good thing about Wall Street’s empty climate promises. We can do something about them.

As cities up their game on climate action, they seek to harness the expertise of new allies: academic centers of urban leadership whose goals include training future urban leaders.

“I believe a movement of academics, students and city governments can bring about some pretty deep and necessary change,” said David Miller, former chair of C40, a global network of mayors tackling the climate crisis. “It’s a very exciting moment.” The former mayor of Toronto now heads the C40’s Center for Urban Climate Policy and Economy.

The imperative to act is not lost on the world’s urban leaders. Cities around the world consume 78% of the world’s energy and produce more than 60% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations, but are also potential agents of change in the global campaign for a sustainable future.

Campus-based urban researchers and students are well placed to help cities in their emerging role.

About 45 universities around the world have these specialized centers, estimates Karen Chapple, named the inaugural director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto last year. “There’s something about the urban institute as a living laboratory that’s quite unique, so that way we have a common ethos across the 45 [centres],” she says.

Three institutes – the LSE Cities Center at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the New York-based Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative and the School of Cities at the University of Toronto – exemplify the trend of academics working with cities to solve complex problems such as climate, migration and social inequalities.

“Cities today are on the front lines of man-made disasters,” says Ricky Burdett, director of LSE Cities. “Mayors need to react very quickly… their exposure to dramatic change has never been more tangible than it is today.”

LSE Cities, one of the oldest institutes, started its activities in 1999 and became a research center in 2010, combining interdisciplinary research, teaching and extension. For example, its Master of Science in City Design and Social Science recruits students from a variety of academic disciplines who work on specific projects in London from a sustainability, architectural and design perspective. In 2016, LSE Cities added an Executive Master of Science in Cities, with 18-month in-person and virtual learning, for mid-career urban professionals (including C40 mayors) who are committed to leading efforts at scale to address climate action through an evidence-based approach. Economic inequality and the climate crisis are the main concerns, says program co-director Savvas Verdis. “Cities are very good at crystallizing these global challenges into very local problems,” he says. “Mayors are, unfortunately, being asked to do a lot of the firefighting.”

Among its various activities, LSE Cities offers an academic course for city leaders to develop child-friendly policies. Additionally, Burdett and other faculty members advise cities directly, including a recent consultation with Addis Ababa in Ethiopia on its rapid urbanization challenges.

The collaboration defines many global agendas. In 2021, Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, announced a US$150 million commitment to expand the Bloomberg Harvard [University] City Leadership Initiative, a training program for mayors established in 2016. The donation also supports a municipal center for leadership and governance at the university and faculty endowment at the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School . The Bloomberg Harvard Program, run by the Kennedy School and the business school, provides an all-expenses-paid executive education experience to 40 mayors from around the world each year.

“All global problems have a local impact, and we can’t afford to wait for national or international bodies to come up with solutions,” says Jorrit de Jong, director of the Bloomberg Center for Cities and co-chair of the Bloomberg Harvard Program. . “The issues are so urgent that you are being held accountable by local residents; there are levers that local leaders can use that they are not always aware of.

Halifax Regional Municipality Mayor Mike Savage was one of three Canadian mayors in the Class of 2018. “They generally look for progressive mayors who are interested in doing things for the environment and social justice,” he says. . One of the lessons he learned was how to develop a public narrative as a tool to engage stakeholders on city priorities, like Halifax’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. .

During the year-long experiment, with several days of in-class learning followed by virtual seminars, mayors must identify a local problem to solve. For Savage, it was about carrying out major infrastructure projects with the support of the public. He and two senior city officials had access to Harvard faculty, which advised on policy implementation, and help from a Bloomberg-sponsored Harvard graduate student on a scholarship. three-month summer with the city.

With such support, de Jong says, “I hope today’s leaders will feel better equipped to tackle problems that seem insurmountable.”

The Bloomberg Harvard Program is also looking to recruit future civic leaders, with a new two-year paid fellowship this fall for recent graduates to take on leadership roles with mayors. “We hope to create a talent pool of students who hadn’t thought about entering city government,” de Jong said.

Like its counterparts, the U of T School of Cities emphasizes the dissemination of knowledge and the resolution of urban problems. But it differs from the others by not having a dedicated faculty. Instead, the School of Cities funds researchers from multiple disciplines. For its first grant, it mobilized 45 academics from 20 departments to explore issues of climate justice. “We were designed to cut across a lot of different departments,” says Chapple. Linking academia and the community is essential. She says researchers should “make sure your research project is useful to people on the ground working on climate and justice issues,” with community stakeholders involved in the design of the research.

It is no less important to cultivate new talents. Clarence Qian, who holds graduate degrees in architecture (Waterloo) and business (Toronto), spent his year as the 2021 Urban Leadership Fellow examining the potential of massive wood construction to contribute to residential housing durable and affordable. This year, while completing his business studies, he enrolled in the graduate multidisciplinary urban project at the School of Cities, which brings together students from various university disciplines around an urban issue.

Qian and his team members looked at how to add laneways, duplexes and triplexes to the traditional mix of residential housing options.
“In my MBA, we talk about numbers every day,” he says. “For urban issues, it’s never just one aspect; for my [multidisciplinary] project, I met others from different points of view.

Qian, now director of development at property developers Distrikt, sees his future in cities. “My passion is trying to make the city of Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area a better place to live.

That’s promising for city defenders like C40’s Miller.

“I hope that universities that make such an effort to establish direct links with municipal governments can trigger this [youth] interest in a real fire of passion for solutions to the challenges of our society,” he says.

Sustainability must be integrated into all aspects of governance and at all levels of society, say two prime ministers during the ‘Climate in Crisis: Rising Tides’ panel at the inaugural Global Citizen NOW Thought Leadership Summit in New York May 23.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who joined the panel moderated by legendary science teacher Bill Nye, championed climate action globally. They have also enacted laws in their own countries to steer their economies away from fossil fuels and environmentally destructive practices.

Trudeau has pinned the climate crisis on a form of political engagement that prioritizes short-term profit over long-term well-being.

“We need to step back from the short-term thinking that led us to take on this challenge and move beyond it,” he said. “It’s not just about embedding sustainability into day-to-day actions, but integrating it into our thinking – thinking about the broad impacts of everything we do and the profound impacts across the next generation of everything we do. that we do.”

Global Citizen NOW featured more than 200 speakers from the public and private spheres, including heads of state, scientists, activists, celebrity advocates and corporate executives, who discussed the overlapping crises affecting communities around the world – from the climate crisis to the current crisis. COVID-19 pandemic to gender inequality. They also talked about the opportunities that can arise when different sectors work together to achieve the United Nations global goals.

A major theme throughout the event was reflected in the title: NOW. Countries must embrace a much greater sense of urgency to overcome poverty, protect the planet and empower marginalized communities.

According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world has until the end of the decade to halve greenhouse gas emissions in order to have a chance of reaching the Paris climate agreement goal of preventing temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. .

Mottley has been a strong advocate for policies that center climate justice, including redistributive climate finance for low-income countries. In particular, wealthy countries like Canada must follow through on the $100 billion in annual climate funding that has been pledged to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to continued environmental impacts and embrace renewable energy.

Although Trudeau was a leading voice in the negotiations around the Paris climate accord, the Climate Action Tracker said Canada’s current climate policy is “grossly inadequate.”

During the panel, Mottley called on Trudeau to facilitate technology transfers.

“In Barbados, I would like someone to give us long-term commercial batteries now, which belong to a company in Canada. Justin, can you do it? ” she says.

