Policy

The adoption of the Versailles Declaration is a signal that this crisis can and must accelerate, rather than derail, the march towards cheaper, more secure, clean energy.

Women must wait 136 years before we get gender parity. To highlight this imbalance, and to mark 2022’s International Women’s Day, SHE Changes Climate has released a new short film.

Three of the 270 scientists and researchers who wrote the latest IPCC report explain why the window for climate resilient development is closing fast.

At the COP 21 United Nations climate change conference in Paris, governments agreed that mobilizing stronger and more ambitious climate action is urgently required to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Gender equality is central to the SDGs. Here’s how can we address the gender disparity in climate entrepreneurship.

Former Mayor of Quito, Mauricio Rodas explains why action to confront extreme heat is nowhere near where it needs to be.

It’s Transport day at COP26 and technology is transforming how we move by land, air, and sea.

“We clearly have a different problem, a leadership problem, that is now causing us to not move forward on the rescue of our ecosystems. When analysing the leadership structures of COPs since their inception, it becomes very clear, that the missing element from these conferences have been women.” Bianca Pitt, Co Founder, SHE Changes Climate.

With a remit set out in law to be “the guardian of the interests of future generations in Wales”, Sophie Howe is the world’s only Future Generations Commissioner. At COP26 she discusses how her interventions have secured fundamental changes to land use planning policy, major transport schemes and Government policy on housing – ensuring that decisions taken today are fit for the future.

Legendary marine biologist, Chair and President of Mission Blue, and National Geographic Explorer, Dr Sylvia Earle explains what it will take to restore the health of our oceans after decades of deep decline.

Ocean-based solutions not only mitigate climate change but play a large role in climate adaptation. Opinion by Project Drawdown’s Emilia Jankowska, Mamta Mehra and Chad Frischmann.

Recognizing the ocean-climate connection and the need for youth calls for ocean and climate action to be amplified, Sustainable Ocean Alliance’s Youth Policy Advisory Council solicited video submissions from young, regional environmental leaders.

The High Level Climate Champions and the ocean community have signed the Ocean for Climate Declaration: a call to governments and non-state actors to scale up ocean-based climate solutions and action.

Political leaders, civil society, academics and non state actors will come together tomorrow to set out the immediate steps the world must take if we are to make 1.5C a reality.

Energy day at COP: A rapid transformation of the global energy system is underway and accelerating.

Tzeporah Berman, Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, explains why “world leaders need to stop dancing around the harsh reality that fossil fuels are the main driver of the climate crisis and publicly endorse the need for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

Real economy leaders joined Heads of State on stage at COP26 yesterday to celebrate the centrality of business, finance, and civil society to deliver the promise of the Paris Agreement.

On energy day of COP26, we can announce that Race to Zero energy members have committed, in aggregate, to reach 750GW of installed renewable energy capacity by 2030. This is enough to provide power to 896 million people today.

Today, at COP26 in Glasgow, 42 countries launched the Breakthrough Agenda  – a commitment to work together internationally this decade to accelerate the development and deployment of the clean technologies and sustainable solutions needed to meet our Paris Agreement goals, ensuring they are affordable and accessible for all.  

It’s time we stop focusing so much on the cascade of destruction that climate change may bring, and start talking about the cascading benefits, argues Chad Frischmann, Senior Director, Drawdown Solutions, Project Drawdown.

This year’s UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, marks the 26th time since 1995 that world leaders have gathered to confront global warming. But the realization that industrial activity was causing climate change, and discussions about what to do about it, began much earlier.

If we are serious about achieving the dual goals of enhancing access to modern energy services and combating climate change in the long term, all stakeholders need to take decisive action. For lasting change, young people can be an important part of the solution, argues Sarah Hambly, Partnership and Communications Manager, Energy Saving Trust, co-Secretariat, Efficiency for Access.

Rapid phase-out of emissions from coal power, which so far have been the single largest source of global temperature increase, is one of the first and most critical steps the world must take to deliver on the 1.5-degree goal.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is bringing a ferocious, talking dinosaur to the United Nations’ headquarters to shine a spotlight on the hundreds of billions of dollars governments spend every year propping up the fossil fuel industry.

The World Economic Forum has created a visualization of some of the most flood-impacted parts of the world.

From oyster die-offs and coral reef bleaching, to marine heat waves and harmful algal blooms, coastal communities around the world are feeling the effects of ocean acidification. A leading group of ocean experts discuss the significance of investing in SDG Target 14.3.

