Hong Kong’s first blog for SDG education news and announcements
Image by Delynn Talley from Pixabay Last Saturday 22nd was of course Earth Day 2023. This is now an event that has finally permeated mainstream culture and consciousness. From the UN perspective, this was the 2nd Earth Day to occur in the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Ecosystem restoration is an interesting project as it intersects with so many other environmental, social and economic SDGs. But perhaps the biggest weakness is that the emphasis on Earth Day seems still to be on us as individuals to change our behaviour, and while that is super important and needs to happen, if it is only left to individuals then our efforts will be too slow and will hit barriers. We need governments and corporations to make clear policy changes so that individuals are capable of behaving in a way that does little or no damage and so that proactive steps are taken to fix what is damaged. . . .
The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has released it’s latest SDFG Progress Report. With such a variety of economies to cover, the authors recognise data gaps, but the key thrust of the report remains solid. Good gains have been made towards SDGs 7 & 9 (energy, industry, infrastructure) but the region will miss 90% of the 2030 targets and at the current rate of progress will take another 42 years to reach milestones slated to be achieved in just 7 years time. You can read a good summary of the report at IISD or go straight to the full document. . . .
Image by CyberComputers from Pixabay Plastics cause wide-ranging health issues from cancer to birth defects (The Guardian) What Is The Degrowth Movement And Why Should You Care? (greenqueen) Property firms ‘alarmingly slow’ to respond to climate emergency (Eco-business) Humanity’s big problem: Luxury carbon consumption, not population (Eco-business) How Shell cashed in on dubious carbon offsets from Chinese rice paddies (CHN) UN votes to ask world court to rule on national climate obligations (Reuters) NASA Launches New Climate Monitoring Technology (GreenCitizen) Rows over Asian carbon credits overlook project benefits (NikkeiAsia) Should academics fly at all? (CrookedTimber) . . .
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 – . . .