“If you can do it, that’s great. I met with them last week and they told me they couldn’t get supplies until December 2023,” she continued. “I announced a tax exemption for electric vehicles in my country, but we cannot supply ourselves. So let’s understand that just having a movement that does not appreciate supply problems, which does not appreciate not the reality of our existence, will get us nowhere.

Mottley also called out wealthy countries for not redistributing funds associated with special drawing rights to the International Monetary Fund, which could be used to accelerate global climate action and overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trudeau and Mottley agreed that climate action depends on the broad participation of citizens around the world who must hold their leaders accountable and demand action. The discussion was comfortably guided by Nye, who has become something of an expert in recent years at bringing diverse groups together under the collective cloak of climate action.

“We’re going to work the problem from the bottom up,” he said at the end of the panel. “Then we will elect leaders who will work the problem, these complicated problems, from top to bottom. And together — it’s not called, it’s not called Local Citizen. It’s not called County Citizen. It’s called Global Citizen, because we’re all in this together.

The White House updates a “sacred text” on environmental justice.

The executive order, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, was the first government-wide recognition that environmental and public health burdens fall disproportionately on poor and minority communities. It was also the first time that the executive branch accepted that it had the legal authority – and obligation – to mitigate these impacts wherever it could.

Executive Order 12898 is now being carefully reviewed by the White House, with input from outside experts, an administration official told reporters on a recent call. He described the 28-year-old ordinance as a “sacred text” for which officials would propose changes in the coming months.

Beyond that, the White House has said little about how it plans to change the Clinton-era directive.

The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, or WHEJAC, which is made up of outside experts from advocacy and academia, offered numerous recommendations 13 months ago on how to revise the executive order. But in a report to Congress last week, the White House Council on Environmental Quality focused on other elements of the president’s environmental justice agenda, including implementing his environmental justice initiative. investment for disadvantaged communities and a beta screening tool to identify these communities (climate wireJune 1).

The Clinton-era order received only a small mention in the 201-page report.

“The process of developing executive orders is lengthy because it involves a multi-step institutional review for the president’s decision-making,” CEQ said in its report, adding that it was working “diligently” to find a solution. “durable and impactful” solution. , and effective approach.

Biden issued his own executive order on climate change and environmental justice a week after being inaugurated last year. He gave federal agencies a May 2021 deadline to submit recommendations for updating the 1994 executive order to climate adviser Gina McCarthy. The White House says that deadline was met.

Environmental justice experts, including members of WHEJAC, which Biden created last year, say they are less concerned about the timing than the scope and strength of the upcoming review. Clinton’s executive order was a watershed moment for the environmental justice movement and survived four subsequent administrations.

But its goals were never fully achieved.

“So on the one hand, thank you very much, we really appreciate that, because if you issue an executive order on environmental justice, well, that has to mean there’s environmental injustice,” said Richard Moore, co-chair. of WHEJAC and former chairman of the EPA advisory board created under Clinton’s executive order. “But it could have been much deeper.”

The 1990s directive required a small group of EPA-led national federal agencies to participate in an interagency council on environmental justice. The list of entities involved has since grown. Biden’s order last year expanded the membership to include 18 federal agencies and White House offices working on domestic and international issues. It also made the White House the organizer of the group instead of the EPA, which Moore said raised the issue.

Clinton’s executive order called on agencies to integrate environmental justice into their strategic plans. But Moore, who is co-director of the Los Jardines Institute in Albuquerque, NM, said some have done a better job than others.

“All some federal agencies have done is just change the language a bit,” he said. “They just went through their already existing strategic plans, and some of them added the words ‘environmental justice’ and some of them added the words ‘most affected’ or whatever, and they were fine. .”

Biden told environmental justice advocates in meetings ahead of the 2020 election that he planned to unveil a revision to Clinton’s executive order in his first 100 days in office — and they told him not to , according to Moore. Rapid deployment could have prevented grassroots groups from offering their input, he said.

History of Clinton’s EO

The Clinton EO grew out of a wave of grassroots awareness that began in the 1990s and led to the creation of the Office of Environmental Equity at the EPA under President George HW Bush. It later became the Office of Environmental Justice.

Robert Bullard, a distinguished professor at Texas Southern University, often called the father of environmental justice, remembers meeting with EPA Administrator Bill Reilly and other Bush administration officials to present ideas of a major conference at the University of Michigan in 1990. When Clinton was elected in 1992, Bullard and Benjamin Chavis, another civil rights leader, joined the EPA transition team. Deeohn Ferris, who had created the Washington Office of Environmental Justice, took the lead in writing a white paper calling for the addition of the EPA to the Cabinet, more staff and funding, and appointments of more diverse regional administrators.

Ideas poured into his office from communities across the country, Bullard said.

“People were sending us faxes and telling us on the phone the kinds of things they wanted to see happen with the new administration,” he said in an interview.

It became clear that in the absence of legislation, an executive order would be the best way to ensure that environmental justice concerns are integrated into as many federal programs as possible, Bullard said. Al Gore, who was a senator at the time, and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) sponsored environmental justice legislation in 1992 to create a moratorium on permits to install toxic chemicals in communities already flooded with sources of pollution. But the effort stalled.

“The environmental justice executive order came by proxy for not having a law in place to deal with this,” Bullard said.

Instead of new legislation, the ordinance relied on powers granted by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The Civil Rights Act prohibited states and other recipients of federal funds from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. NEPA required environmental impact assessments before a project could proceed in order to examine adverse impacts on vulnerable populations.

Clinton’s order was a historic achievement, Bullard said, but it was never fully implemented. Within the federal government, the response to the order has been uneven. The EPA’s 10 regional offices have their own environmental justice strategic plans, but their quality varies widely. Plans serving the southern United States tend to be the weakest.

“It bothered a lot of us,” he said. “The environmental justice movement and the civil rights movement – both movements were born in the South.”

EJ is going global?

The quality of environmental justice planning also differs significantly between agencies. The Department of Transportation passed a stronger directive on environmental justice than EO 12898, Bullard said, in part because Clinton Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater was black and personally familiar with how government funding highways had been used historically to divide and undermine communities of color.

Bullard said the federal government also has a dismal record of enforcing non-discrimination by recipients of federal funding, especially states.

“Executive Order as it has been implemented in the regions has often not changed the behaviors of bad actors,” he said. “There are no teeth.”

Any revision of Clinton’s EO would only be successful if it led to agencies strengthening their oversight of the programs they administer, advocates said. This includes a new willingness to claw back funding when states spend it inequitably.

Biden has pledged that 40% of profits from climate and clean energy investments will go to disadvantaged communities – an initiative known as Justice40. But as funds allocated during last year’s pandemic and transportation passes are spent, the administration is struggling to show how Justice40 is being implemented.

Bullard, who is also a WHEJAC member, said he repeatedly asked the White House for information about the 40% pledge, but received no response until the House Blanche issues a press release last week announcing $29 billion in Justice40 “new funding opportunities.” The White House told E&E News the figure included allocations from fiscal years 2021 and 2022 appropriations and the infrastructure law signed into law in November.

Bullard was unconvinced.

“We say, ‘Show us the programs,'” he said. “Let’s see who will benefit.”

Mustafa Ali, vice president of environmental justice at the National Wildlife Federation and former senior adviser to the EPA, said nondiscrimination enforcement should be at the heart of any revision to Clinton’s executive order — especially when it comes to ensuring that poor, non-white communities receive a fair share of federal investment.

He also said that the inclusion of international programs and treaties under the EO framework would be a game-changer.

“I see it as the next iteration of this work,” Ali said.