For fisheries to remain sustainable in the face of climate change, fisheries managers, scientists and governments will need to think beyond the current socio-economic structures in place, argues Dr Rohan Currey, Chief Science & Standards Officer at the Marine Stewardship Council.

Africa’s youth population is growing rapidly and is expected to reach over 830 million by 2050. The Africa Youth Initiative on Climate Change explains why this growing force for good must have a seat at the climate decision-making table.

A master plan to achieve 5% zero-emission fuels in shipping by 2030 will help guide decisions, actions, and allow us to monitor the progress of the sector’s Race to Zero.

International climate change and human rights lawyer, Tessa Khan discusses the law’s role in holding governments and companies to account, the limitations of the legal process, and the eroding social license of the fossil fuel industry.

The roadmap to ending pollution from transportation is here, says electrification advocate and UN Climate Champions’ Special Adviser, Monica Araya. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Araya introduces Drive Electric: a global campaign to retire the polluting internal combustion engine in time to avoid climate disaster.

More than 150 industry leaders and organizations representing the entire maritime value chain – including shipping, cargo, and finance – are calling on world leaders ahead of COP26 for ambitious, urgent policy actions to fully decarbonize international shipping by 2050, and make zero-emission shipping the default choice by 2030.

Countries must commit to decisive action at COP26 to limit global warming to 1.5°C if they want to sustain a healthy and green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new report by the World Health Organization.

About 195 countries are expected to finalize a new accord to to halt and reverse losses of the planet’s plants, animals and ecosystems at the two-part COP15 UN summit.

Many of the world’s largest companies are among hundreds of business leaders appealing to the G20 to collectively agree to strengthen their national climate targets at the pivotal G20 and COP26 talks.  

From flooding and coastal erosion to the impacts of urbanization and increasing populations, the coastal zones of the South Atlantic are in crisis.

“There are some difficult, but critically important changes that can happen only with your leadership. The most critical of these is stopping harmful agricultural subsidies, which do not work for the farmer, society at large, nor our Mother Earth,” Farmer & CEO, European Carbon Farmers, Mateusz Ciasnocha’s letter to world leaders.

“Achieving our shared climate goals demands an all-hands of deck collaborative effort supported by unifying, not divisive, politics,” Carlos M. Duarte, a member of Extreme E’s Scientific Committee and a Distinguished Professor of Marine Science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

How does a sector – defined by the movement of people and in the midst of a crisis – get to net zero by 2050 at the very latest? 

Billions of people are overweight, millions are hungry, one third of food is wasted and the way the world produces, processes and consumes food generates one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Thursday at the first global summit on the future of food.

The rapid growth of solar and wind power in recent years has breathed hope into global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the most dangerous effects of climate change.

Join the Race to Resilience and an expert panel of built environment sector practitioners from across Africa to explore how to meet the challenge of rapid population growth and urbanization with decarbonized, resilient housing.

“We will all be watching to see what you will do to promote life, or whether you will promote death and destruction” – founder and exectuive director of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, Catherine Coleman Flower’s letter to world leaders.

Six renowned public figures, from the worlds of politics to science, reflect on the task before us.

The implications of the latest UNFCCC NDC Synthesis report could not be clearer: the world has not made anything like enough progress to tackle the climate crisis. Without immediate action, we risk losing our race to zero emissions and the better world promised by the Paris Agreement.

It’s time for shipping to step out of the shadows, to be forthright and act boldly, taking the initiative on carbon before the industry is forced to take action. Waiting for regulation to emerge from an agency and effectively drive change is not the right answer, argues Ami Daniel Co-Founder and CEO, Windward & Lord John Browne, Chairman, BeyondNetZero, and Chairman, Windward.

Over the past decade, global economic losses from weather events like storms, floods, droughts and wildfires have grown more costly. During the first decade of the 21st century, there were only two years when weather disasters cost more than $200 billion (including 2010).

As Europe aims to eliminate the sales of polluting vehicles by 2035, Monica Araya, Special Adviser, High Level Champion for Climate Action, COP26, considers how such an ambitious policy can transform electric transportation across the globe.

Sue Peachey participated in the UK’s first ever Citizens’ Assembly on climate change. Here she discusses the role of citizens in driving climate ambition with UN High Level Champion for Climate Action, Nigel Topping.

Almost half of the world’s 2.2 billion children face a “deadly” threat from climate and environmental shocks, according to a new report.

