NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION
Image: Climate March in September 2014, New York City. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Climate Week 2014 was hosted in NYC this past week, September 22nd through 28th. Together, this event and the UN Climate Summit have brought the awareness of climate change to a new height.
Climate Week started early on Sep. 21st, with nearly 400,000 people marching in Manhattan. This marks the largest climate rally in history! The unexpectedly huge crowd drew a lot of media attention and created additional awareness and discussion around climate change.
On Sep. 22nd, the official opening day of Climate Week, US Secretary of State John Kerry, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, and Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC Christiana Figueres shared their visions for a sustainable, low carbon economy.
Next at the Climate Summit On Sep 23rd, global leaders from government, business, finance and civil society came together and announce commitments to bold actions in areas that are critical for keeping global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius.
The eight action areas are: Agriculture, Cities, Energy, Finance, Forests, Industry, Resilience and Transportation. The results from these commitments are promising and have already created real action. For example, about 73 countries and 1000 companies have supported paying for carbon consumption.
Mark Kenber, CEO of The Climate Group, made this comment about this year’s UN Climate Summit:“The good news from today’s summit is that an unprecedented number of heads of state and government committed again to a global climate agreement. But what really made a difference for me is the concrete plans brought to the table by the corporate sector and sub-national governments with the money to invest behind them. Finally, we are seeing shift here from words to action."
The Climate Summit has come to an end but the actions have just started. Climate change is really happening, we are seeing the changes in our daily life, so it’s less likely that the commitment that were just made go flat like they did after the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. The climate change crisis is undeniable in our economy, environment and society.
This article was archived on December 17, 2015.
Climate Week started early on Sep. 21st, with nearly 400,000 people marching in Manhattan. This marks the largest climate rally in history! The unexpectedly huge crowd drew a lot of media attention and created additional awareness and discussion around climate change.
On Sep. 22nd, the official opening day of Climate Week, US Secretary of State John Kerry, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, and Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC Christiana Figueres shared their visions for a sustainable, low carbon economy.
Next at the Climate Summit On Sep 23rd, global leaders from government, business, finance and civil society came together and announce commitments to bold actions in areas that are critical for keeping global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius.
The eight action areas are: Agriculture, Cities, Energy, Finance, Forests, Industry, Resilience and Transportation. The results from these commitments are promising and have already created real action. For example, about 73 countries and 1000 companies have supported paying for carbon consumption.
Mark Kenber, CEO of The Climate Group, made this comment about this year’s UN Climate Summit:“The good news from today’s summit is that an unprecedented number of heads of state and government committed again to a global climate agreement. But what really made a difference for me is the concrete plans brought to the table by the corporate sector and sub-national governments with the money to invest behind them. Finally, we are seeing shift here from words to action."
The Climate Summit has come to an end but the actions have just started. Climate change is really happening, we are seeing the changes in our daily life, so it’s less likely that the commitment that were just made go flat like they did after the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. The climate change crisis is undeniable in our economy, environment and society.
This article was archived on December 17, 2015.