He pointed to Congo, which produces cobalt used in the manufacture of electric car batteries.

“There are all sorts of abuses of workers’ rights and children’s rights happening right now around the extraction of these critical minerals in Africa, in Congo,” Ali said. “So if we are serious about creating a new paradigm for the 21st century, then environmental justice must be honored on the international stage.”

PRESS RELEASE
SUSTAINABLE ORILLIA
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Scared. Disappointed. Concerned. Angry. Nervous. Stress.

These are the reactions of young people to the climate emergency, as reported by students attending the Sustainable Simcoe Youth Summit at Lakehead University on May 26.

Two hundred students from area high schools spent the day at Lakehead’s Orillia campus exploring how to respond to the challenge of the climate emergency.

The event was supported in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Lakehead and hosted by the Sustainable Orillia Youth Council with support from Lakehead faculty and staff in Orillia.

“I’m very happy with how the event went,” said lead organizer Blythe Wieclawek, president of the Sustainable Orillia Youth Council and Grade 11 student at Twin Lakes High School.

The day began with a keynote address by Dr. Brad Dibble, a Barrie-based cardiologist and member of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project team, who explained the impacts of climate change on health, livelihoods, life and life. food, well-being and conflict.

Workshops followed, including a simulation where “UN Global Summit delegates” representing eight sectors, including world governments, industry and trade, agriculture and forestry, clean technology and the ‘climate justice hawks’, have all been working on solutions to the crisis in an effort to keep the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. (spoiler alert – they did it!)

The day ended with an inspirational call to action from Allie Rougeot, a 23-year-old Toronto-based activist who some call “Canada’s Greta Thunberg”. She urged young people to carry “the belief that you are capable of making a difference” and to realize that the voice of young people is needed to solve the climate crisis.

“You hold so much power,” she said, “so don’t waste it! You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to care about it.

As the students prepared to return home, they shared their reactions to the day.

“I discovered solutions that I didn’t know existed,” said one.

“I’ve learned that there is no single, simple answer – the small actions of many people add up!” said another.

And above all, “We all have a role to play.”

And indeed we do. Let’s support our young people. Climate action calls on all of us to play our part.

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The in-state AACJ project manager Mr. Joseph Ibrahim revealed this during a one-day public presentation of the Nasarawa State Climate Audit Report yesterday at the Nasarawa Luxury Hotel, Lafia, the state capital.

Ibrahim stressed that the project would ensure the protection of communities and build the resilience of livelihoods against the worst effects of climate change and environmental degradation.

Ibrahim further noted that the organization has carried out a baseline study to identify key communities, businesses and their capacities to adapt to the impacts of climate change, as well as to understand government mechanisms and its response through a climate justice audit.

“This project was inaugurated in Nasarawa State in December 2021 and we did not want to start implementing the project without a baseline survey and getting the needs assessment from the communities, businesses and government agencies and parastatals. He underlined.

“So we thought it was wise to do a climate change survey and then we got input from communities, agencies and government parastatals.

“We published a local conclusion of the process and decided to call on stakeholders to share the report with them so that they can also provide input before our final report,” he said.

Ibrahim therefore called on stakeholders to work in synergy and support policies that advance climate justice in the state and the country as a whole.

Introducing the audit report, Dr. Femi Asonibare, said the report identified a variety of policy tools used to mitigate climate change, including economic and legislative instruments, voluntary agreements and cooperative responsibilities.

Asonibare explained that mitigating and adapting to climate issues requires actions at all levels of community, private sector and government and coordination among them.

“Adaptation, in particular, requires coordination between different levels of government since many of the effects of climate change are localized.

“The adaptation actions of the ministries are still at an early stage and are insufficient to deal with the problems that could result from climate change.

The possible cause for this is the lack of clear instructions to agencies to consider the impacts of climate change when planning and implementing policies to save all livelihood support,”

In an interview with the Daily Sun shortly after the broadcast, Chairman of Karu Local Government Area, Hon. James Thomas praised the organization for taking bold steps to achieve climate justice.

The President, however, stressed the need for collaboration among relevant stakeholders to encourage participation in climate action, noting that many effects of climate change are localized.

The local government boss of Karu has therefore pledged that his local government will support the implementation towards the effective implementation of the judges’ audit plan on climate change.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is establishing an Office of Environmental Justice to address environmental health issues among “disadvantaged communities and vulnerable populations on the front lines of pollution” and other climate impacts , the Biden administration announced on Tuesday.

Why is it important: Environmental justice has been a priority for the administration. The decision to address climate and now environmental justice at HHS shows how the subject goes beyond traditional environmental and resource agencies.

Details: The new HHS office will form and implement a department-wide strategy on environmental justice and health, and lead initiatives that integrate environmental justice into the agency’s mission to improve health outcomes for high-risk communities.

What they say : “The truth is that many communities across our country — especially low-income communities and communities of color — continue to bear the brunt of pollution from industrial development, poor land use decisions, transportation and trade corridors,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said. in a report.

• “Meeting the needs of these communities requires our focused attention.”

The big picture: A September poll found that people of color are much less likely than white Americans to enjoy good air quality or tap water.

• They are also less likely to have enough trees or green space in their communities, and remain more likely to experience noise pollution and litter.
• People of color, especially black Americans, are disproportionately affected by environmental risks — and more likely to die from environmental causes.
• As a result, the growing number of extreme weather incidents has prompted calls for better public health mapping to identify and help those most at risk from environmental disasters.

Go further: Race and Environment in America

As global emissions continue to rise, the idea that the world is likely to exceed its climate targets is increasingly becoming a reality. In response, a growing number of companies have turned to a technology known as “direct air capture”, or sucking carbon dioxide from the air, to help curb climate change. This fledgling industry got a boost on Tuesday when dozens of companies, nonprofits, foundations and universities formed a coalition to organize the carbon removal industry and bring together people who have so far thought and worked on direct air capture in isolation.

Carbon removal technology is a growing but still controversial component of the global response to climate change. In April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s top climate body, said keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius would require removing some of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And despite opposition from some conservationists, groups like the DAC Coalition believe direct air capture is a way to achieve these climate goals.

The new group, known as the Direct Air Capture Coalition, is registered in the United States as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, but will have a “global focus”, according to Axios. Members include for-profit companies such as Climeworks, which opened the world’s largest carbon capture facility in Iceland last year, as well as “partners and observers” such as the non-profit World Resources Institute and New York University’s Energy, Climate Justice, and Sustainability Lab. The goal, according to the group’s website, is to bring together leaders from technology, business, finance, government and civil society to “educate, engage and mobilize” the world in support of the world. removal of carbon.

“No nonprofit is focused on accelerating deployment and doing it in an efficient, sustainable, and equitable way,” Jason Hochman, co-founder and senior director of the coalition, told the news site. Protocol. “So we’re trying to change that.”

Carbon Dioxide Removal, or CDR, is a broad category that encompasses both natural solutions and technology. Ecosystem strategies include creating “carbon sinks” by planting trees or restoring wetlands that pull carbon from the air and sequester it in biomass, water or soil. Technologies like the DAC are another component, using large fans to draw in air and a chemical reaction to filter out pure carbon dioxide, which would then be transported to underground storage areas across the country or turned into products like the concrete.

Direct air capture technologies have yet to be tested on a large scale and can be prohibitively expensive, costing several hundred dollars to remove one metric ton of carbon dioxide. But local governments in states like Colorado and Arizona have already started moving forward with carbon phase-out. And the federal government also supported the idea; Last week, the Department of Energy announced plans to fund a $3.5 billion carbon capture and storage program under last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law.

