International Events

Any event that involves two or more nations.

G(irl)s 20 Summit During the G20 Summit

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

The G20 is coming to Toronto this June, and as a result, some organizations are trying to make sure that some smart thinkers show up too. The G(irl)s 20 Summit aims to bring forwarded thinking girls to Toronto to discuss the future of the planet and the role that girls can play in making it a better place for all.

There are 3.3 billion girls and women in the world – and they should be integral to, and included in the development of innovative, sustainable and socially responsible solutions to the world’s economic and social challenges.

Meeting in Toronto from June 16th – 26th, we will bring together one girl from each G20 country to discuss and promote tangible, scalable solutions toward economic prosperity.

What you can do to get involved:
Check the official website: Girls and Women
Join the Facbook group/a>
Apply to attend!

Good Magazine Launches Contest to Help Rebuild Haiti

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

Here’s a chance for some people to help rebuild Haiti from afar. Good Magazine has launched a competition for idea on how to sustainably rebuild Haiti.

In the wake of the Port-au-Prince earthquake, Haitians have sustained an immense loss of life, with numbers still climbing, and the collapse of physical structures signifying the collapse of the governmental, social, economic, and infrastructural institutions those structures housed and represented. Many of those institutions and infrastructures were weak before the quake, as Haiti is among the world’s poorest nations, reliant on international aid and subject to severe economic disparity.

This earthquake was no typical disaster, and Haiti is no typical disaster-struck region. In many ways, Port-au-Prince and its institutions required rebuilding before the buildings collapsed. The relief effort of this particular disaster goes beyond air-dropping supplies and building emergency housing. Haiti also requires an emergency economic system (the banks and tax office have collapsed), an emergency medical system (hospitals have collapsed), an emergency justice system (courthouses and the federal prison have collapsed), emergency education (schools have collapsed), and an emergency government (the parliament and many ministry buildings have collapsed). People talk about emergency shelter. What about emergency institutions, only one of which is housing?

Participants in February’s Spontaneous Architecture competition are invited to take this question seriously, enacting a response onto the site included below. The site includes multiple institutions and social, economic, and governmental infrastructures as well as residential areas and open space parks currently being used as campsites for those in need of housing. Participants are asked to consider one or all of the institutions present and can operate on the entire site or a specific portion thereof. Responses can be strategic, organizational, institutional, and/or architectural.

Enter the competition here>

How CoP-15 Changed the World

- Fono

Depressed about the Copenhagen Accord? While the action on climate change may have been less than you were hoping for, Worldchanging.com has an article explaining how the conference signaled a different kind of sea change. According to Alan Akisson, this was the first major event where developing nations had voices as loud as the developed, in a truly democratic process.

The Earthquake in Copenhagen truly marked the end of one historical era, and the beginning of a new one. It is an era of more democratic global governance (at least in the sense of how power, actual and perceived, is dispersed among nations). An era of continuous struggle to understand what is happening to our planet, and continuous effort to share that understanding. An era of nations being forced to collaborate, more and more closely, and over several decades, on planetary management. In the hindsight of future history (especially environmental history), CoP-15 will likely loom large indeed as an inflection point, a time when everything changed — or rather, was finally seen by all as changed.

Read the whole article

56 Newspapers in 45 Countries and 20 Languages

- Fono

Just one last post about Copenhagen (probably.) Yesterday, 56 newspapers in 45 countries and 20 languages published a shared editorial, urging the citizens and policymakers of the world to take Copenhagen as a serious call-to-action. If they can work together, maybe the rest of us can?

Given that newspapers are inherently rivalrous, proud and disputatious, viewing the world through very different national and political prisms, the prospect of getting a sizeable cross-section of them to sign up to a single text on such a momentous and divisive issue seemed like a long shot. But an early, enthusiastic, conversation with the editor of one of India’s biggest dailies offered encouragement. Then in Beijing in September, I met a senior editor from an influential business weekly, the Economic Observer.

Notwithstanding the shifting boundaries of press freedom in China, he was sure his paper would participate (and another major Chinese daily would subsequently, too). If we could reach a common position with papers from the two developing world giants most commonly identified as obstacles to a global deal, then surely we could crack the rest.

Read the editorial here (The Guardian)

Read the behind-the-scenes story here (The Guardian)

Ban Ki-moon Optimistic About Copenhagen Agreement

- Adam Clare

The Voice of America is reporting that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is optimistic about the world’s nations coming to an agreement about how to tackle climate change.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told reporters he would go to the Danish capital next week to open the high-level segment that he expects will draw more than 100 heads of state and government.

“I am encouraged and I am optimistic. I expect a robust agreement at Copenhagen summit meeting that will be effective immediately and include specific recommendations on mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology. This agreement will have an immediate operational effect,” he said.

His remarks come as scientists released new data showing the first decade of this century will likely turn out to be the warmest ever. The findings from the World Meteorological Association also predict 2009 will be the 5th warmest year since global record-keeping began in 1850.

Keep reading at Voice of America

Meanwhile in Canada, Greenpeace unfurled banners on Parliament Hill pointing out that Ignatieff and Harper are total failures. Good for Greenpeace for a little direct action.

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