Hong Kong’s first blog for SDG education news and announcements
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay Tomorrow, 30 March, is the very first observance of the International Day of Zero Waste which was agreed in December 2022. It is a very pertinent observance as we see increasing amounts of waste generated across all sectors, driven by the dual factors of increasing population and increasing wealth (which leads to increasing consumption). Add to this the world’s “new consumers” being led down the wrong path that the post-industrial world followed as seeing consumption as some kind of badge of honour, of not being mindful of purchases and end of life decisions and of being presented with products still being designed and produced in linear economy models, and we have a recipe for disaster. Resources wasted, disposal problems, implications for biodiversity through exceeding maximum yields and pollution, an ecological footprint off the charts. let’s hope this observance can start to generate more urgent action. . . .
Image by Rudy & Peter Skitterians from Pixabay The first major conference dealing with water issues for many years took place last week in New York. Within the conference, UNITAR launched their Water Academy - a new range of training elements geared to increase knowledge of skills in SDG6 for those who need it most. As a great example of SDG interaction, major companies and other organisations have come on board to help drive the expertise and to provide the capacity to deliver the training at scale. The ITS Foundation, as a partner of UNITAR at youth training level, supports and applauds this great initiative. . . .
Image by Satin Tipchai from Pixabay World Happiness Report 2023 (SDSN) Calls for a ‘green’ Ramadan revive Islam’s long tradition of sustainability and care for the planet (The Conversation) New climate paper calls for charging big US oil firms with homicide (The Guardian) Can clothes ever be fully recycled? (FuturePlanet) Greenwashing: A Guide To Spotting All Kinds of Green Sheen From Greencrowding to Greenhushing (greenqueen) IPCC highlights rich nations’ failure to help developing world adapt to climate change (CHN) Synthesis gas and battery power from sunlight energy (ScienceDaily) Malaysia says EU deforestation rule hurts its small farmers (NikkeiAsia) . . .
Image by Chokniti Khongchum from Pixabay Surely the importance of water needs no explanation. Yet in the modernized world, many people have lost touch with how precious and scarce water is. Millions of people have only ever known access to water as being turning on a tap, and most of those have never known the tap not to work. And just as many people have become divorced from a true understanding of food production, many people have no idea about how water gets to the tap or the role it plays in so many other areas from health to hunger to jobs to disasters and to geopolitics. But just as billions of people have no understanding of water, billions of others know only too well what it means to suffer or to be held back by problems in the water cycle. This year sees WWD kick off the UN 2023 Water Conference which will lead to the Water Action Agenda. See more at the UN. . . .
Image by Alfred Derks from Pixabay An excellent letter in The Guardian from Dr Laura Thomas-Walters makes a very good point about the protest strategies that may be most impactful. Responding to the Extinction rebellion decision to stop deploying protests which disrupt the general public, she highlights that public opinion is only one small part of how decision are made and policies determined and implemented in the so-called parliamentary democracies. Disrupting the public may be necessary at the start of a campaign to get people’s attention as the media will give it coverage (ironically given that the vast majority of media are right-leaning and disagree with the demands being made yet they give it the PR it needs) but the public will quickly become annoyed and may turn against the campaign in question if it pushes too hard. Much better to stop hitting ordinary people once the initial attention is garnered and then direct the action to where it matter most – . . .
Image by Chil Vera from Pixabay Europe’s first wild river national park announced in Albania (The Guardian) Rainforests pump water round the tropics – but the pulse of this heart is weakening (The Conversation) Environmental rights as human rights in Asean: Why not? (Eco-business) Expectations vs. Reality: It’s Time To Change The Investor Conversation Around Sustainable Food (greenqueen) IMF approves first batch of climate resilience loans (CHN) Microsoft bets on algae to mitigate its growing carbon footprint (TechCrunch) Travel sector mulls green future but tourists reluctant to pay (Reuters) Recovering tropical forests offset just one quarter of carbon emissions from new tropical deforestation and forest degradation (ScienceDaily) Living with third world water conditions in Canada (FND) . . .
Image by Chil Vera from Pixabay Image by Chil Vera from Pixabay A report on a study by MIT researchers in Science Daily relates how smoke particles from wildfires can erode the ozone layer – the name given to higher concentrations of ozone in the stratosphere which help to protect against UVA and UVB radiation from the sun. Studying the huge output of smoke from wildfires in Australia in 2019-20, the team identified a previously unknow chemical reaction which deplete the ozone. Ozone is simply O3 and so any reaction taking that oxygen away stops it being ozone and functioning as a protective shield. This is a hugely disappointing setback given the great success of getting global agreement and cohesion to reduce the use and ultimate release of CFCs in industrial processes, products and waste. That said, monitoring of the layer has shown improvement since protocols were implemented so with identifying this new threat perhaps a straight-forward extra effort t . . .
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay The resumed fifth session of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC-5.2) convened from 20 February to 4 March 2023 at the UN to pick up where negotiations left off in August 2022, when IGC-5.1 was unable to finalize agreement. Despite the oceans making up 90% of earth habitat and containing a significant percentage of the world’s species, it has taken over 15 years of work and negotiation to get here. Threats from climate change, pollution, overfishing, habitat destruction, ocean acidification, and underwater noise have grown unabated due to the strange status of the oceans as having partly “owned” and partly “shared” spaces yet having these spaces completely and inherently interconnected by nature. But still the text has been agreed only through tenuous compromise and still needs ratification let alone actual implementation of policies to address it and of course enforcement of any new regulations. We still have a long . . .