The initiative would create four regional DAC hubs that would each capture and store at least 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. But according to the department, “CDR will need to be deployed at gigatonne scale” by mid-century – capturing 1 billion metric tons of CO2 per year, or about the amount produced by 250 million vehicles.

The Department of Energy promised it would “emphasize environmental justice, community engagement, consent-based settlement, equity, and workforce development” in the development of CDR projects, and said that this strategy should go hand in hand with the decarbonisation of the economy. But environmental justice groups such as the Climate Justice Alliance have criticized the decision to promote carbon removal technologies, arguing that the funding should instead support “real and proven” renewable energy projects in areas worst affected by climate change. Pollution.

“The mere promise of DAC technologies serves as a cover for the continued extraction and use of fossil fuels, which results in continued harm to frontline communities,” said Basav Sen, director of the Climate Justice project. from the Institute for Policy Studies, in a press release. “It is also a dangerous bet, as we are already in the midst of a severe climate crisis, and the promise of the DAC may never materialize and only harm frontline communities in new and unacceptable ways.”

Instead, the alliance called on President Joe Biden to ban new oil and gas leases on federal lands, stop approving fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency under the Climate Change Act. national emergencies, which would allow the government to accelerate the development of renewable energies. .

Hochman told Protocol that the DAC Coalition wants to play a role in starting these regional centers, although the organization does not lobby directly. The group’s next steps include holding a summit in the fall, with the aim of developing a strategy to guide the industry through 2030.

Natural Resources Defense Council approves re-election of Congressman Payne

Payne receives NRDC endorsement, building on support from environmental movement

NEWARK, NJ – Congressman Donald M. Payne, Jr. (D-Newark) announces that he has been endorsed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), building on his growing support within the environmental movement. The NRDC cites Congressman Payne’s success in securing funding for climate-resilient infrastructure and consistent support for bold climate policy.

“Rep. Payne has been a climate champion in Congress and a strong advocate for a clean energy future,” said Kevin S. Curtis, executive director of the NRDC Action Fund. “His work to secure funding for climate-resilient infrastructure and prioritize green jobs in his district is important, and we look forward to continuing to work with Rep. Payne to fight for climate justice in the years to come. “

Congressman Payne, who once received an endorsement from the Sierra Club, another prominent environmental organization, has been a consistent proponent of bold climate policy. He co-authored the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which provides billions of dollars to invest in green jobs and climate-resilient infrastructure. He also dedicated himself to solving the problem of lead contamination in his district’s drinking water, and drafted and passed the INVEST in America Act that prioritizes the allocation of funds for elimination. lead to low-income towns, and the Test for Lead Act which requires public schools to test their drinking water for lead contamination.

“The NRDC has been an incredible leader in the fight to protect our natural resources and advocate for effective climate policy,” said Congressman Payne. “I am so honored to receive their endorsement, and I will continue to be a champion of key environmental priorities in the House of Representatives. I will never stop fighting for clean water for all and will always stand up for vital clean water laws. environmental protection like the Clean Air Act against Republican attacks.

Congressman Payne was recently endorsed by Planned Parenthood Action Fund, New Jersey Education Association, New Jersey Working Families Party, 32BJ SEIU, Communications Workers of America NJ, Labourers’ International North America Eastern Region, New Jersey Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association and AFSCME NJ. He also recently announced support from U.S. Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker as well as Governor Phil Murphy, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop.

About Congressman Payne:

A lifelong Newark resident, Congressman Donald Payne, Jr., is a champion of working families, Democratic values, and fights to provide more opportunities for people in black and brown communities. He is a devoted husband and father and a former union member with a blue-collar background who has immense respect for the dignity of labor and the value of organized labor. A five-term congressman, he was first elected in 2012 to succeed his late father, legendary Representative Donald Payne, Sr., who was the first black congressman in state history. . Congressman Payne is chairman of the Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee on the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over major infrastructure initiatives, including the Gateway Project, which are essential to New Jersey’s economy. Congressman Payne co-authored the House version of President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and supported key progressive legislation like the Build Back Better plan, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the Equality Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and more.

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As New York City reels from the random killings of innocent subway riders and children playing on the streets, Socialist Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing like-minded “defund the police” insurgents to Albany Democrats in primary session, The Post has learned.

The AOC announced on Monday that it is backing a slate of candidates to unseat seven Democratic incumbents in the party’s upcoming June 28 primary election.

In an alliance with the left-leaning Working Families Party, she seeks to defeat longtime incumbents with close ties to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, including fellow Bronx Assemblymen Jeffrey Dinowitz and Michael Benedetto.

Benedetto, a retired teacher first elected in 2004, is challenged by former AOC staffer Jonathan Soto. Benedetto accused the AOC of trying to hijack the Democratic-led Assembly with an anti-public safety agenda.

Almost all of its 82nd Assembly District overlaps with AOC’s Congressional District which includes City Island, Pelham Bay, Throgs Neck, parts of Morris Park and Co-Op City.

“I’m sure the AOC would like to see the Assembly be part of the democratic socialist movement to defund the police,” Benedetto said.

“AOC and its candidates will make New York less safe if they win.”

Yet, he said, AOC and Soto picked the wrong fight in the wrong district.

“The voters in my district are common sense people who are very, very concerned about the quality of life and the safety of the streets and are against a lot of the things Ms. Cortez is making noise about,” Benendetto said.

“I’m ready to fight for the job I love.”

Benedetto, chairman of the education committee, helps Mayor Eric Adams push Albany to renew Hizzoner’s authority to run the city’s public school system — raising the possibility that Adams, an enemy of democratic socialism, supports Benedetto over the AOC candidate.

AOC is also supporting insurgent Jessica Altagracia Woolford in the Riverdale section of the Bronx against party stalwart Jeff Dinowitz in the 81st District that encompasses Riverdale.

Meanwhile, she seeks to defeat Congresswoman Inez Dickens, who has deep ties to the Harlem Democratic establishment, and Eric Dilan, a stalwart of the Brooklyn Democratic Party.

Instead, AOC supports Delsenia Glover, a longtime Harlemite and tenant leader and founding member of the Housing Justice for All coalition, against Dickens.

She also backed Samy Olivares in the 54th AD — who would be the first “genderqueer” state legislator according to the Ocasio-Cortez statement — against Dilan.

The AOC slate also includes immigrant rights organizer and Peekskill resident Vanessa Agudelo, who is running for an empty seat to replace incumbent Sandra Galef, who is not seeking re-election in the 95th AD in the lower valley of l ‘Hudson; Sarahana Shrestha on starting Kevin Cahill in the 103rd AD in the Upper Hudson Valley; and public school teacher Justin Chairs against incumbent Angelo Santabarbara in the Capital Region.

Additionally, she supported Keron Alleyne at 60th AD in Brooklyn, East New York against incumbent Nikki Lucas.

For an open seat in western Queens, she is backing Juan Ardila, who lost a primary to Councilman Robert Holden last year.

“These working-class candidates are running with guaranteed health care, affordable housing and climate justice for every New Yorker, but they face deep pockets: politicians backed by real estate developers, Wall Street and Big Pharma,” Ocasio-Cortez said Monday in the electronic fundraising blitz sent to supporters on behalf of his slate of candidates.

“Can you contribute $28 to these candidates so that we win a New York where everyone is fed, sheltered and cared for? Every dollar counts…. the roadblock to our issues of guaranteed health care, affordable housing, and climate justice are the corporate-backed incumbents in the other body of the state legislature, the New York State Assembly . Until we win a progressive State Assembly, none of our remaining issues will pass.

