Rdg 2018 #TheCityWeNeed

Climate Change Centre Reading – CCCRdg strongly advise Reading Council to enroll the green process to become a sustainable place, get on-board the European Green Capital Award! More than 1000 grassroots organisations in Rdg would back the council in forming first non-dividend post-carbon economy net-borough. Every missed opportunity adding up to #climatechange. It is #TimetoAct.

Where’s Reading Heading #wrh Rdg CAN!

– Have a well-established record of achieving high environmental objectives.

– Commit to ambitious goals for future environmental improvement and sustainable development.

– Inspire other cities through new ideas, best practices and experiences.

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The Commission has launched the search for the 2018 European Green Capital. The award is given to a European city that has demonstrated a well-established record of achieving high environmental standards and is committed to ongoing and ambitious goals for future sustainable development. Cities across Europe with more than 100,000 inhabitants are eligible to apply for the title. ?#?EUGreenWeek? Find out more here:http://ec.europa.eu/…/eur…/launch-of-the-2018-egc/index.html

African Development Bank – Election of the President #AfDBAM2015 : Statement by Cristina Duarte, Minister of Finance and Planning, Republic of Cape Verde

African Development Bank – Election of the President: Statement by Cristina Duarte, Minister of Finance and Planning, Republic of Cape Verde

“Our agenda should aim at ending the management of poverty to focus on the creation and better management of resources in Africa” ??- Cristina Duarte

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, May 29, 2015 / African Press Organization (APO) / Statement by Cristina Duarte, Minister of Finance and Planning, Republic of Cape Verde ( http://www.minfin.gov.cv ):

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture of Nigeria, was elected May 28, 2015 as the future President of the African Development Bank (ADB). I congratulate him and his country.

Logo: http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/plog-content/images/apo/logos/cape-verde.png

Photo: http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/index.php?level=picture&id=2022
(Cristina Duarte,  Ministre des Finances et du Plan, République du Cap Vert )

At the same time, I want to thank all the governments and peoples who have supported my candidature for this competition. It is with humility that I received your support. The same inside me when I started this race. I also thank my compatriots and the government of my country brought me to this position. I would like to thank of course the various candidates who took part in this democratic and transparent process that has enabled Africa to show the way forward. This is a victory for Africa.

It is now time to return to work. As a pan-Africanist, I will continue to be engaged in the causes of Bad and contribute within the limits of my ability to support its new President as well as to push for the necessary reforms to ensure nature of our bank has the catalyst status for the transformation of Africa.

This will require that we strengthen the progress made over the last 50 years while taking into account emerging issues. In this regard, we must build a bank based on merit, having an intense focus on results and development impact, effectiveness and efficiency as a record dialogue and provision of quality advice to African governments. The African Development Bank must become innovative and we must rely on the ability of the bank to be a capacity-sharing partners and force-party stakeholders, including African governments, development agencies and partners private sector, commercial banks and civil society. This is set to face the great challenges of our time on regional integration, strengthening the status of women, the promotion of science and technology, issues of insularity, climate change or the fragility of States.

In sum, our agenda should aim at putting an end to the management of poverty to focus on the creation and better management of resources in Africa. In this regard, I will devote a significant part of my energy to contribute to ensure that the aspirations of a billion Africans for a new African dawn, a continent at peace with himself, who participated in the global competition on a level equality with other actors, an Africa able to take charge, make this a reality!

Long live Africa! God bless Africa!

Cristina Duarte

Minister of Finance and Planning

Republic of Cape Verde

Distributed by APO (African Press Organization) for the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Republic of Cape Verde.

 

Source: African Development Bank – Election of the President: Statement by Cristina Duarte, Minister of Finance and Planning, Republic of Cape Verde | Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source

Solving climate change is possible- but only if we believe it is | Notes from the Anthropocene

Over Christmas I had a interesting conversation that got me thinking. I was chatting with someone about climate change, and we agreed on a lot. They accepted the science, and understood that it spelt disaster for future generations. But we differed on one crucial point: whether we could actually do anything about it.

Climate catastrophe is inevitable, they said, because governments would not take meaningful action to cut carbon emissions. They ‘couldn’t see the point’ of the global climate marches in September, because politicians ‘wouldn’t listen’. It was ‘too late’ for us to do anything about it, because we’d just be ‘moving deckchairs on the Titanic.’

In my view, this is the most dangerous type of climate scepticism there is. The flat-earthers who question the science are becoming increasing irrelevant, and the ‘no-alternative to fossil fuel’ crowd are seeing their arguments weaken with every new solar panel or wind turbine installed. But what do you say to someone who acknowledges the problem but simply doesn’t believe in the solution?

I can think of three reasons why someone might believe that climate change is inevitable. Firstly, they might think we’ve already burned enough fossil fuels to lock in climate catastrophe. Secondly, they might believe the technical solutions are beyond us. And thirdly, they may believe that while we have the technical capacity to avoid climate change, we lack the political agency to force the issue onto the agenda. All three are wrong.

