Public health in a changing climate
Whether it’s direct or indirect, climate change will have an impact on public health. A recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the New Economics Foundation reviews current local strategies by public health institutions to address climate change. In...
Citizens sue their governments for action on climate change
“Global warming is already disrupting the planet’s weather”, a recent New York Times article reads, “now it is having an impact on the courts as well, as adults and children around the world try to enlist the judiciary in their efforts to blunt climate change.” After...
Greater than the sum of our parts | Briefing paper on global partnerships for Goal 16
Following a workshop earlier this year, bringing together a range of global partnerships, as well as senior governmental, multilateral and civil society representatives, Saferworld has published a briefing paper: Greater than the sum of our parts – global...
Children, youth and disasters: Listening, learning, and moving towards democratic engagement
In this provocation, Prof Lori Peek, co-director of the Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis at Colorado State University, draws on her work following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 where she interviewed disaster-affected children and youth across the United States. She...
Disasters & Democracy: Spring Newsletter, April 2016
Our Spring Newsletter is out! The focus this time is on disasters and democracy, and with particular attention to the importance of youth engagement. Contributors draw on experiences in the field after earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand (Bronwyn Hayward);...
New UK Health Alliance on Climate Change to encourage healthy action on climate change
Many of the key drivers of climate change also cause poor health through air pollution, high saturated fat intake and physical inactivity, argues the recently launched Health Alliance on Climate Change. Responding to climate change, says the group of major health...
Brexit: Potential environmental policy consequences for the UK | New IEEP report
A recently published report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), in collaboration with The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and WWF UK, considers the potential consequences a #Brexit could have on environmental policy in the UK. The research focuses on two...
A bold move toward public problem solving on a global scale? | Anne-Marie Slaughter on the Paris Agreement
In her recent blog for the Project Syndicate, Anne-Marie Slaughter, former president of the American Society of International Law, offers an optimistic take on the non-binding nature of the Paris Agreement. As she argues: “its deficits in this regard are its...
New chair for FDSD
John Lotherington is delighted to announce that his successor as Chair of FDSD’s Board of Trustees is Graham Smith, Professor of Politics at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster. Graham is a specialist in democratic innovation and citizen...
Winter Newsletter, Jan 2016: Democracy and Climate Politics
Our Winter Newsletter it out! With focus this time on democracy and climate politics. Interesting insights from David Kahane, Simon Burall, Andrea Westall, Halina Ward and János Zlinsky. Please get in touch at info@fdsd.org if you or your organisation would like to...
Managing the Psychological Distance of Climate Change
Climate change is a notoriously ‘distant’ risk for most people. We hear about it in the news, but it rarely seems relevant to our everyday life – “it feels ‘not here’ and it feels ‘not now’”. This sense of non-urgency couldn’t be further away from the actual impact...
COP21 – the sound of the bell for system change
“Habemus consensus!” a Huffington Post article reads, summarising the sanguine diplomatic outcome of the COP21 conference in Paris. It might not be as binding as hoped by the hundreds of thousands of people engaging in the climate march; it does, however, signify a...
People’s Climate March 2015—largest mobilisation in history
On 29 November 2015, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world joined the biggest day of climate change activism in history. 785.000 citizens participated in 2,300 events in 175 countries and thousands of cities to march for a clean energy future, aiming...
JRF evidence review on community resilience to climate change
The concept of community resilience to climate change in the UK is multifaceted and comes with a wide range of associated activities. In order to build the evidence base and help support the development of community resilience to climate change, the Joseph Rowntree...
Summary and footage: EAC conference on the Government’s approach to sustainable development, 10 November 2015
The Environmental Audit Committee, a Select Committee in the UK Parliament, has published the transcript of its first conference, held on 10th November 2015, on the Government’s Approach to Sustainable Development. Following the EAC’s public inquiry from July 2015, to...
How the UK is really doing: NEF’s five headline indicators of national success
With their latest report “Five headline indicators of national success – a clearer picture of how the UK is performing”, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) has launched a campaign to end “short-term obsession with narrow economic measures and … flawed conception(s) of...
Sophie Howe appointed first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales
Following the adoption of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act in April 2015, the Welsh Government has appointed its first Future Generations Commissioner, Sophie Howe, currently Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales. “Public bodies in...
Autumn 2015 Newsletter
In the wake of September’s adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, this second edition of the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development’s quarterly newsletter focuses on SDG 16, which aims to “ensure responsive, inclusive,...
SDGs: precious lever for progress in the UK | Ann Pfeiffer, Green House
Unlike the Millennium Development Goals, which focus primarily on social development priorities in low-income countries, the Sustainable Development Goals are intended to apply to developing and developed countries alike. In her Green House essay What do the...Sign up for newsletter
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