Stuff, stuff and more stuff…

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Hopefully you have remembered that it is Mother’s day coming up on Sunday and plan to spend some quality time with the special women in your life. Natalie, our communications coordinator recently become a mother and discovered how much stuff you need for the new little person in your life. She shares some tips on how to keep things green at home with a baby. Continue reading →

Beyond Preposterous – the corporate art of greenwashing

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I hope you had an appropriately silly April Fool’s day yesterday and didn’t have the wool pulled over your eyes too badly. I am a great trickster and enjoy pulling pranks on my friends and colleagues. The one place I don’t like to be fooled though is with false advertising or green washing. And it happens more often than we’d like to think. Continue reading →

5 days, 15 kgs and 80 kms

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I recently did an epic hike through the Fish River Canyon in Southern Namibia, the second biggest canyon in the world. I had to carry everything I needed for the five days that it would take to walk the 80 km trail. Although I tried really hard to pack light, my backpack weighed a hefty 15 kilos. But the realisation that I could actually survive on what I can carry on my own back for almost a week was profound. It made me realise how much ‘stuff’ I have back home and I’m hoping this experience will give me the push that I need to start trimming down my cluttered life. Continue reading →

Clean Green

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Using environmentally friendly cleaning products is a good way to protect yourself and the environment from harmful chemicals. There are many great green cleaning products available which our team have tested over the past month. Read about which products we found the best and we also give you some recipes for making your own cleaning products. Please share any of your favourite tried and tested eco-friendly products with us too. Continue reading →

NGO’s write benchmark Copenhagen climate treaty!

Dear friends,

A proposal for a Copenhagen Agreement has been drafted by global NGO’s IndyAct, David Suzuki Foundation, German Watch, WWF and Greenpeace.

Drafted as a proposal and vision for what the Copenhagen Agreement to be reached in December of this year could look like, the draft agreement is intended to provide a holistic and coherent model treaty but also to initiate discussion. To view a pocket guide to the agreement or full text, visit WWF, or download a copy here.

The agreement opens with a strong message about the fact that our window of opportunity for limiting climate change is closing and therefore ‘unprecedented international cooperation and commitment is required.’ The proposed treaty brings together the need for ambitious and urgent action on adaptation and emissions reductions with the transformation of technology, the preservation of forests and the acceleration of sustainable development. All of these driven by both science and equity.

“This is the first time in history that a coalition of civil society groups has taken such a step. Together we have produced the most coherent legal document to date showing balanced and credible climate solutions based on equity and science” said Kim Carstensen of WWF International.

The NGO Proposal moves beyond pointing out to developed nations that they have a responsibility to agree to a global deal that is fair to simply point out exactly what such a deal between 192 countries would look like. All that is needed is for all parties to put aside their selfish agendas, keep an open mind and show real dedication to concluding a just, effective, science-based agreement so that we have some chance of keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees celcius.

The Copenhagen Climate Treaty includes:

• The annual global carbon budget in 2020 from all sources of greenhouse gases (not counting those controlled by the Montréal Protocol) would be no higher than 36.1 Gt CO2e, bringing emissions down to roughly1990 levels and would need to be reduced to 7.2 Gt CO2e in 2050, in other words by 80 % below 1990 levels.
• A design proposal for a new institution – the Copenhagen Climate Facility – to manage the processes for emissions cuts, adaptation and forest protection under the new global treaty.
• A recipe for long-term action plans for both developed countries (Zero Carbon Action Plans – ZCAPs) and developing countries (Low Carbon Action Plans – LCAPs).
• Binding targets for Newly Industrialized Countries (NIC’s) like Singapore, South Korea and Saudi Arabia in line with the Convention principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.

Failure to agree in Copenhagen will only serve to accelerate all the consequences of runaway climate change that Scientific knowledge so clearly shows us. A deal in Copenhagen is a small step for governments, but a big step for humanity.

WWF press release, 8th June 2009.

Alistar

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