Revealing and inspiring to Success - CHAMP regional final conference

The windmill farm just outside Liepaja rising around us while driving towards the UBC IX General Conference awoke a perfect positivism inside just before the CHAMP regional final conference in Liepaja. The purpose of our trip was to participate in the UBC General Conference as a CHAMP delegation and conduct the regional final conference of CHAMP in the Baltic Sea Region.

The three year CHAMP project is moving closer to the end. October 4th – 7th in connection to the UBC IX General Conference, the CHAMP BSR final conference was held in form of two workshops. The first workshop on Success stories of Local climate change work in the Baltic Sea Region gathered Finnish CHAMP cities Lahti and Kotka to present and share their success stories. Besides hearing about the good practices and development in CHAMP cities, another theme was cooperation.

Swedish Climate Municipalities introduced their activities in supporting Swedish municipalities to a joint effort towards success in climate work. As a comment speech of parallel action in Finland the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, also a CHAMP partner, shared their experiences from their Climate Campaign. At the same time one of the new initiatives connecting cities and the signature of the Covenant of Mayors, NET-COM Networking the Covenant of Mayors was presented.

It is clear that cooperation is also needed in future, but how? In our opinion it will be in form of the European Partnership for Integrated Sustainability Management, launched in June this year. The partnership will consist of Training hubs offering support and IMS trainings to local and regional authorities,

Quoting a famous business quote and Pekka Salminen, Project Manager for CHAMP,
“If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive.
If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.”

The second part of the workshop, How to master climate change; success factors in local integrated climate management, put the focus on the elements of successful management, implementation and stakeholder involvement of local climate change work. Tampere city working towards carbon neutrality and a presentation on Successful stakeholder involvement from the Danish Board of Technology gave inspiration and set a base for discussion on various solutions in different cities.

Thinking about the expected outcomes of the CHAMP project – a Capacity Development Package, Publications, Case studies and continuity in form of the European partnership are now presented. Back from Liepaja, we are now at the office reprocessing the great work done by cities, but heading towards the Final Conference to be held December 14th – 15th. The Online conference European Climate Champions will have a great impact on the total carbon footprint of our project and will therefore fulfill the expected outcomes set three years ago. It’s time to assure proper headsets and connections and prepare for cooperation to become exponentially better in European climate work.

See the presentations of the CHAMP BSR final conference on the CHAMP website

Pictures: UBC Env Com/ Liepaja 2011

Climate adaptation - Science vs. Practice?!

On May 31st the Baltic Sea States Sub-regional Cooperation (BSSSC) and the Baltex Secretariat invited practitioners, scientists and decision makers at the regional political level in the Baltic Sea Region a platform to present and discuss concrete examples of regional or local adaptation to climate change.

The biggest challenge of the conference was to find a common language and discussion basis for the diverse audience: scientists and practitioners and decision-makers from regional and local authorities.
Several researchers presented current projects working with the issue of climate adpataion in the region; from projects on adaptation strategies, involvement of stakeholders or capacity buidling to the issue of transferring scientific knowledge to decision-makers.

In the end, the most interesting and inspiring input came from the cities and regions themselves; especially Swedish and Danis cities and regions took the chance to show off what they have been working on and implementing in terms of climate adaptation and those experiences were very inspiring!

The need for a better understanding, better cooperation and better communication between science and practice is definitely existing. the conference was a good point on the way, but there still is a bit to go.

All presentations and the Hamburg declaration can be found from the Baltex-website

Thinking about the gender-climate link

The developing countries are experiencing the impacts of climate change first-handed. Especially women in those countries are vulnerable to ethe ffects of the changing climate. Recognizing the gender-climate link is only one point of view to the issue, but it's still a significant one.

Men and women are affected by the climate change in a different way . This is caused for instance by the distribution of work and cultural norms. Being poor makes people more vulnerable to the effects of climate change no matter if you are a man or a woman. However, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 70 % of the world's poor are women. The impacts of climate change are expected to increase poverty and thus lead to increased gender inequality, too.

Should we look at the gender aspects of climate change also in the rich north? The differences are not only visible in developing countries. For the Nordic people in general are not used to heat waves and especially the elderly, most of them being women, are severely affected by the hot weather. Certain professions in the European countries are strongly dominated by women or men. If certain professions are suffering from the changing climate, also gender effects could be notable. What is certain is that more information on the impacts of climate change from the gender point of view is needed both in the south and in the north.

Photo: UNWOMEN
More information:
UNDP Resource guide on Gender and Climate Change
Gender into Climate Change: Toolkit for climate experts and decision-makers

Cities Climate Registry - carbonn

At World Mayors Summit on Climate, the role of local action in the climate change mitigation and adaptation was again stressed. The potential of cities should be taken into account in the international climate negotiations like it was done at the Biodiversity Summit in Nagoya a couple of weeks ago.