Seven years after its filing, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has finally released its report into the national climate change inquiry filed by the petitioners to urge the Commission to determine whether the world’s largest producers of fossil fuels and cement (“Carbon Majors”) can be held liable for human rights violations resulting from the impacts of climate change.

The petitioners, made up of climate activists, typhoon survivors, farmers and fishermen, among others, filed the petition at the CHR in an attempt to frame climate change as a human rights issue, and were the first such petition to be accepted by a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI).

Several hearings, submissions and evidence later, the Commission on Human Rights released its 160-page report, which sets out in detail two very important things: one, that climate change is a human rights issue male ; and second, that the Carbon Majors can be held accountable for their human rights abuses. The report may also be cited as precedent in subsequent court cases around the world.

Although released late, the report is a great victory for the environmental and climate justice movement, especially as we strengthen our resolve to address the climate crisis, here in the Philippines and around the world.

Climate change is a human rights issue

A battle cry of many climate activists and environmental workers for years, it is a victory to see human rights institutions recognize this important – and fundamental – truth. Recognizing that climate change is a human rights issue has many implications, including the fact that how to tackle the climate crisis will involve a deep determination to simultaneously protect and promote human rights.

Losses and damages

Perhaps one of the report’s most valuable contributions has been its discussion of loss and damage from climate change, that is, the consequences associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including slow and rapid evolution. It also includes non-economic losses, such as, but not limited to, human health, lives, and loss of cultural identity, among others.

The CHR noted the many impacts of climate change on people’s rights, including but not limited to their rights to life, health (physical and mental), food security, water and sanitation, livelihoods, adequate housing and the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Commendably, the report mentions rights to cultural preservation, noting that “climate change has a particular impact on cultures closely linked to the natural environment”, and using the rituals and cultures of indigenous peoples as examples. .

Furthermore, he spoke about the effects of climate change on equality and non-discrimination, stating that “people who are already socially, economically or otherwise marginalized are the most vulnerable to its impacts due to their high dependence on resources. natural resources, their increased exposure to climate change impacts and the lack of resources to adapt.

Finally, the report examined the impact of climate change on the rights of future generations and intergenerational equity, noting that the lack of urgency in addressing the climate crisis unfairly shifts the burden onto future generations.

State obligations

Next, the report spoke of states’ obligations, providing that a balance between environmental security and other legitimate societal interests “does not result in unwarranted violations of human rights.”

Interestingly, and perhaps a new contribution from the CHR, the report notes that “[a] The State’s legal obligation to respond to climate change is neither directly linked nor proportional to its contribution to climate change. This means that, for example, a country like the Philippines, which contributes only 0.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, has a legal obligation to make progress in responding to and combating climate change. .

Another unpublished discussion was that on the science of attribution. A difficulty in climate litigation is the concept of attribution, which creates a one-to-one correspondence between emission and impact. To this end, the CHR said as follows:[t]Although science cannot yet establish a high degree of accuracy, the causal relationship between GHGs and specific climate-related effects on particular parties is only problematic for establishing legal liability for the purpose of claiming damages. to specific parties, which is a matter for the courts. determine.”

Liabilities of carbon majors

Perhaps one of the most important, if not the main, highlights of the CHR report was the discussion of the responsibility of carbon majors – among others, fossil fuel and agricultural companies – in the context of climate change. He used a study that linked Carbon Majors emissions to the observed increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and an increase in global average temperature, among other things.

To further discuss their responsibilities, the CHR noted that these carbon majors had had early awareness, advice or knowledge of the adverse effects of their products. Further, that these carbon majors have engaged in deliberate obfuscation and obstruction (including the coal industry’s “story of misleading the public about climate science” and efforts carbon majors to sow “doubt and misinformation about climate change”), which, according to the CHR, “undermined the public’s right to make informed decisions about their products, hiding that their products were causing harm important to the environment and the climate system”. The HRC firmly concluded this paragraph by saying that “[a]All of this has served to obscure scientific findings and delay meaningful action on the environment and climate.

The CHR also found that climate denial, or the denial, rejection or doubt that significant climate change is occurring and that much of it is anthropogenic, continues to persist to this day and could also be a source of liability.

CHR said these carbon majors, especially those under Philippine jurisdiction, could be compelled to perform human rights due diligence and provide remedial action.

The recommendations of the CHR

The CHR ended its groundbreaking report with a number of recommendations. Despite the successes of the Paris Agreement, which had as one of its main objectives the limitation of the temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5 degrees, compared to pre-industrial levels, the CHR s is echoed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s report that even if all current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are implemented, “the world will still face a temperature increase of 2.7 degrees by the end of the century”. Therefore, there must be “maximum ambition from all countries on all fronts”.

The Commission further opined that “if the international community takes a business-as-usual approach to climate change, the Philippine experience of the denial of basic rights will become the norm in many countries, if not worse.”

Its recommendations to governments have focused on climate justice, discouraging reliance on fossil fuels and ensuring that all people have the capacity to adapt to climate change, among other things.

Notably, he also recommended that governments, especially developed countries, meet their climate finance commitments and put in place new mechanisms for loss and damage from climate-related events, stressing the need to “a separate funding mechanism for loss and damage xxx to assist developing countries” in addition to climate finance for mitigation and adaptation, a call that environmental workers, especially from climate-vulnerable countries, have made. The fact that this is part of the recommendations is therefore a great victory for climate justice.

Another notable recommendation to governments was to support and provide adequate legal protection to environmental defenders and climate activists, and states are encouraged, for example, to (a) stop qualifying climate defenders, environmental groups and defenders of enemies of the state and other related actions, based on their advocacy for climate action, and (b) prohibit defamation, surveillance, red-tagging, threats of retaliation and other activities that limit the freedom of climate activists and environmental groups.

This is also, again, a new contribution, which recommends that governments include the military in carbon accounting when developing their NDCs.

Where do we go from here?

The CHR report is the first of its kind, and its contribution to the debate on climate change, particularly that on loss and damage, is invaluable. It provided new recommendations, emphasized climate justice and just transition, and defined one by one and in no uncertain terms – rights, obligations and responsibilities.

It can now serve as a precedent and can be cited by courts around the world as we begin to see an increase in climate litigation. We expect that in the months and years to come, more people will come forward to file complaints against Carbon Majors, using the protection of their human rights as a cause of action.

The climate crisis is no longer something to come, it is now with us, and scientists have warned us that the window for climate action is closing fast.

However, all is not lost. We simply need to act urgently, decisively and resolutely. We hope that this report and the recommendations it contains will be a big step in that direction. – Rappler.com

Tony La Viña is the Associate Director of Climate Policy and International Relations at the Manila Observatory. He also teaches law and is a former dean of the Ateneo School of Government.

Joy Reyes is a human rights and climate justice lawyer affiliated with the Manila Observatory.

Yla Paras is a policy expert on traffic regulation and safety affiliated with the Manila Observatory.

NEW JERSEY – The threat of climate change is growing, and while most U.S. power companies are resisting climate policy, that’s not the case in New Jersey. While half of the nation’s largest utilities oppose climate policy, NJ’s own Public Service Energy Group (PSEG) is a leading supporter of climate policy, according to a report by InfluenceMap, a climate think tank.

PSEG ranks third out of the 25 largest publicly traded utilities in terms of climate policy support in InfluenceMap’s report. The organization score is 77% and the intensity of engagement is 55%, which according to InfluenceMap means NJ could have an advantage in adopting the climate policy.

