Mother Nature would like a word with us
NEWSLETTER, September 2024—CCI report provides insights to achieve Sustainable Development Goals; Climate Diplomacy workshops; Rachel Kyte named as UK climate envoy
Regarding climate change, humanity has kicked the can down the road for several decades now, and the consequences of inaction have been devastating in many nations, particularly in places where most people lack the resources to adapt to a hotter world. In more affluent countries such consequences have failed to generate the sense of urgency required to respond to the climate crisis with an “all hands on deck” approach. Too hot outside? Turn on the air conditioner. Home damaged from a storm? File an insurance claim. There’s been a false sense of security making people think that drastic measures were unnecessary, that we had the ability to recover from weather-related disasters or, worst case, move to safer places. But Mother Nature is shattering that delusion. Extreme weather disasters are outpacing our ability to recover, and the notion that there are “safe” havens from climate change is proving to be wishful thinking. In late September, Hurricane Helene, strengthened by heat from the Gulf of Mexico, quickly went from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm before slamming into Florida’s Bend near Tallahassee. But the damage wasn’t contained to the coastal area of Florida. Helene cut a swath of destruction through Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia, claiming more than 200 lives and producing biblical floods that leveled towns in its path. Indeed, Mother Nature is telling us there is no place safe from climate change. To preserve a livable world we need to reimagine our priorities to better protect the things we value.
CCI report provides insights to achieve Sustainable Development Goals
Last month, as the Summit of the Future adopted a new Pact for the Future in New York, Citizens’ Climate International released its 2024 Reinventing Prosperity Report — “Beyond the Horizon: Priorities for a Livable Future” — which provides insights from stakeholders around the world on how efforts should be focused to provide a prosperous, equitable and sustainable world for everyone. Over 18 months, CCI ran a focused consultation on Priorities for a Livable Future and received input from more than 75 contributors in 23 countries. Chapters providing guiding insights from stakeholders and a call for solidarity and good governance were published ahead of the Summit. As the report notes, we did this “because we believe it is essential to bring outside voices into the halls of power and to provide local, values-based insights to intergovernmental meetings like the United Nations Summit of the Future.”
“The overriding insight from the report is the need to rethink how the world defines prosperity,” said Joe Robertson, Executive Director of Citizens’ Climate International. “Given the threat that climate change poses to the well-being of people and the livability of many places on the planet, all policies and investments must consider climate value. In other words, the future depends on whether we really measure what is at stake in our decision-making, whether overarching and everyday decisions will worsen or improve climate-related risk and cost.”
Climate Diplomacy workshops
With the COP29 climate conference coming up in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Nov. 11, CCI is again teaming up with the Fletcher School at Tufts University to offer the Earth Diplomacy Leadership workshops, with five sessions starting on Oct. 21. Here’s a quick look at what the sessions will cover:
The Process: We will review the history and the formal segments of the UNFCCC negotiating process, and suggest strategies for navigating the many overlapping areas of work under negotiation.
The Stakes: Failure to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the global increase to 1.5° C could result in a future where billions of people find themselves in an unlivable climate.
The COP29 Agendas & Enhanced Cooperation: This session will focus on a few key items across those 5 agendas at the conference, which can play a role in supporting enhanced multilateral cooperation.
The Mutual Gains Approach: This approach to negotiation works differently and entails more detailed preparation than the standard approach of pushing a narrow national agenda.
Pre-COP29 Check-in + Q&A: In this session, we will review some of the practicalities of the COP29 negotiating environment, have an open question and answer segment, and provide updates based on prior discussions and the evolving landscape of expected outcomes.
Register now to reserve your spot for this exclusive training.
Rachel Kyte named as UK climate envoy
Speaking of the Climate Diplomacy workshops, Rachel Kyte has been appointed to be the climate envoy for the United Kingdom. Rachel was Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 2022 when CCI teamed up with the Fletcher School to launch the Earth Diplomacy Leadership Initiative. In a keynote speech delivered at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby international conference in June of 2023, she warned that “green hushing” could inhibit the progress businesses are making to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adopt more sustainable practices. Never one to shy away from speaking her mind, she minced few words about efforts to intimidate companies trying to improve their performance on environmental, social and corporate governance:
“The woke capital backlash, dear friends, is unmistakably coming from the same people who won’t say gay and the same people who want to control women’s bodies. This is not about the efficacy of the financial system. It is not about the sustainability of our communities. It is not about the financial system. It’s about control. So don’t mistake it. Don’t think you can logically explain it away. It is what it is, and it requires a political response.”
In a recently posted statement, CCI Executive Director Joe Robertson said, “We know Rachel Kyte as a skilled diplomat who leads by welcoming—inviting leaders, stakeholders, experts, as well as the young, marginal, and vulnerable, to come together to share insights, to gain understanding, and to achieve more together.”
Updates
Lobbying in Nigeria: CCI volunteers in the Abuja chapter of Nigeria met last month to strategize and plan ways to get the climate income policy — which prices carbon and gives revenue to households — introduced and passed in the Nigerian Parliament.
Media success in Canada: CCL Canada published op-eds in three outlets — Doppler Online, Milton Today, and Sudbury.com — tied to the Summit of the Future and the impact climate change has on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Canadians celebrate the rebate: More than 400 Canadians sent letters to their members of Parliament in support of their nation’s Carbon Rebate.
Food security in Zimbabwe: The Manica Youth Assembly in Zimbabwe (above), led by CCI volunteer Jussa Kudherezera, convened a stakeholders meeting with other organizations to develop a joint action plan focused on addressing urban food systems challenges.
More climate-related disaster: The U.S. is not the only place where the impact of climate change is being felt. In Acapulco, Mexico, Hurricane John hit less than a year after Hurricane Otis devastated the region. Fires in Brazil are currently choking 80% of the population with smoke, causing widespread health issues. In Kathmandu, hundreds were tragically killed after enduring the most intense rains in over half a century.
Côte d'Ivoire: In late September, our leader in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, Roland Dedi, along with the Réseau des Jeunes pour le Développement Communautaire, participated in an important activity to raise awareness and collect plastic waste (below) on Port-Bouet Beach.
Pathway to Paris ten years on
September 23, 2024, marked the tenth anniversary of the launch of the Pathway to Paris, which was designed to contribute to the process of shaping the historic Paris Agreement that nations of the world would sign on to a year later. The Citizens’ Climate international program, which became an independent nonprofit (Citizens’ Climate International) in 2021, organized and steered the effort. Volunteer work streams were created to focus on key areas of policy. Consultations with experts, volunteers, and with leaders engaged in multilateral finance and in the climate negotiations led to the PARIS Principles, aimed at facilitating cohesion and alignment between different carbon pricing policies. In December 2015, the CCL International Program, working through the Pathway to Paris initiative, coordinated a civil society team of 51 in Paris, to support the delivery of stakeholder insights into the Paris Climate Conference. Among their many activities, they held the first meeting of the Citizens’ Climate Engagement Network, which launched during the Minneapolis 2015 conference. A lasting legacy of the Pathway to Paris is the Engage4Climate Toolkit, which provides adaptable meeting design concepts and substantive guidance to stakeholders anywhere in the world wishing to organize meetings to assess, consult, and deliver local insights into policy processes.