There, a plan of action on cities and biodiversity was adopted by the Nagoya Biodiversity City summit. Also in other ways, Nagoya was a success we only wish to see in the international climate negotiations: the COP16 meeting in Cancun started yesterday without any hope of a binding climate agreement.

At World Mayors Summit, cities from all over the world signed the Mexico city Pact on 21 November and thus committed to the reduction of urban greenhouse gas emissions. One way to facilitate local climate action and help cities make climate commitments that the world can count on is the recently published carbonn Cities Climate Registry carbonn (cCCR) developed by ICLEI and UNEP .

The cCCR supports the global credibility of local climate action by allowing transparency, accountability and comparability of climate actions, performance and commitments. Amongst other things, the cCCR integrates the climate commitments of cities into its database, allows cities to register their greenhouse gas reduction commitments and report their performance and actions.

See how your city could benefit from Cities Climate Registry!

American cities acting for climate

The USA is the 2nd largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. It is also a major player in international climate change negotiations but has been lacking the political will to commit to climate protection. This hasn't stopped cities of tackling the issue of climate change locally: many local governments have climate action plans and ambitious targets for cutting their GHG emissions.

The State of California at the head is adopting statewide climate policies and regulations. The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 is expected to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Moreover, a law to redesign communities to reduce greenhouse gases connects land use with carbon reduction goals. By offering carrots, the regulations encourage cities to adopt a Sustainable Communities Strategy that requires new development to be near transit or clustered with existing development. Many Californian local governments, Santa Monica, Pasadena and Los Angeles, for example, have already implemented green building standards and resource GHG emissions programs.

At the same time, Austin, Texas is the first city in the US committing to going carbon neutral. Interestingly, Austin is the Capitol of a conservative state that is the national leader in greenhouse gas emissions. In 2007, Austin resolved to make city facilities, vehicles and operations carbon-neutral by 2020 and move the city-owned energy utility toward this goal over time. To this end, a Climate Action Plan targeting four areas: municipal operations, utility, homes and buildings, and community, is to be developed and implemented. In Austin, an integrated approach to climate work has been adopted: An inventory of greenhouse gas emissions has been completed for all city departments and a Climate Action Team composed of representatives from all city departments is working on department-specific plans to attain the municipal goal, as well as greenhouse gas-reduction strategies specific to their roles across all four areas.

Source:
SolveClimate.com / Patricia Kirk
Pictures: Cities of Los Angeles and Austin

Read more:
California Climate Change Portal
CoolCalifornia: Local Government Case Studies
Austin Climate Protection Program: CoolAustin.org

Cities are key to fight climate change

With more than 50 % of the world' s population is living in cities, we are an urban species. Cities account for about 80 % of the world-wide pollution. According to Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, this clearly shows, that human species is putting the world in danger and cities are key in addressing this challenge. At the same time, cities are leading the world-wide process to fight climate change both in mitigation and adaptation. Adaptation strategies in developing countries are by nature survival strategies. Global climate governance should therefore include those managing the habitats. This discussion has been recorded as part of the series 'Time for Real Questions' during COP15 in Copenhagen.

Lights off on Saturday: It's Earth Hour!

Earth Hour 2010 is taking place on Saturday the 27th of March, 8:30 PM (local time) and switching off the lights around the world for an hour. The idea is not to save electricity but to take a stand against climate change. Individuals, businesses and communities all over the world are called to action: to take responsibility and get involved in the fight against climate change.

In 2009, over 4 000 cities in 88 countries took part in Earth Hour making it the largest climate change initiative in the world. This year, many global landmarks such as the Eiffel tower in Paris, Big Ben in London, Empire State Building in New York City and Sydney Opera House are going to stand in darkness.

Earth Hour has been visible in social media such as Facebook and Twitter and there's a lot of enthusiasm around the event.One could ask if Earth Hour is really making a change. Turning off your lights for an hour per year is a great way to seem green to the public without really committing to mitigate climate change in everyday actions. But at the same time it is an easy way to show that you care.

One of the aims of Earth Hour is to show politicians the concern of the general public. Especially after the failure in the Copenhagen Summit, this kind of global campaign and enthusiasm is hopefully a way of giving world leaders the mandate they need to make the right climate deal.



More information on the campaign: Earth Hour website
Earth Hour is organized by WWF.

"Adaptigation"

There are different views when it comes to administrations and climate change response. The opinion of many is that climate change mitigation is most important while others believe that adaptation to the effects of a changing climate is more critical. Most, however, admit that both perspectives have to be taken into account.

Recently there has been a dramatic change in the perspective of how administrations act in response to climate change. After focusing almost solely on climate change mitigation for years, different administrations are now concentrating more on climate change adaptation. According to a Senior Research Fellow in Nordregio, Richard Langlais, good planning integrates both perspectives: adaptation and mitigation. He argues that separating the two perspectives in planning is becoming obsolete and can also lead to contradictory measures.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change adoption is defined as "initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems against actual or expected climate change effects". Climate change mitigation, on the other hand, means "implementing policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance sinks".