“The world’s leaders should spell out in advance of the COP, what they intend to do to ensure that voices of the most vulnerable are heard — and listened to”, Jim Wallace (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

“The only thing that is missing is the will. The will to step forward and do what needs to be done. You may feel it is difficult, but this is no time for cowardice” – a former military intelligence officer’s contribution to Our World in Your Hands.

“In 2009, I was in my first semester in college when typhoon Ketsana struck the Philippines and nearly took my life. Many would look at supertyphoon Haiyan in 2013 as the turning point for climate action in my country,” climate campaigner from the Philippines, John Leo Algo’s letter to leaders.

We need a new generation of financial backers from institutional investors to family offices, and from banks to insurers to put capital to work in the ocean, write Chip Cunliffe and Karen Sack, Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance.

In the race against climate change, every fraction of a degree by which the global temperature rises counts. Every country – and every business – must bring the best they have to this race with the shared goal of winning it, argues María Mendiluce, CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition.

2030, nearly 40% of the world’s population will live in vulnerable housing. Disasters are increasing in frequency due to the impacts of climate change, and those living in lower income countries feel the consequences of climate change the greatest. CEO of Build Change, Elizabeth Hausler’s letter to world leaders.

The only way to reverse some of these catastrophic patterns, and to regain a kind of stability in climate and weather systems, is “climate repair”, argues David King & Jane Lichtenstein from the University of Cambridge.

“I’m not certain how much the natural world will have changed but I am certain that my children or grandchildren will ask me, who did this?” Kenyan climate activist, Elizabeth Wathuti’s letter to world leaders.

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report is a clear and sober reflection of our current pace. Ambition must be followed by immediate action in line with halving global emissions by 2030.

“To the leaders of the developing countries, including my own, I would like to say: be bold! Show to the world your vision of how you want to transform your communities in order to survive AND thrive post-pandemic and amid continuous and exacerbated climate threats” — Vladislav Kaim, UN Secretary General’s Youth Advisor on Climate Change.

Today is Earth Overshoot Day. The date that tells us that we’ve once again used up all biological resources that our planet regenerates during a year. 

To help catalyse action, the UN High Level Climate Champions have updated an existing Breakthroughs paper to include additional specificity on halving emissions by 2030 across more sectors of the real economy.

“Climate change isn’t about countries: it’s about people. It’s about the world we want to live in for generations to come and the species we share it with. In other words, it’s far too important to leave just to world leaders – this crisis requires all of us to step up” – Governor of California, Gavin Newsom explains what’s at stake.

Net zero is powerful as a rallying message but we must be more aware of who gets to make use of the ‘net’, argues Clare Wildfire, technical principal and global practice leader for cities, Mott MacDonald

EU policymakers unveiled their most ambitious plan yet to tackle climate change, aiming to turn green goals into concrete action this decade, and in doing so lead the way for the world’s other big economies.

When companies wake up to the dangers of being the last to leave the fossil fuel economy and instead see the competitive advantages of a quick transition, they will become accelerators for change, explains Svante Axelsson, national coordinator of Fossil Free Sweden.

The sooner we begin retrofitting existing buildings and constructing new ones that can withstand climate change, the better, argues Ran Boydell, Visiting Lecturer in Sustainable Development, Heriot-Watt University.

The UN High Level Champions have designed a toolkit to help us all understand what a credible net zero commitment looks like, and which commitments lack the substance needed to deliver a zero carbon world in time.

The High Level Climate Champions and Marrakech Partnership programme for COP26 will showcase momentum from the whole of society, and focus on key issues to drive ambition and action.

The heathcare sector has a responsibility to train, educate, advocate and influence decision and policy-makers, collaborate widely through its research work, and engage the youth in inclusive programmes, according to Dr Claire Bayntun, Vice President of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Dr Elizabeth Hausler, Founder and CEO of Build Change, an organization that prevents housing loss caused by disasters, explains why everyone, from state to non-state actors, must drive the demand for resilient housing.

Shirley Rodrigues, Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy and the Greater London Authority; Catherine McGuinness, Chair of the Policy and Resources Institute at the City of London Corporation; and Georgia Gould, Leader of Camden Council discuss the monumental challenge and opportunity of a net zero London.

“Fighting climate change helps us create a better world. And net zero is the lever to get us there,” Farhana Yamin speaking at a town hall meeting convened by the UN High Level Champions on June 28.

Amongst the UK Government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan and the Heat & Buildings strategy, the Green Skills Taskforce is due to report this summer on how to deliver three million green jobs in the UK by 2030

When Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science at Reading University in the UK, wanted to find the simplest way to tell the story of global warming, he turned to an image.

