|
Welcome,
Guest
|
Topic: Avoiding climate catastrophe: Implications for cities
Avoiding climate catastrophe: Never too small to make a difference
19 Dec 2018 19:38
#4328
|
[Original article]
|
|
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation. |
"You say you love your children above everything else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes."
Greta is absolutely right, the leaders of almost all the world's countries - if not in Trump-style denial - are simply shying away from taking the necessary steps to cut back greenhouse gas emissions. They are, understandably, afraid of the reaction of their countries' people when they are told that they need to make drastic lifestyle changes to avoid catastrophe.
Avoiding climate catastrophe: Never too small to make a difference
31 Dec 2018 16:19
#4329
|
It was the veteran Labour politician Denis Healey who said "if you're in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging!"
We are still digging the hole that is climate change by emitting ever more greenhouse gases - up 2% last year alone. And are making commitments to keep doing so. These commitments are our investments in high carbon infrastructure such as gas-fired powers stations, HS2 and, of course, airports. In London the most absurd of these is the Silvertown road tunnel. Everyone who cares about protecting the climate must oppose the Silvertown tunnel as much as they support cycling and public transport. |
|
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation. |
Avoiding climate catastrophe: Implications for cities
15 Jan 2019 15:40
#4347
Eighteen of the authors representing all five chapters of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR1.5) have produced a Summary for Urban Policymakers to translate the report’s key scientific findings and policy observations for officials and policymakers of the world’s cities and urban areas. Download the summary here The summary concludes as follows: AN OPPORTUNITY THAT MUST BE SEIZED OVER THE NEXT TWO DECADES. The impacts of climate change will be experienced in the next decades by the world’s 8 billion people, most of them in cities. Urban policymakers play a key role in adapting to and driving solutions to climate change, but they must act fast and cannot do it alone. The impacts of and solutions to climate change will be experienced by the entire world in the next decades, with upwards of 70% of the global population living in cities and urban areas. Unchecked, climate change will subject global and local ecosystems to increasing levels of risk, threatening to undo much of the economic and social progress, albeit uneven, since the end of World War II and the formation of the United Nations. Many of these risks will coalesce in cities and urban areas. Cities are key implementers of policy steps to meet this challenge and exhibit the necessary political leadership to do so. Urban systems have the power to amplify or reduce the impacts associated with 1.5°C of warming or any breaching of that threshold. Successful city-level climate action strategies are at work today, and they are being advanced regionally and internationally through city networks. Some cities are within regions that have already exceeded 1.5°C and have been forced to adapt, affording them experiences that can be shared with, adapted for, or replicated in other cities. But city action alone will not be sufficient. Limiting warming to 1.5°C will require immediate action within and across sectors, as well as multilevel governance. It will require rapid and far-reaching systems transitions in energy and industry, land use and ecosystems, urban and infrastructure, linked to the implementation of the SDGs. Cities offer many of the most readily-available, feasible, and cost-effective options for these transitions. The tools are at hand. We possess the material basis and policy solutions for transformations and system changes in the direction of greater sustainability, inclusion, and resilience. Urban policymakers must seize the opportunity to meet the defining challenge of the planet, not in the distant future but, as the SR1.5 makes clear, within the next two decades. |
|
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation. |
Avoiding climate catastrophe: Never too small to make a difference
04 Jan 2020 20:16
#5076
|
Here we are at the beginning of another year shortly after climate scientists worldwide published another batch of forecasts warning that, in the absence of a major and early reduction in carbon emissions, climate catastrophe is inevitable. As ever Greta Thunberg has backed that up with her own message, whilst reminding us that it will be her generation and later which will suffer the greatest consequences.
So are you expecting that our Government/other Governments will actually do something? Well, a few years back UK action was promised following earlier warnings backed by Parliament, but in terms of real endeavour nothing of consequence happened: little insulation has been installed to reduce housing emissions, petrol/diesel cars have got bigger and much more numerous, road deliveries are more frequent, not a lot of UK rail electrification has been achieved, lots of electricity is still generated from fossil fuels (I believe a new such UK generator is planned; it's under construction I think). Personal changes to lifestyle seem to have added even more emissions due to more frequent travel, compounded by more flying which would be better reduced considerably. And then there the deniers, famously including a certain Donald Trump who doesn't believe the science. Personally I feel pleased I've lived when I have. |
|
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation. |
Moderators: PGC Webmaster, Basil Clarke
Time to create page: 0.122 seconds