Hong Kong’s first blog for SDG education news and announcements
Image by: svklimkin from Pixabay What El Niño means for the world’s perilous climate tipping points (The Conversation) Monsoon madness: how climate change is normalising extreme events (Eco-business) Scientists propose genetically modified trees to green wood pulp industry (Eco-business) Extreme weather: the climate crisis in four charts (The Guardian) Food Footprint: Is Eating Seafood Better for the Climate Than Meat? (greenqueen) EU to push for fossil fuel phaseout ‘well ahead of 2050’ at Cop28 (CHN) This heatwave is a climate omen. But it’s not too late to change course (The Guardian) Are short term profits damaging ESG spending? (Ascent on LinkedIn) . . .
Image by Suvajit Roy from Pixabay On 15th July is the UN Observance World Youth Skills Day. For 2023 the theme is Skilling teachers, trainers and youth for a transformative future. This is one of the more recent days of observance, being declared in 2014. This reflects the UN reacting to a changing world where we see new issues coming up. For quite a while now, many post-industrial economies have been witnessing a knowledge and skills gap and labour shortages in skilled industry sectors. This is an unforeseen (??) negative by-product of the push to improve population-wide educational outcomes which saw these economies strive to increase the amount of university places available through the 1990s an onwards and which took the percentage of young people going to university from less than 10% to over 50%. As a result, those in the middle who may have looked to apprenticeships in advanced industry sectors, instead took the option for upward mobility by going this new academic . . .
Image by PrestoHaun from Pixabay A couple of news items this week got me thinking again about flying and climate. In The Guardian the question was raised whether it is possible to both expand flights capacity and achieve net zero. This is on the back of the UK airport Gatwick attempting to get permission for a new runway and all the extra flying that will therefore happen and other UK airports asking for longer operating hours and talking about greater efficiencies to get more passengers through. If mature markets like the UK feel there is more to be done with passenger numbers, what about the emerging economies which have yet to see sizeable numbers of people who can both afford to fly and decide this is how they would like to spend their new discretionary income (though of course, much of the extra capacity in places like the UK will be to receive these new flyers). The article then looks at how net zero is being addressed despite these expansion plans – carbon . . .
Image by Ralf Vetterle from Pixabay Improving soil could keep world within 1.5C heating target, research suggests (The Guardian) How climate change is causing a communication breakdown in the animal world (The Conversation) Why deforestation has hit a historic low in Indonesia (Eco-Business) Greenwashing Is Everywhere – Here’s What It Is And How to Spot It In Action (greenqueen) Identifying loss and damage is tough – we need a pragmatic but science-based approach (CHN) Potent greenhouse gas produced by industry could be readily abated with existing technologies (ScienceDaily) Mapping the hottest temperatures around the world (Aljazeera) . . .
I can’t believe I’ve only just been made aware of Ecosia. This is a search engine founded way back in 2009 which just goes to show how much news and information is out there that I can never have heard of it until now despite working in the sustainability field. It is a collaboration with Microsoft and can be added through an extension to Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and others. It began using Yahoo results but now uses Bing. In 2018, Ecosia committed to becoming privacy-friendly by encrypting and not storing data permanently. Nor is data sold to third-party advertisers. The company says it does not create personal profiles based on search history or use external tracking tools like Google Analytics. Revenues are split but of the revenue that goes to Ecosia, 80% is used to plant trees. The company has a ticker on its website https://www.ecosia.org/?c=en which as I write is ticking past 177,116,000 trees planted. That is impact! A funky feature is that it tracks how . . .
On 27th June 2023, the incoming ITS Foundation Youth Advisory Committee held its first meeting. Natalie Cheung and Hana Chow were elected co-Presidents and Quinton Leung was made Secretary. Anna Wei, Jane Poon and Josephine Jaume from the outgoing Committee were kindly in attendance to contribute tips and opinions based on their experiences in 2022-23. The first task of the committee will be to put together an event to mark International Youth Day 2023. No mean feat with just seven weeks to go but a challenge which we are sure they will rise to, and what a great way it will be to kick off the new academic year for Hong Kong schools. . . .
Here’s how much water it takes to make a serving of beef – and why where it comes from is so important (The Conversation) India's young climate activists fight on despite crackdown on political freedoms (Eco-Business) Standard Chartered Bank appoints Singapore-based global sustainability strategy chief (Eco-Business) ‘We could lose our status as a state’: what happens to a people when their land disappears (The Guardian) 8 Circular Packaging Companies To Watch In The Race To Close The Waste Loop (greenqueen) World Bank to suspend debt repayments for disaster-hit countries (CHN) U.S. launches $7 billion program to bring solar to low-income households (reuters) There may be good news about the oceans in a globally warmed world (ScienceDaily) Planting Azolla empowers Jordan’s women farmers (Aljazeera) . . .
The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship was established in 1998 to advance social innovation and bring together a community of leading change-makers. The Schwab Foundation’s first gathering took place in Geneva, and its annual summits have taken place in various locations around the world. On 14-16 June 2023, 150 Social Innovators, 50 leaders from the Global Alliance of Social Entrepreneurship, and key partners and stakeholders from around the world, gathered in Geneva on the 25th anniversary of the Foundation. Speaking was ITS Foundation Director Kenneth Kwok (pictured) to represent the effort of youth in the social economy. You can also read his follow up article here. . . .