Let’s start with the idea that we’ve already emitted too much carbon. To force 2C of global warming, the internationally agreed (and heavily contested) limit for ’safe’ global temperature rise, we’d need to release approximately a trillion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. But if you look at how much carbon we’ve actually emitted, you find we’ve released 60% of this amount. At current emissions rates, assuming we don’t cross unpredictable tipping points beforehand, we won’t technically be ‘too late’ to avoid dangerous climate change until September 2039, when we’ll release the trillionth tonne of carbon. And if we cut emissions by about 2.6% a year, starting today, we’d never reach that limit at all.

What about the argument that while we can cut emissions in theory, we don’t have any viable alternatives? Well, the latest report from the IPCC looks at precisely this question, and concludes that a transformation to clean energy is not only possible, but can be achieved without any dip in living standards. This is important, because one of the barriers to people supporting climate action is the mistaken belief, propagated by climate deniers, that a sustainable world will mean giving up modern life.

The IPCC shows this to be the nonsense it is. The report found we could completely abandon fossil fuels by transitioning to a cleaner mix of solar, wind, hydropower, nuclear, and biofuels while improving energy efficiency. So a sustainable energy revolution is entirely possible, and what’s more, it wouldn’t even cost that much: the report found the necessary investment would trim just 0.06% off annual economic growth rates.

But this rosy scenario comes with comes with a big caveat. None of this will happen without a significant shift in political momentum, which brings us to the third cause for climate pessimism – the idea that, even if we accept we have both the time and the tools to transform the global energy system, our politicians will never make the commitments required.

After all, for governments working on five-year election cycles, tackling threat of climate change is a nightmare – the issue is remote in time and space, impersonal, requires unprecedented international cooperation, costs money, and delivers no immediate benefits to the electorate. When you add in the immense pressure exerted by the fossil fuel lobby to maintain the status quo, you begin to see how the single most pressing issue facing humankind has remained at the bottom of the political to-do list.

But it doesn’t have to stay there, because in the world’s growing number of democracies, politicians are bound by public opinion: they can only ignore us if we fail to build the critical mass required to turn tomorrow’s climate crisis into today’s political hot potato. If we accept that man-made climate change is the threat the science tells us it is, and that politicians aren’t doing enough to counter it, it follows that must ask ourselves a simple question: have we taken political action to bring us closer to a solution?

If everyone who believes that the British government isn’t doing enough on climate change (78% according to this poll) were able to answer yes to this question, the issue would be at the top of the political agenda. So we face a choice: we can stay locked in the learned helplessness of political disengagement, afraid that our voices won’t be heard, that our fears for the future do not count, and be proven right by our own apathy. Or we can get out there and start doing something.

Abraham Lincoln, a man with a better grasp of politics than most, once observed: “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.” In other words, we’ll get the politics, and the future, we deserve. A better world only becomes possible when we believe it is.

Source: Solving climate change is possible- but only if we believe it is | Notes from the Anthropocene

Where’s Reading Heading?

In August 2014, Reading Museum secured a second round of funding from the Happy Museum Project.

Our new project, ‘Where’s Reading Heading?’ looks at the past, present and future development of Reading. It seeks to provoke debate about how Reading will sustain a growing population and build a successful low carbon economy whilst ‘Narrowing the Gaps’ between different sectors in our communities.

Current work being led by the University of Reading, Reading UK CIC and Barton Wilmore, through the Reading 2050 initiative, envisages a smart and sustainable future for Reading. This will involve communities coming together to influence how the town will evolve in the decades ahead.

To promote debate the Museum asked Russell Alsop of local production company Ginger & Pickles to make a short documentary film, drawing together the views and knowledge of a widespread group of Reading people. This has included school pupils, academics, local politicians, business people, ecologists, architects, and residents from our local neighbourhoods.

As part of the project, radio style interviews were conducted. Within them are many views and learnings from experts and active citizens which enabled the film-maker to shape the documentary. You can listen to these on the museum’s SoundCloud (follow the link at the bottom of the page).

We hope our ‘Where’s Reading Heading’ film may encourage you to get involved.

The organisations that took part in the film-making process include:

  • Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC)
  • Berkshire Local Nature Partnership (LNP)
  • Greater Reading Environmental Network (GREN)
  • Nature Nurture
  • Reading Climate Change Centre
  • Reading Sustainability Centre
  • Reading Voluntary Action (RVA)
  • The Walker Institute, Reading University

Each of these local organisations provides opportunities for Reading residents to become active in initiatives influencing Reading’s future environment. Click on the links below to go to their websites and find out more – the LNP and GREN sites also include directories of other local groups.

Source: Reading Museum • Where’s Reading Heading?