Hong Kong’s first blog for SDG education news and announcements
Can Vertical Farming Stand the Test of COVID-19 and Food Insecurity? (IISD) Strengthening Data Use to Achieve the 2030 Agenda (IISD) Chemical pollution exceeds safe planetary limit (The Conversation) Birds and bees: why new buildings need to support the natural world (The Conversation) China renewables firms burst on to ranking of world's most sustainable corporates (Eco-Business) Asia's emissions-reduction plan for the world (Eco-Business) ‘Like a work of art’: rare stretch of pristine coral reef discovered off Tahiti (The Guardian) By 2050, a quarter of the world’s people will be African – this will shape our future (The Guardian) . . .
Late in 2021, UNESCO published a new report called Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education. [open access – read here] It is 2 years of work which consulted with over a million people. Its premise is that education can be seen in terms of a social contract – an implicit agreement among members of a society to cooperate for shared benefit. It sees the old contract as being nationally focused but now we need collective endeavours and to provide the knowledge and innovation needed to shape sustainable and peaceful futures for all anchored in social, economic, and environmental justice. The report highlights: Principles: Assuring the right to quality education throughout life. It must also encompass the right to information, culture and science – as well as the right to access and contribute to the knowledge commons, the collective knowledge resources of humanity that have been accumulated over generations and are continuously transformi . . .
The right to education is article 26 of the UDHR which aims for free and compulsory elementary education for all, with vocational education generally available and higher education accessible by merit. It also states that “education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups….” The later Convention on the Rights of the Child develops this further to make higher education accessible to all. Education is fundamental to all human activity but what we must realize is that education needs to be properly prioritized if we are to have a chance of reaching the goals of the 2030 Agenda – essentially to survive as a species. This means not only that universal education needs to be achieved but that sustainability education needs to become standard in all curriculums . . .
Ocean heat is at record levels, with major consequences (The Conversation) Meat and dairy gobble up farming subsidies worldwide, which is bad for your health and the planet (The Conversation) Despite COP26 forest vow, one third of commodity firms have no plans to halt deforestation (Eco-Business) Natural disasters cost world US$280 billion in 2021 — a third more than in 2020 (Eco-Business) Nearly quarter of world’s population had record hot year in 2021, data shows (The Guardian) Plants at risk of extinction as climate crisis disrupts animal migration (The Guardian) . . .
It may have taken a couple of decades to break through but it is probably safe to say that significant numbers of people now understand the link between atmospheric carbon, especially carbon dioxide and methane, and global temperature. Hopefully, this allows the majority to realize that the transfer of carbon to the atmosphere is now mostly caused by human activity. Those with a slightly deeper understanding will know that deforestation plays a part by reducing the natural mechanism that remove carbon from the atmosphere and therefore contributes to global heating. But research now confirms that deforestation also has a clear local climate impact as well by leading to more frequent storms at the local scale and these in turn have an amplified impact as the removal of trees means there is a greater likelihood of those storms leading to flooding. See more here . . .
Amazingly there are still millions of women and girls in the world who menstruate but struggle to afford proper, modern, hygienic products that would make their period easier to deal with. It doesn’t take much thought to realize that this period poverty reflects failure across six SDGs. It is a function of both poverty [SDG1] and gender inequality [5]. Addressing it would also help improve health [3], reduce water issues [6] and represent greater equality [10]. Achieving it would also means improved education [4]. These are the obvious ones but I reckon you can also draw links to others as well. So, why not do something about it? . . .
UNGA to Hold Five-Part Consultation on Our Common Agenda (IISD) Global, Regional Workshops Supporting 2022 VNR Countries (IISD) Trillion Trees debuts guide for investing in forest restoration (BusinessGreen) More trees means healthier bees, new study on air pollution reveals (Eco-Business) England’s farmers to be paid to rewild land (The Guardian) Filipinos count cost of climate crisis as typhoons get ever more destructive (The Guardian) . . .
A report by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found that there has been no aggregate deforestation reductions from rollout of community land titles in Indonesia yet. You can see the details in full in the report but it goes to show that we cannot assume that community-led projects will and must always be successful at achieving sustainability aims. To my mind it helps illustrate the importance of what the UN calls FUR – follow-up and reporting - so that impacts can be measured and assessed and then programmes can be changed if they are not working as intended. . . .
