Category: Environment

African Development Bank is Going Green

solar

Banks have a reputation for being too greedy for the good of anyone outside themselves; however, some banks are thinking in the long term. The African Development Bank has announced a partnership with Green Climate Fund to push renewable energy and resilient systems. They figure that Africa is the best part of the world to achieve a sustainable economy because of the increasing investment in the continent and the ability to ‘leap frog’ older energy technology.

Together with the Green Climate Fund, we can do a lot to move the continent towards low-carbon and climate-resilient development.”

Approved as a GCF Accredited Entity in March 2016, AfDB is working on a series of mitigation and adaptation initiatives at the national and regional levels designed to enhance African countries’ access to GCF resources.

GCF Executive Director, Howard Bamsey said GCF’s partnership with AfDB will be key in unlocking the potential across the African continent to pursue climate resilient and low-emission growth.

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It’s Time to Think Hard About our Waste Systems

the suburbs

Modern capitalism encourages consumption at levels previously unimaginable which has led to an inconvenient byproduct: the globalization of waste. High levels of consumption means more waste in our system, and with the gift-giving holiday next month we’re going to see a lot of wasteful purchases. This year think about what gifts to give that don’t contribute to a landfill, indeed take some time to think about how your local municipality deals with waste created throughout the year. It turns out that in Canada we have a lot to learn form other places.

It’s time to rethink how we approach waste management in Canada beyond just saying reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Hird tells a story about a research project at Queen’s University, run by one of her grad students, Cassandra Kuyvenhoven, who tracked materials put into blue bins at Queen’s to see where they ended up. “While the system seemed functional and neat on the surface,” says Hird, “It certainly wasn’t that behind the scenes.” Kuyvenhoven found, for example, that when recyclable Styrofoam left Queen’s it was loaded onto trucks and taken to Toronto, where it was compacted chemically then trucked to Montreal where it was put on ships that took it to China, where it eventually ended up in landfill. “We might as well have landfilled it here,” says Hird, “and saved the tons of carbon that went into the atmosphere getting it to China.”

Electronics equipment made its slow way from the university’s loading docks to landfills in India and Mexico.

“When people think their stuff is being recycled, it clears their conscience, no matter what is actually happening beyond the blue box,” says Hird. “Our research shows that when their conscience is clear they tend to consume more than ever. Since Canadians started recycling in earnest maybe 30 years ago, consumerism in this country has done nothing but climb.”

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15,000 Scientists Want to Change Climate Change

desert and stars

They want to stabilize the change and, ideally, change the trajectory we’re on.

Climate change is happening faster than predicted and the positive feedback loops have started (meaning that it’s even harder to stop climate change) – this is the warning from over 15,000 scientists. The Alliance of World Scientists released a statement and invite more scientists to sign on. They’re clear in what they want to do: “Our vital importance and role comes from scientists’ unique responsibility as stewards of human knowledge and champions of evidence-based decision-making.”

It all started as an assumption that scientists cared, and they care a lot.

Within two days, there were 1,200 signatures. Of the more than 15,364 signatures to date, 527 are from Canada, ranking eighth among 184 countries.

The goal of the paper is to raise awareness about the fragile state of the planet.

“The scientists around the world are very concerned about the state of the world, the environmental situation and climate change,” Ripple said. “So this allows them to have a collective voice.”

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A New Way to Monitor Carbon in Coastal Regions

ocean shore

With the amount of carbon in the atmosphere at a level never before witnessed by human civilization we need to know how what to do about it. Obviously we need to cut back on all emissions and wasteful consumerist consumption. Beyond that we need to actively support carbon sinks. A new way of measuring carbon sinks can help us determine which type of coastal forest needs the most protection (or revitalization).

Nóbrega hopes to build a library of soil reflectance fingerprints for mangrove soils throughout the world. He doesn’t want to stop with mangrove soils, though. “Ultimately, we want to expand to other coastal environments, such as saltmarshes, seagrasses, and tidal flats,” he says.

Eventually, it might be possible to equip a drone with the required sensors. “Then we could obtain vital information without disturbing sensitive ecosystems,” says Nóbrega. “We could monitor carbon levels in large, inaccessible areas.”

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OECD Wants International Action Against Climate Change

One of the most influential international economic is calling for a bigger push to combat climate change. The Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Angel Gurría, gave a talk this week (above) advocating for greater international effort to reach a sustainable economy in regards to the environment. He argued that we need to think beyond national policy agendas in order to curb global emissions and reduce climate risks.

It’s fantastic to see a conservative organization like the OECD openly calling for nations around the world to get one board with an economy that doesn’t kill the planet.

Mr Gurria said the risks of stranded communities as well as of stranded assets would increase if policy action was delayed. While rapid advances in technology would continue to drive the transformation, he said, “the pace and scale of the transformation required to meet the Paris goals cannot be achieved without the positive feedbacks between strong government policies and the transformative potential of non-state actors.”

Mr Gurrria said economic conditions in many countries provide a window of opportunity to take action now to boost growth and investment that will drive the transition to a prosperous and inclusive low-emissions, resilient future. Ambitious climate policy is simply good policy, he said, adding that: “Governments should move faster to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, which still amount to around half a trillion dollars a year”.

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