In picking up from the wreckage wrought by Covid-19, the climate crisis and the devastatingly fast loss of nature and biodiversity, we find ourselves on the cusp of a great regeneration. It’s a regeneration of our health, of our planet, and of our economy. 

All forms of ecosystem degradation have one thing in common: When people hurt ecosystems, they also hurt economies, biodiversity and the climate.

As the global climate crisis worsens, an increasing number of people are being forced to flee their homes due to natural disasters, droughts and other weather events. These people are sometimes called “climate refugees”. Who are these climate refugees? And how can the international community properly address this issue?

A growing, economy-wide momentum proves we are well on the way to creating a healthier and more resilient future. We have taken the decisive first step, setting the destination. Now we have to start moving — fast.

The G7 Summit was a landmark moment in a landmark year for climate action, and a critical stepping stone to the biggest international climate conference since Paris.

A coalition of stakeholders from across the climate action ecosystem have developed a roadmap aimed at steering the fashion industry on a path to a zero carbon future.

The zero carbon home is well within our grasp. The technologies we need already exist and are coming down in cost. Juliet Davenport OBE, Founder of Good Energy explains how we get there.

The decarbonization pathway for shipping is rapidly becoming clearer. All signs point to hydrogen based fuels playing a critical role and the rapid increase in green hydrogen commitments from governments indicates that fuel supply will not be an issue. So what’s holding the sector back?

Offshore wind will be an increasingly vital technology to deliver large-scale, reliable and affordable renewable energy, which can accelerate the global energy transition, argues Alastair Dutton, Chair of the Global Offshore Wind Task Force at the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

Our parent’s generation put a man on the moon eight years after JFK’s commitment to do so in May 1961. In this decisive decade, when faced with the threat of a climate emergency, how can we do any less? In corporate boardrooms across the world, the challenge is increasingly being accepted: climate change poses an […]

With roughly half of Europe’s steel assets up for reinvestment this decade there is a unique opportunity to kick-start the transition by switching those production assets to zero-emission technologies.

“As the world around us is changing, both in terms of the green energy revolution and in terms of the climate conditions we will have to operate in, if we do not change, adapt and add our ability to reduce emissions, then we will be left behind technologically, operationally and socially,” Lieutenant-General Richard Nugee CB CVO CBE.

The roadmap shows that net zero has become mainstream, fossil fuels must be phased out urgently and that those businesses that work towards cutting their emissions in line with 1.5C will be in the best position to thrive, argues We Mean Business CEO, María Mendiluce.

The Net Zero by 2050 Emissions Scenario – a pathway in line with 1.5˚C – will map out a major transformation of the global energy system.

With global temperatures only set to rise further, now more than ever it is essential that governments act to reduce the risks to vulnerable people and communities posed by inevitable, yet deadly heatwaves.

The challenges posed by manmade heat cannot be tackled by technology and design alone, argue Antonella Mazzone & Radhika Khosla from the Future of Cooling Programme, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.

Alok Sharma said COP26 will be the world’s best chance of building a cleaner, greener future and “our last hope of keeping 1.5 degrees alive”.

More than $3 billion worth of property in Southeast Florida could be lost to tidal flooding without efforts to reduce the threat. Here’s how Miami is fighting back against climate change.

The latest episode of Outrage + Optimism discusses the complexity of financing the fundamental economic transition to a future net-zero world.

The Better Business Act will ensure businesses are legally responsible for benefiting workers, customers, communities and the environment while delivering profit.

Chatham House Associate Fellow and chartered member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Karim Elgendy explores the role of buildings in the race to net zero cities.

An encouraging array of announcements of new commitments and partnerships – both public and private – and the nearly exponential growth in membership of the critical Race to Zero campaign shows that the transformation of the global economy is truly underway.

“This is our only home. This is our ability to survive as a species. And every other issue, whether it’s animal rights, human rights or children’s rights will be negatively impacted – and is already sometimes being negatively impacted – by an unhealthy environment. It feels like the rug underneath everything else” – Lily Cole in conversation with Nigel Topping.

With science demanding that in order to stay below 1.5C we must reach “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the absolute latest, how do we get there? Tom Rivett-Carnac in conversation with Dr. Thomas Hale, Associate Professor in Global Public Policy at Oxford University.

As net zero commitments proliferate, the refined criteria outline the minimum standard for initiatives of businesses, investors, cities, regions and universities for robust and credible net zero commitments.