“To make rapid progress on reducing carbon, we need to clean up the power sector. But too many utilities are still slow to act,” said Leah Stokes, associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “This new report from InfluenceMap names names, showing which utilities are leading and which are lagging.”

Utilities have a big influence on climate policy where they operate, the report says. The report quotes the CEO of PSEG in a press release advocating an ambitious climate policy during the COP26 negotiations.

California and Illinois are the other top supporters of climate policy, with Edison International and Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation in California and Exelon in Illinois, according to the report. The lowest scores are CenterPoint Energy (Texas), Southern Company (Georgia), Ameren Corporation (Missouri) and WEC Energy Group (Ohio). The lowest rated utilities oppose climate policies and some even support anti-climate measures.

“Energy utilities – and their trade associations – must align their lobbying with the Paris Agreement goals to keep warming to 1.5°C. This report makes it clear that most are not on the right track. trajectory, and that has to change,” Christina said. Herman, director of the climate and environmental justice program at the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility.

Today, Wednesday 18 May, We Are Lewisham, London Borough of Culture 2022 called for action on the climate emergency, with the launch of a commission program designed to inspire and shock people into action. The event included the unveiling of artist Dryden Goodwin’s Breathe:2022 produced by Invisible Dust, and a panel exploring how arts and culture can inspire climate action, with panelists including artist Dryden Goodwin; co-founder of Choked Up, Anjali Raman-Middleton and Kas Darley, artistic director of Teatro Vivo.

Throughout 2022, a series of art, performance, spoken word and dance events that will highlight critical issues, air pollution and the impact of climate change on communities racialized and working class people, the importance of sustainable living and the future of the earth for young people and generations to come. In a commitment to tackling the pressing environmental crisis in its London Borough of Culture programme, Lewisham has collaborated with many local organizations including Trinity Laban and Lewisham Music.

Launching the program will be artist Dryden Goodwin’s reimagining and extension of his seminal work Breathe 2012 a decade later as a landmark commission for Lewisham, London Borough of Culture, in collaboration with the science organization Invisible Dust and Imperial College London.

Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin is a multi-faceted work combining more than 1,000 new drawings that will appear as still and moving images at sites near the heavily polluted South Circular Route from May 18 through December 2022. Related to the death of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah and the growing battle for climate justice, he connects this global health emergency to the daily lives of local Lewisham residents and activists.

Six people from across the borough testify to the effects of air pollution – and the power of activism – through their bodies and their breathing. Participants from local activist groups including Choked Up, Mums for Lungs, Clean Air for Catford and Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, Ella’s mother and founder of the Ella Roberta Family Foundation, as well as Goodwin’s son, now 15, and a younger schoolboy, were drawn by the Lewisham-based artist as they ‘fight to breathe’.

The Breathe:2022 designs will appear as large-scale zoetropic sequences of posters on railway bridges and the side of Catford’s Old Town Hall. The work will also be presented as still and moving images on a range of JCDecaux road signs, culminating in a large-scale projection animation of over 1,000 drawings in November 2022 to close out the programme. Appearing as a staged visual takeover of the borough over six months, beginning in the muffled underpasses of busy bridges, up to palisades and roadside buildings, and finally projected aloft – Breathe: 2022 asks us both to stay with the claustrophobia of ‘fighting for breath’ but start looking upwards and outwards, towards opportunities for community action and a clean air future for all.

Commissions also include Sun & Sea, the theatrical installation that stunned audiences at the 2019 Venice Biennale, earning its all-female creative team the coveted Golden Lion. The UK premiere will transform Albany’s main house with 13 singers and 10 tons of sand. A new performance, Hope 4 Justice, commissioned by Trinity Laban Conservatory of Music and Dance, will be co-created by composer ESKA, Young Person Poet Laureate Cecilia Knapp, choreographer Sarah Golding and will involve 1,000 young people from across the arrondissement.

Created by Deptford-based Sounds Like Chaos in partnership with Albany, Climate Home will be a new low-carbon creative space designed and built by young people in Lewisham, home to an eclectic program of climate-focused performances and events and led by young creatives. and local partners.

The climate emergency program will include the world premiere of a new site-specific project created by director, co-writer and Lewisham resident Melly Still with composer and co-writer Max Barton. The Gretchen Question is co-commissioned by the Albany for We Are Lewisham and produced by Fuel, and will be presented at Shipwright, a new theater on the grounds of the Master Shipwright’s House.

Meanwhile, Lewisham-based theater company Teatro Vivo have taken up residence in the heart of Lewisham Council as ‘change artists’ within the Climate Emergency Team. Connecting with residents and local groups across the borough on their environmental concerns and hopes for the future, their findings shaped a new performance for June 2022. Taking place on the streets of each of the borough’s 19 neighborhoods , it will feature a professional cast working alongside local community groups.

There will also be a new collaboration between visual artists Ackroyd & Harvey and performance poet Zena Edwards – and a first London release of Greek artist Andreas Angelidarkis’ installation Seawall.

Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries, said: “The power of arts and culture to inspire change is immense and Breathe:2022 is a great example of this work in action.

“This exciting series of artworks tackles big issues that affect Lewisham residents and the wider community with impactful and creative installations that will encourage us all to reflect on the importance of a sustainable way of life.

“Throughout the year, art, performance, spoken word and dance events will give communities a voice, showing that culture is for everyone – and that is exactly what the London Borough of Culture program!”

Shirley Rodrigues, Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy, said: “Cities have a vital role to play in tackling air pollution and the climate emergency and it’s great to see Lewisham to take action and raise awareness of both dangers as part of their year as London Borough of Culture.These commissions will help highlight the devastating effects of air quality and climate change on the lives of Londoners, especially for already vulnerable communities.

Gavin Barlow, CEO and Artistic Director of the Albany, said: “It’s a fantastic program, bringing together acclaimed international pieces such as Sun & Sea and NEST Collective, as well as highlighting the grassroots activism that is taking place right here in our borough thanks to the involvement of local actors. school children, young people and creative people. The climate emergency affects us all and this is an opportunity to come together and draw attention to the positive actions that we can all do something to make a difference.”

Vicki Amedume, Albany’s Creative Director, said, “I’m so proud of the program we’ve been able to curate, with incredibly impactful pieces popping up across the borough. We believe culture and creativity can bring real change on urgent issues around social justice and the climate crisis.”

Damien Egan, Mayor of Lewisham, said; “”We are delighted to welcome Dryden Goodwin’s Breathe: 2022 here to Lewisham. This world-renowned art installation reminds us how important clean air is to our environment. This kick off kicks off our London culture borough on climate change and we have more events to come throughout the year.”

The Climate Emergency program is part of We Are Lewisham, London Borough of Culture 2022, presented by Lewisham Council and Albany.

The California Coastal Commission last week unanimously rejected a private company’s proposal to build a desalination plant southeast of Los Angeles capable of producing 50 million gallons of fresh water a day.

The commission cited environmental and economic costs in refusing the plan, ranging from marine life killed during water intake to rising water bills and rising sea levels.

“I can’t find a way to say that this type of harm to marine life is acceptable,” Commissioner Dayna Bochco said at the spirited meeting.

As drought rages across the western United States, purifying seawater could provide an unlimited supply of clean drinking water, especially as the climate crisis worsens in the coming years, a argues Poseidon, the company behind the proposal. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom also backed the proposal.

“California continues to face a punishing drought with no end in sight,” Poseidon communications director Jessica Jones said in a statement after the commission’s decision. “Every day we see new calls for conservation as reservoir levels drop to dangerous levels. We strongly believe that this desalination project would have created a sustainable, drought-resistant source of water.

