Authority for change

Spent an interesting day in Cardiff - my second this week in the capital of one of the world's fastest moving countries on climate change. Day one was great, catching up with Steve Garrett from Cardiff's Riverside Market, Helen Northmore from Energy Saving Trust Wales and the folks at Cynnal Cymru before a reception to say farewell to the delightful Adrian Piper on his retirement as the Bank of England's Agent for Wales.

Day two, today, was even better - six hours of action planning with around 50 leaders from Local Authorities in Wales; speaking with Arup's Peter Head, top politico Jane Davidson and Tim Peppin from the Welsh Local Govt Association before moving into an afternoon that saw excellent distillation of ideas into action, facilitated by colleague Steve Bather. Now is the time to turn 'smart' goals into 'Do' verbs and make change happen - and if we can make this happen on the scale talked about this afternoon, a seismic shift would be possible. Steve, the WAG team and I will make the declarations public so that we can all play a role in giving our politicians the space to lead.

Key targets:

1. Replace oil our economy by 2050
2. Reduce CO2 emissions by 40% by 2020
3. Get into 'carbon descent' within the next 1000 days.

24% and counting

Today was one of those days. Sat in a meeting with a couple of dozen people for 8 hours. Just as well it was a board meeting with my excellent colleagues at CCW, where one of the agenda points was to set a target the CO2 emissions reductions for the next three year. There was unanimous support for a 24% drop in the next three years, which is of the order that's needed across Wales, the UK and far beyond. Details to follow soon.

The answer (for now) is 42

The Guardian reported a couple of days ago about some very important developments north of the border, where Scotland have committed to a 42% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. That's the biggest commitment in the world, to date.

We need to urgently start looking at what these numbers mean for public sector organisations, community and business. On July 10th, I'll be asking representatives from 22 local authorities to do just that, and get the first analysis complete by the end of the year

The St James’s Palace Memorandum

Prince Charles' time arrived some while ago, when the pleas that he raised were finally recognised to be those of someone wise and insightful, not mad. Such are the mores of change.

At the end of May 2009, the Prince used his considerable convening powers to bring a group of Nobel laureates to St James's Palace to continue a series of discussions that started in 2007 in Potsdam. As at Hay on Earth, the call for action was based on now, with the same recognised goals for reduction that we must achieve:

"Acknowledging the compelling evidence of science we should confine the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius to avoid unmanageable climate risks. This can only be achieved with a peak of global emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2015 and at least a 50% emission reduction by 2050 on a 1990 baseline. This in turn means that developed countries have to aim for a 25-40% reduction by 2020."

To achieve a global peak of emissions by 2015 means that the UK and other developed countries need to peak around 2012. The start of that year is 700 or so days away, and it's time to get a plan together, NOW.

If you're not already involved in planning for descent of this scale, and want to share learning, then get in touch with the team at EcoSapiens. We're developing the plan now, starting with one small country.

The laureates also called for the need for effective protection of the world's tropical forests, something that each and every one of us can effect through political engagement, meat consumption (to reduce the pressure on land for soya and grazing) and only buying FSC timber. They said "Tropical forests provide the ecosystem services essential for human well-being and poverty alleviation. In addition
deforestation and forest degradation are substantially contributing to climate change and global biodiversity loss at the genetic, species and landscape level. Both locally and globally, protecting boreal and tropical forest cover is an essential tool for mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change. Without a solution to rainforest protection, there is no solution to tackling climate change.

The memorandum is available for download here:

Chicken a la Carte

Another short film about food, filmed a couple of years ago, and still highly relevant. Watch the FoE film and this one to get a shot reason for change.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com