The Basque Declaration
On 23rd May representatives of cities, organisations, and citizens concerned about sustainable development and the future of our urban areas have been invited to endorse The Basque Declaration. This builds on the Aalborg Charter (1994) and the Aalborg Commitments...
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...
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...
Changing behaviour to achieve progress | Blog by FDSD Trustee Bronwyn Hayward
Bronwyn Hayward is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Head of Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch NZ. She is a trustee of the FDSD and co-investigator with the ESRC Research Centre for...
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...
Floods, community resilience and the “civic middle”: learning lessons from Leeds
The floods that hit wide areas of the UK at the end of last year were devastating for many communities. In many places local crisis management was found wanting. But in Leeds, the spontaneously self-organised volunteering infrastructures were exemplary in their...
Climate change action needs more than scientific evidence | Blog by Simon Burall
Simon Burall is the Director of Involve, a think tank and charity specialising in public participation. Their mission is to inspire, innovate and embed effective citizen engagement, to enable members of the public to take and influence the decisions that affect their...
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...
The UK, the SDGs, and particularly SDG 16
The UK Government hasn’t yet involved the public or any other stakeholder in discussions about the relevance of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for domestic application in the UK. According to BOND’s report on Bringing the Goals Home: Implementing the SDGs in...
The worrying rise of anti-democratic sentiments amongst climate scientists
In his latest essay Climate Policy: Democracy is not an inconvenience, Professor Nico Stehr—founding director of the European Center for Sustainability Research—reflects on the growing number of climate scientists who are not only expressing their impatience with...
The State of Europe’s Environment
In March the European Environment Agency published its State and Outlook Environment Report (SOER) 2015 (available here). The report highlights innovations in governance needed for long term sustainability. In addition, a section of the SOER website highlights global...Sign up for newsletter
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