The proposed facility in Huntington Beach would join another desalination plant further south in San Diego County, which supplies a tenth of the region’s water.

Most of California remains in severe drought. Snowfall is well below average, while the western reservoirs are at record levels. States will have to find new sources of water and put in place potentially drastic restrictions on water consumption, experts warn.

But environmental groups have strongly opposed the planned $1.4 billion seawater desalination plant in Huntington Beach, arguing that the purification process is not only too energy-intensive, but also kills essential marine life. to the local ecosystem.

Environmental activists celebrated the decision.

“The Commission has shown that the State of California Environmental Justice Laws and the Environmental Justice Policy of the Commission itself are not just words on a page, but living, breathing promises to do what which was fair, despite political pressure,” said Andrea Leon. -Grossman, director of climate action for Azul, a Latino-led ocean conservation organization, in a statement.

Prior to the meeting, Coast Commission staff advised against the proposal, stating in a 200-page report that the economic and environmental costs were too high to justify the desalination plant. Water bills were expected to rise in the area, angering advocates for low-income communities. Rising sea levels have also threatened the facility.

The City of Seattle has set the bold goal of achieving 30% tree cover by 2037 to increase the environmental, social and economic benefits that trees bring to Seattle residents. The Urban Forestry Commission (UFC) is made up of thirteen members, six appointed by the mayor, six appointed by the city council, and one (position #9) is elected by the Urban Forestry Commission. Commissioners have knowledge in the areas specific to the position they are applying for, including skills such as architecture, environmental justice, ecology, community outreach, etc. For more information

Newly confirmed UFC members include:

Hao Liang:

Hao Liang is a landscape architect. He devotes his academic and professional interests to design, cultural landscape, urban forestry and marginalized communities. As a designer, he thinks transversally about social and environmental issues at different scales. He worked on a wide range
of projects including public spaces, green infrastructure, campus planning, commercial development and residential design. Hao enjoys the collaborative process, learning from communities and observing the daily changes in our built environment. In the context of the Commission on Urban Forestry, Hao sees identity, inclusion and equity as located at different levels on a given topic, namely policy, planning, design, practice and awareness. . Hao is familiar with planning studies and design implementations. He will strive to communicate his specialty to others, facilitate the process when he can, and encourage everyone to participate. Hao is appointed for the remainder of a three-year term ending March 31, 2024.

Rebecca B. Neumann

Dr. Neumann leads the Hydro-Biogeochemistry Research Group in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington. The group studies the transport and reaction of chemicals in the environment, addressing topics relevant to society, such as food and water quality and global climate change. Dr. Neumann was the 2018 recipient of the American Geophysical Union’s Charles S. Falkenberg Award, which recognizes “an early-career scientist who has contributed to the quality of life, economic opportunity and stewardship of the planet through to the use of Earth scientific information.” Prior to UW, Dr. Neumann worked as a NOAA Postdoctoral Fellow on Climate and Global Change at Harvard University in the Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology. She holds a doctorate in environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in civil and environmental engineering and art and art history from Rice University. the mountains with her husband and two children. Rebecca is appointed for the remainder of a three-year term ending March 31, 2024.

Lia Room

Lia Hall was born and raised in Seattle in an ethnically and culturally mixed family. After a short coming of age in New York, she returned to the Emerald City of her youth. She resides in Rainier Beach near her sanctuary, Kubota Garden. Along with her husband/business partner, Cedar, they have two young children and run a neon sign shop primarily producing signs for small businesses in and around Seattle. Lia has also taught yoga classes since 2006, prioritizing classes for BIPOC communities and pregnant women. She has a permaculture landscape design certification from Seattle Tilth and is passionate about planting, propagating and sharing native plants. Lia wants to help align our city with its sustainability goals by championing our tree parents while ensuring our community members have a voice. She believes we can all have a fairer, happier, and healthier future if we plan and design for the needs of a growing city while protecting our urban forests. Lia is appointed for the remainder of a three-year term ending March 31, 2024.

Joseph Sisneros

Joe Sisneros holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and Resource Management from the University of Washington, with a concentration in the Sustainable Forest Management option. He has field and research experience in forestry and riparian restoration. Born in the Coast Salish lands and raised in what is now Everett, WA, Joe enjoys backpacking, reading, and enjoying live music. With formal training in forest ecology and oceanography, Joe has an immense appreciation for the ecology of the Pacific Northwest and a deep passion for the people who inhabit this incredibly special part of our Earth. Joseph is appointed for the remainder of a three-year term ending March 31, 2023.

Falisha Kurji

Falisha Kurji (they/she) graduated from the University of Florida with a major in sociology and sustainability studies. They are deeply passionate about the intersections of environmental and social justice and seek to advocate for access to green spaces for BIPOC, low-income, and homeless communities. They are an alumnus of the University of Washington’s Doris Duke Conservation Scholars program, where they developed a strong foundation and experience working on environmental justice issues. They are currently Community Partnerships Coordinators at the Seattle Parks Foundation, where they work with various community-led groups that work to create safe and accessible public green spaces. In their spare time, they enjoy learning ethnobotany, connecting with their South Asian heritage, and dancing. Falisha is appointed for a three-year term ending March 31, 2025.

Joshua N. Morris

Joshua is the Urban Conservation Manager at Seattle Audubon. In his role, Joshua leads the engagement on
local conservation issues and coordinates coalition building, advocacy and awareness to support
conservation priorities that include our urban trees. Joshua holds a Master of Arts in International Environmental Policy and brings over ten years of professional and volunteer experience in environmental conservation to the Urban Forestry Commission. He is appointed for a second term ending March 31, 2025.

Learn more about Seattle’s urban forestry efforts at Seattle’s Trees for Seattle website and the Urban Forestry Commission website.

Since Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, the fate of the Amazon and its indigenous peoples has been hanging by a thread. With the executive, legislature and judiciary having now decimated the environmental agenda, Brazil’s paths to a greener future look bleak.

In 2021, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached its highest level since 2006, while illegal mining in legally protected Yanomami indigenous lands increased by 46%. This gold mining led not only to malaria and mercury exposure, but also to unprecedented violence against indigenous peoples. In 2019, 277 cases of such violence were recorded, including 113 murders, 33 death threats, 16 cases of racist and ethnocultural discrimination and 10 cases of sexual violence.

The exploitation and destruction of the largest tropical forest in the world is based on well-known methods. For starters, Bolsonaro’s government neutralized agencies created to protect the environment and indigenous peoples. These include the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, and the National Indigenous Foundation.

The current administration has weakened these agencies in part by not applying environmental fines: since 2019, 98% of administrative proceedings relating to environmental offenses have been paralyzed. Funding to prevent and control forest fires has been cut by around 38% compared to 2018. The government has also intimidated and sacked officials for being proactive in enforcing environmental law, and legalizing the actions of squatters and land grabbers on indigenous lands.

Bolsonaro is pursuing a no-prisoners approach to overturning hard-won rights. Dismantling the authority of monitoring and protection agencies, creating rules to hinder environmental sanction processes and capturing institutions takes time and requires a permissive institutional framework.

Bolsonaro is not silent on this. He publicly urges the invasion of native lands, saying they should be occupied for mining, farming, and ranching. It is no coincidence that invasions, illegal mining and deforestation of indigenous lands have increased sharply – and gone unpunished – since 2019.

The president’s allies hold key positions in Brazil’s Congress, where landowners and agribusiness are strongly represented. The “rural caucus” currently controls 245 of the 513 seats in the chamber. Congress is working on a series of controversial bills that will most likely destroy natural resources and erode institutional safeguards, with disastrous consequences for the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples.

