Hong Kong’s first blog for SDG education news and announcements
Tomorrow, 7 April is the anniversary of the founding of the World health Organization (WHO) in 1948. In the midst of a pandemic, a polluted planet, increasing diseases like cancer, asthma, heart disease, on World Health Day 2022, WHO will focus global attention on urgent actions needed to keep humans and the planet healthy and foster a movement to create societies focused on well-being.? ? WHO estimates that more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to avoidable environmental causes. This includes the climate crisis which is the single biggest health threat facing humanity. The climate crisis is also a health crisis. A range of events are accessible here: https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day . . .
Earth Day happens in April every year (since 1970!!!). It gets bigger and bigger, although it is amazing that it has taken over 50 years to get such traction. One way in which we see its impact expanding is the creation of Earth Month by the Center For Environmental Justice And Sustainability at Seattle U. This gives a longer window for people to take action and establish and/or join a varirty of events across different focuses, often in an SDG context. Check it out for how you can be involved: https://www.seattleu.edu/cejs/events/earthmonth/ . . .
UNEA Launches Negotiation of Plastic Pollution Treaty, Science Body on Chemicals (IISD) Four reasons to be hopeful about the planned global plastics treaty (The Conversation) A billion of the world’s most climate-vulnerable people live in informal settlements – here’s what they face (The Conversation) Record-smashing heatwaves are hitting Antarctica and the Arctic simultaneously. Here’s what’s driving them, and how they’ll impact wildlife (The Conversation) Are carbon markets killing conservation? (Eco-business) All countries are failing to hit minimum air quality benchmarks (Eco-business) How Saharan dust clouds that turn skies orange also nourish nature (The Guardian) 2021 Saw the Biggest Increase In CO2 Emissions Ever. A New Report Says Carbon Capture Is Essential. (Green Queen) Thailand’s CP Foods And Israel’s Future Meat Partner To Create Cultivated Products In Asia (Green Queen) Asia Pacific may take till 2065 to achieve . . .
A report - ‘Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires,’ by UNEP and GRID-Arendal - finds that both climate change and land-use change are contributing to a trend of increasing wildfire frequency. Wildfires and climate change are circular, as fires contribute significant greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and thus strengthen climate change. Climate change is also worsened as previous “wet” environments such as peatlands and rainforests become drier and more likely to burn, rather than helping to slow temperature rise. Not only is there an environmental impact but of course an inherent human impact: respiratory and cardiovascular problems caused by inhaling smoke; economic costs to rebuild; the degrading of watersheds by wildfires’ pollutants; and contaminated wastes being left behind. The authors expect that extreme fires are projected to rise by up to 14% by 2030, 30% by 2050, and 50% by 2100. They recommend therefore . . .
The ITS Education Asia Foundation hosted the afternoon experience for this years HK SDG Summit, organized by the Global Goals Clubs Council at Canadian International School Hong Kong. Forced to go fully virtual by pandemic measures, we focused on taking teams through the process of problem framing and solution ideating in the social enterprise context - all using our youth graduates from previous programmes to do the facilitating thus demonstrating and creating virtuous circles of sustainable activity. The focus was SDG 17, an often overlooked and misunderstood SDG, which allowed us to show how the UN and national governments might pull together and how the SDGs are inherently interlinked and interdependent. . . .
UNEA Launches Negotiation of Plastic Pollution Treaty (IISD) UN Embarks on Preparations for Education Summit (IISD) As sea levels rise, coastal megacities will need more than flood barriers (The Conversation) What your T-shirt reveals about ‘carbon colonialism’ and the global economy’s vast hidden emissions (The Conversation) Climate-positive, high-tech metals are polluting Earth, but there are solutions (Eco-business) Rich nations are mainly to blame for biodiversity loss — but are reluctant to foot the bill to protect it (Eco-business) Great Barrier Reef hit by sixth mass bleaching event, leading coral scientist says (The Guardian) Climate justice, activism, and revolutionary love (Ryan Hagen) Gender equality in environmental programmes (Cap4dev) . . .
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Every year, at 8:30 pm on the last Saturday of March, millions of people across the world join in raising awareness of the issues facing our planet. Started by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and partners as a symbolic lights-out event in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour is now one of the world's largest grassroots movements for the environment. Each year, Earth Hour engages millions of people in more than 180 countries and territories, switching off their lights to show support for our planet. But Earth Hour goes far beyond the symbolic action of switching off - it has become a catalyst for positive environmental impact, driving major legislative changes by harnessing the power of the people and collective action. Earth Hour is open-source and everyone, anyone, is welcome to take part and help amplify our mission to unite people to protect our planet. (from: https://www.thereisadayforthat.com/holidays/various/earth-hour ) . . .