The first episode of Outrage + Optimism’s Race To Zero series, featuring: Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP, President-Designate of COP26, Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, Mary Anne Hitt, National Director of Campaigns for The Sierra Club, and Nigel Topping, High Level Climate Action Champion for COP26.

“The world we live in today has been shaped by the breakthroughs of our past – from the Model T assembly line to the spread of mobile phones across previously unconnected rural areas. Such breakthroughs continue to propel us towards a safer future, as long as governments make sure the whole of society comes along for the ride.” – UN High Level Champion, Nigel Topping.

The Biden-Harris Administration has today sent the strongest possible signal from the world’s second-biggest emitter that the Race to Zero is truly on.

As we celebrate Earth Day and inch closer to COP26, 17 of the world’s greatest environmentalists – scientists, guardians of the planet, leaders, pioneers, activists, adventurers and ambassadors – reflect on their hopes for its outcome.

The US, after the UK, is now the second largest country for corporate climate action, with 301 of its companies now in the Race to Zero.

A new interactive digital tool gives policymakers, businesses, investors, innovators and citizens alike the opportunity explore and visualize their individual and collective roles in the transition to a net zero built environment.

Cities in the Netherlands want to make their air cleaner by banning fossil fuel delivery vehicles from urban areas from 2025.

“The chances of stopping warming at 1.5°C increase the faster the global community cuts greenhouse gas emissions to zero. And how fast we do that depends on the interrelated actions of a huge mix of people – government ministers most importantly, but also business chiefs, investors, banks, religious leaders, activists and citizens,” Richard Black, Imperial College London & Catherine Happer, University of Glasgow.

Royal Society of Medicine Trustee Professor Linda Luxon examines the role health professionals are playing in tackling the defining public health challenge of the 21st century: climate change.

China’s businesses, investors, cities and provinces have the opportunity to push the transformation that has already started to the pace and scale needed to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis

Implementing low carbon initiatves in six major cities could bring $12 trillion in net benefits by 2050 and create millions of new jobs by 2030, report finds.

The collective footprint of US institutions and stakeholders adopting net zero targets suggests the US is at a climate policy inflection point.

Rapid growth in net zero emission targets since the Paris Agreement, and the IPCC 1.5°C report, shows that a significant proportion of political and business leaders now accept the case for reaching net zero by 2050. But to deliver the 1.5°C global warming target, plans must be robust, transparent and enacted at once, argues a […]

Nearly 3,000 businesses, cities, regions and investors have joined the race to halve emissions by 2030.

While national targets are important, of equal or greater importance will be the non state actions triggered by China’s 5YP, argues Hu Min, Co-Founder, Innovative Green Development Program.

As energy markets the world over grapple with making the clean energy transition, South Australia proves it can be done.

We welcome the United States’ official rejoining of the Paris Agreement.

Green Gigaton Challenge launched to achieve 1 gigaton of emission reductions from avoided deforestation by 2025

Rapid breakthroughs are pushing eight key sectors closer to the tipping points necessary to reach zero emissions by 2050 and avert the worst impacts of climate change, according to the Climate Action Pathways.

Cities are leading on ensuring a safe and steady supply of water and setting an example for others to follow.

We need to care for and live in harmony with the environment, says climate and gender activist Ernestine Leikeki Sevidzem.

Covid-19 and climate emergencies demand huge political leadership, massive investment and clear corporate strategy. But we are beginning to see real evidence of a mutually sustaining loop of pressure between politicians, CEOs and the world of finance.

The number of net-zero pledges has roughly doubled in less than a year, reveals new report from Data-Driven EnviroLab & NewClimate Institute. 

In the wake of recent protests against racism globally, now more than ever, citizens’ concern for social and climate justice is burgeoning.

Ten leading companies sign up to smart energy commitments on Day 2 of Climate Week NYC, including Chinese textiles supplier Changzhou New Wide.

Multinational German autoparts maker Continental is the latest to step forward to commit to set a science-based target.

WorldGBC network launches Sustainable Buildings for Everyone, Everywhere — a new strategy to tackle the climate emergency, health and wellbeing, and resource efficiency issues in the built environment.

Businesses are vital partners, to both governments and the local communities, in the global effort to combat COVID-19 and climate change.

Cities are clear about the future they want and they are already showing what is possible. In 2020 we can build something different and better. The work has already begun.

There are clear connections between COVID-19 and the climate crisis – we must act now to tackle both systemic threats together.

Businesses and local and state governments are developing new policies to help businesses switch and meet their EV goals.