For example, Bill 2159/21 will abolish environmental licensing. Bills 2633/20 and 510/21 encourage the illegal occupation of public lands, Bill 6299/02 facilitates the approval of pesticides and Bill 490/07 adopts a time limit (marco temporal) criterion – October 5, 1988, the date on which the Brazilian Federal Constitution was promulgated – as a condition for delimiting indigenous lands. Finally, Bill 191/20 authorizes mining and hydroelectric dams on indigenous lands and was recently fast-tracked through Congress with little debate or transparency.

For those seeking to preserve Brazil’s priceless natural resources and protect its indigenous peoples, the judiciary should be the natural forum of last resort. Brazil’s Supreme Court, or STF, currently has to rule on seven lawsuits, known as the “green case”, challenging the government’s environmental record. But while final decisions are pending, the contrasting initial votes from two judges highlight the obstacles facing the green case.

Judge Cármen Lúcia compared the government’s attacks on the green agenda to a “colony of termites”, pointing to the effectiveness of the assault in destroying protective mechanisms and, ultimately, democracy itself. But Lúcia also went further, saying the government’s failure to protect the environment had created an “unconstitutional situation”.

As César Rodríguez-Garavito of New York University explains, such a statement may involve the court ordering “various government agencies to take coordinated action to protect the entire affected population and not just specific plaintiffs.” in the case”.

A decision of this nature invites several challenges, including from critics of judicial activism. But in the face of a systemic failure deliberately caused by elected institutions and an environmental emergency directly affecting the survival of Brazilian indigenous groups, the STF should assume its constitutional role.

Unfortunately, Lúcia’s promising decision was suspended by a single judge, André Mendonça, a recent Bolsonaro named who was previously his justice minister. According to STF’s practice, there is no time limit for reconsidering a suspended prosecution. Only Mendonca can decide if and when the STF will consider the case – a mechanism that is widely seen as a form of veto that undermines the court’s legitimacy.

The remaining hope lies in the mobilization of Brazilian civil society before the presidential and legislative elections in October. During the recent 18th Acampamento Terra Livre, a historic event for indigenous resistance and the struggle for rights, around 8,000 indigenous people from all over the country occupied the seat of the federal government in Brasilia. For the first time, Indigenous Mobilization brought institutional politics to the fore, pre-dropping congressional candidates with the slogan ” Retomando o Brasil: demarcar territórios e aldear a política‘ (“Taking Back Brazil: Delimiting Territories and Reshaping Politics with Villages”).

On April 12, former president and current candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the camp and promised to demarcate indigenous territories and respect International Labor Organization Convention 169, if elected. . That promise might not be enough, given the pressing environmental crisis, but upward pressure is currently all we have.

Bolsonaro’s authoritarianism will lead to a highly polarized election. He repeatedly questions the legitimacy of Brazil’s electronic ballots. With increasing deforestation in the Amazon, global hope for climate justice is as threatened as Brazilian democracy.

Danielle Hanna Rached is Professor of International Law at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro. Marta Machado, professor at the Faculty of Law of the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, is a researcher at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning and a researcher at the Center for Law and Social Transformation. Denise Vitale is a professor of human sciences and international relations at the Federal University of Bahia.

© Syndicate Project 2022

www.project-syndicate.org

Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said on Sunday that India’s per capita carbon emissions are among the lowest in the world and that industrialized Western countries would bear the bulk of the financial burden of the fight against climate change.

Addressing the “Conference on Environmental Diversity and Environmental Jurisprudence: National and International Perspective” at the University of Chandigarh, the Minister also stressed the need to strike a balance between development and environment.

He said that India’s environmental legislation and policy is not only about protection and conservation but also “equity and justice”.

“There can be no environmental justice and equity if those most affected by environmental protection measures are those who are not responsible for the problem.

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“It works both globally and locally: India’s per capita carbon emissions are among the lowest in the world (two tons) and therefore Western industrialized countries would have to bear the bulk of the financial burden of the fight against climate change,” the minister said in a statement. as told.

Yadav also spoke of “waves of environmental litigation over the years that have become detrimental to development.”

“Society should prosper, but not at the expense of the environment, and likewise the environment should be protected, but not at the expense of development. The need of the hour is to strike a balance between the two,” he said. Yadav said the latest IPCC Working Group III report justifies India’s focus on equity.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body responsible for assessing climate change.

“Equity remains central to the UN climate regime, despite changes in differentiation between states over time and difficulties in assessing equitable shares,” the minister quoted in the report.

He said that India had the largest number of forest dependent communities in the world and their livelihoods, culture and existence depended on access to forest.

“In our zeal to protect forests, we cannot ignore the existence of so many communities living in forests. It is for this reason that Western ideas of conservation, which exclude local people, can have serious ramifications for the rights of forest-dependent communities,” Yadav added.

“Similarly, our coastal areas provide livelihoods for the world’s largest fishing communities whose very existence depends on the integrity of coastal areas. Therefore, while it is important to focus on building climate resilience infrastructure in coastal areas, it is equally important to ensure that no negative impacts are caused to those whose livelihoods depend on the coasts,” he said.

Yadav pointed out that environmental law, despite its development in recent times, is still in its infancy.

“The concept of accountability needs to be developed both nationally and internationally. Environmental jurisprudence still focuses on punishing the polluter or the poacher at the local level, while the reality of climate change, ocean and air pollution forces us to design mechanisms that can go beyond national borders.

“This is crucial given that there is a limited mechanism to hold polluters accountable if the origin is not in the country,” he said.

The minister also commended the judiciary for its important role in addressing environmental issues.

“Industrialization and environmental preservation are two conflicting interests and their harmonization is a major challenge before the country’s judicial system and governance system,” he said.

Yadav said the focus should be on “conscious and deliberate” use of resources, not “reckless and destructive consumption”.

“We must protect the environment, not just for future generations but also for the current generation, after all there is only one planet and there is no planet B. The time has come to think collectively,” he said.

(Except for the title, this story has no editing by federal government staff and is published automatically from a syndicated feed.)

The children, many of whom wore uniforms and skipped school to attend the protest, chanted “We f***ing hate gas” and shouted demands for “climate justice”.

“We are here today because our future is being sold by those responsible…serving the interests of fossil fuel companies rather than honoring their duty of care to young people,” Bailey Linton-Simpkins told the crowd. , 17 years. .

He wore a green Epping Boys blazer and shared the stage with fellow School Strike 4 Climate organizer Natasha Abhayawickrama.

“In a climate crisis, don’t trust adults to control the situation,” said 17-year-old Ms Abhayawickrama.

Adults also attended, including Greens leader Adam Bandt, who said the protesters were “heroes”.

“I challenge Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese to come to this rally and tell the students that the opening of new coal and gas mines is a good thing,” he told reporters at the rally.

“Liberal and Labor climate goals both mean the end of the Great Barrier Reef and a brighter future for these students.”

While many student protesters are too young to vote in elections, Bandt predicted the movement would still have an impact.

“This election, expect to see a huge uprising at the ballot box, as more and more young people vote Green to keep coal and gas in the ground.”

High school students Sophia Lark, 17, Fedora Hamori, 17, Lourdes Moya Jones, 16 and Elena Parker, 16 said the fact that they could not vote was one of the main reasons they decided to walk.

“We don’t have a voice, but that’s how we get one,” Ms. Lark said.

“We really rely on other people to vote on our behalf so that we have a future.”