Climate change
Many of the education initiatives supported by the Purves Environmental Fund deal with the crucial issue of climate change (Thinking About Climate Change, Weather or Not it's a Climate for Change). The Wentworth Group has also taken a strong stance on climate change and specific resources have been dedicated to the issue through the Tropical Forests Program. In addition to these projects the Fund has supported the following climate change initiatives:
Copenhagen Climate Council
www.copenhagenclimatecouncil.com
To ensure awareness on the importance of the successor to the Kyoto Protocol the Copenhagen Climate Council (CCC) - an alliance of business leaders, policy makers and scientists - work together to inspire and assist negotiators and business leaders and bring forward recommendations to a new climate treaty.
The CCC is focusing its work on creating awareness on what is at stake when negotiators meet to design a new climate treaty in Copenhagen December 2009 by seeking dialogue with stakeholders, commissioning inspirational papers to distribute worldwide and seek presence at all important events. The COP 14 in Poland was the last major event in the international climate negotiations calendar before COP 15 and therefore CCC sought to create a strong platform at this event. The Purves Environmental Fund supported CCC to develop, promote and distribute a CCC Communique for COP14 and to film and promote the CCC at COP 14.
On Monday December 8th the Copenhagen Climate Council hosted the side event at the COP 14 in Poznan. The theme was "Business Requirements of a post-2012 treat". The participants focused their attention on the overarching visions and key principles for a new long-term agreement to address climate change; the message from business leaders to Governments was: Maximize the use of available solutions, provide long-term vision and certainty, and above all: "Just get going."
The presentations and the ensuing debate were delivered in an informal and participatory way allowing the discussions to be lively and engaging. The side event was attended by more than 130 people.
After COP 14, the Communique, based on the side event, was developed and distributed to reach out to all key stakeholders. Four new publications were also brought to Poznan: a brochure on the CCC, a brochure on the World Business Summit on Climate Change, the first piece in the CCC Thought Leadership Series, and a brochure on the Climate Community. More than a thousand publications were distributed to relevant stakeholders from the allocated exhibition space during the conference.
Earth Hour
www.earthhour.org
"Earth Hour was probably the largest public demonstration on climate change ever. Its aim was to tell every government representative to seal a deal in Copenhagen. The world’s concerned citizens have given the negotiations an additional and very clear mandate.”
[Yvo de Boer to 175 United Nations Climate Change Delegates]
The goal for Earth Hour 2009 is to engage 1 billion people for 1 hour on 1 night around the globe. This engagement through the simple personal act of ‘turning off my lights' will provide a powerful visual mandate - the people's pledge - to support policy change on climate change at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009.
At 8.30pm on Saturday March 29th 2009, across the globe, individuals, towns and cities will stand together in darkness to show their support for our global leaders to commit to significant policy change in Copenhagen. WWF-Australia will lead the global campaign. The Purves Environmental Fund is supporting the core Earth Hour Global team.
Earth Hour 2009 was phenomenally successful.
• 4,088 global cities signed up to participate in Earth Hour 2009:
• 70 national capital cities
• 34 out of the C40 countries
• 9 of the world's most populated cities
• 18 of the G20 countries
• 47 emerging & developing economies
Some of the well-known global landmarks that participated are:
• Sphinx and The Pyramids at Ghiza plateau
• Christ the Redeemer statue, Rio de Janeiro
• Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Nelson's Column in London
• Empire State Building and the Chrysler Tower in NYC
• Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
• Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House - ‘Vote Earth' flag flying over Sydney Harbour Bridge, the first time a non-sovereign nation flag has flown over Sydney
• Dome on the Vatican dimmed for the first time in support of Earth Hour
• Sagrada Famila - Gaudi's Cathedral, Barcelona
• Prominent Coca Cola neon signs including:
• Times Square, New York
• Piccadilly Circus, London
• Australia's ‘big' icons such as The Big Banana, The Big Prawn, The Big Merino
• La Tour Eiffel, Paris
•Taipei 101 - the world's tallest occupied building
Below is an extract from the Earth Hour global website (accessed 2 April 2009):
Earth Hour's Countdown to Copenhagen
.."Earth Hour 2009 was an incredible success," said WWF International Director General James Leape...
"Earth Hour signals a real desire from people all over the world for urgent action on climate change, and a mandate for the world's leaders to secure a new deal in Copenhagen that defines an effective global response."
"Our work continues, because over the next eight months, the leaders of the world will be deciding how they step up to meet this challenge, and we need, together, to make sure they do the right thing.
Total Environment Centre
www.tec.org.au
Over a two-year period, the Purves Environmental Fund has supported TEC's work on emissions trading and the National Electricity Market (NEM). TEC produced three briefing notes on emissions trading, undertook two major Green Capital events and is progressing a major demand management rule change through the NEM. The grant also helped TEC initiate joint meetings of peak groups to develop a common position and community communications strategy for the onset of the national emissions trading debate.
The Fund also supports TEC's Green Capital program. "Green Capital is Australia's leading corporate sustainability program. [It] provides a forum for dialogue between corporate, government & community sectors to engage on corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues through events, workshops and campaigns." Green Capital is growing, and is in an important stage of evolution to include longer term projects and greater effort in Melbourne. The support of the Fund is helping in this process so that Green Capital can make a sustained contribution to helping business reduce its environmental footprint.
The Climate Group Greenhouse Indicator
www.theclimategroup.org/index.php/special_projects/the_greenhouse_indicator
In 2006/07 the Purves Environmental Fund supported the Climate Group to develop a greenhouse indicator for Victoria, which is believed to be the world's first indicator of its type. The Fund subsequently supported roll-out of the indicator to NSW and Queensland. The indicator is helping to raise awareness on the causes of climate change by reporting weekly on the States' greenhouse emissions from energy use. In a methodology developed in conjunction with CSIRO scientists, it uses actual data to determine an accurate figure for the greenhouse gas emissions produced from the three main sources of emissions from energy: coal, natural gas and petroleum. The weekly indicator is available on the Climate Group's website and in Victorian, NSW and Queensland media. It is a finalist in the 2008 Eureka Climate Change Award.
The Purves Environmental Fund provided seed funding to Climate Leaders to support them in setting up the Emerald Awards - a climate change leadership program to recognise and reward outstanding action by companies, people and the community towards being carbon neutral.
Australia 2020 Summit
www.australia2020.gov.au
The Purves Environmental Fund supported Eric Knight, a selected Australia 2020 Summit participant, AYCC founding member and current Oxford University Rhodes scholar, to attend the summit. Eric participated in the climate change group at the summit and contributed ideas for mandatory disclosure of current and future environmental risks by all publicly listed corporations, as well as advocating for an Australian equivalent of the UK Carbon Trust, which leverages venture capital from public finance to pilot low emission demonstration projects on a large scale. Three members of The Wentworth Group also participated in the summit - Adjunct Professor Leith Boully, Professor Hugh Possingham and Professor David Karoly.
Climate Action Network Australia
www.cana.net.au
The Purves Environmental Fund supported CANA to commission new research into communicating climate change. A series of focus groups and an online survey was conducted. The output from the project is a communications toolkit that is available for use by all CANA members.