Langlais uses a simple example of a municipality planting a new forest along a local river. As he argues, this measure should be seen as both adaptation and mitigation, that is: "adaptigation", by which he means a response to climate change that integrates a focus on adaptation with a focus on mitigation, to avoid conflicts and create synergies. "Seeing this newly planted forest as both adaptation (it buffers the impacts of flooding) and mitigation (it absorbs carbon) is good planning", writes Langlais. The most important thing is to keep "adaptigation" in mind: adaptation and mitigation can be outcomes of the same measures.

Source: Richard Langlais, Journal of Nordregio 9:4, 2009.

Will CCS be part of the solution?

Dealing with climate change can be done in different ways, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a possibility still in the development phase. The German pilot project shows us that CCS has a long way to go before becoming operational.

What is CCS and how can it help us in the struggle against climate change? The main idea is to capture and store CO2 so it does not reach the earth's atmosphere. This will be achieved by introducing a CCS technology near a large scale emitter of CO2, like a fossil fuel power plant. The CO2 is captured by scrubbing it from the air and can be stored underground.

The first pilot Carbon Capture and Storage power plant in Germany has not been successful so far:

"Vattenfall’s Schwarze Pumpe project in Spremberg, northern Germany, launched in a blaze of publicity last September, was a beacon of hope, the first scheme to link the three key stages of trapping, transporting and burying the greenhouse gases.

The Swedish company, however, surprised a recent conference when it admitted that the €70m (£60.3m) project was venting the CO2 straight into the atmosphere. “It was supposed to begin injecting by March or April of this year but we don’t have a permit. This is a result of the local public having questions about the safety of the project,” said Staffan Gortz, head of carbon capture and storage communication at Vattenfall. He said he did not expect to get a permit before next spring: “People are very, very sceptical.”

The spread of localised resistance is a force that some fear could sink Europe’s attempts to build 10 to 12 demonstration projects for carbon capture and storage (CCS) by 2015. The plan had been to transport up to 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the power plant each year and inject it into depleted gas reservoirs at a giant gasfield near the Polish border….

Stuart Haszeldine, a CCS expert at the University of Edinburgh, warned of the danger of opposition towards CCS snowballing into a “bandwagon of negativity” if too many early projects were rejected. “Once you’ve screwed up one or two of them, people are going to think ‘if they rejected this in Barendrecht, there must be a reason’,” he said."

The public opinion is very negative towards these new technologies. As time is running out we need to deal with this threat now and by opposing helpful measures we are only getting further away from our goal.

Sources:
Grist
The Guardian

G8 summit in L'Aquila

L'Aquila (it), ravaged by a devastating earthquake earlier this year, hosted on the 8th, 9th and 10th of July 2009 the G8 summit. On the agenda: reaching an agreement on the climate change objectives.

The first day the G8 top came to the consensus that they will not allow a raise in temperature by more than two degrees Celsius in comparison to the level of the beginning of last century.

On the second day the G8 summit expanded with the emerging economies, the result: The emerging economies agree with the objectives but do not want to cut down there CO2 emissions with 50% by 2050.

During the last day they decided a change of course in there policy towards the fight against malnutricion. Instead of donating loads of food there will be investments in the third worlds' food production.

There have been made some important steps towards the climate change threath, let us hope they are sufficient and lead to action.

Reflection on The Green Week

The Green Week is now well behind us and it is time to take a moment and look back on this event. It has been a great opportunity for CHAMP to take part in a big and international event. We were able to reach many different actors and attend numerous conferences.

European commissioner for the environment Stavros Dimas said: “We need an ambitious international agreement at the Copenhagen conference in December followed by determined and effective international action. It is the future of our planet that is at stake and time is running out.” He added that, “Climate change is a cross-cutting issue that not only affects the natural environment we depend on but also has important impacts on our economies and social fabric.” We feel that the world is comming to crossroads, the decisions made in the upcomming COP15 will have a great influence in the outcome of climate change.

Picture by Sven Schultz

Welcome to the official CHAMP blog

Dear visitors,

As most of us know Climate Change is bound to make a great impact and without taking sufficient actions many of us will face severe consequences for the damage done in the past decennia.

In CHAMP seven European organizations combine their strengths and with the support of life+ and Regione Lombardia we established the project in 2009. Our main goal is to deliver competence for local authorities by setting up training hubs throughout Europe. For the moment we have accomplished training hubs in Finland, Germany, Italy and Hungary. With our experience of MUE-25 and the implementation of Integrated Management Systems we intend to contribute to the fight against Climate Change.

In this blog we will update you on the progress we are making and express our ideas about the latest climate change developments.

The CHAMP team.