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Every minute, forest areas of the size of 50 soccer fields are lost.
Every minute, every day.

Today, March 21st 2018, we celebrate the International Day of Forests. Ever since 2013, this date calls for global awareness on the degrading state of forests worldwide. It takes only one day in our calendars for us to remember how dependent mankind’s survival is on the  lungs of the planet.

With the current rate of deforestation, there will be no forests left within the next 100 years. The loss, degradation and conversion of forests threaten our survival.

“We are on the verge of destroying the perfect balance that nature has created for the wellbeing of human beings. Halting deforestation is not about saving the planet , it’s about ensuring the human well-being. The Earth will survive us and has done so for 4.5 billion years, she is much older and wiser.“
– Christiana Figueres (Former UNFCC Executive Secretary, 2018)

Certainly, once forests or green shelters and sources of life are lost, services and goods provided by nature also disappear. The maintenance of human well-being is then a question of time: how long can we survive with a degrading nature around us? Certain regions of the world already know the devastating answer.

Photos by Carla Madueño

We can stop thinking drama, and start thinking solutions

Today, we must talk about hope and urgency put into action. And there are certain actors and voices out there that I would like to remind you of today: Youth.

On the international day of forests, I want to send a big call to Youth around the globe teaching us every day how to stand on our young feet for a forest-friendly society.

• Youth teaches us that warriors can all have all ages, since what really matters is the strength of the own conviction.
• Youth teaches us that they are real cultural and intergenerational bridges that catalyze people’s fears and challenges.
• Youth teaches us that inclusive dialogue and participation is possible and necessary.
• And among all, youth helps people recover relations with the forests.

Youth is key in healing a broken world, through intergenerational reconciliation.

If you don’t believe youth can be an empowering and strong ally to protect forests, here are some examples:

Planting trees with only 9 years old: Back in 2007, a 9-year old German boy Felix Finkbeiner inspired by a school assignment imagined children planting 1 million trees in every country on Earth. His movement spreaded quickly throughout Germany and the Globe and by 2011 achieved with the help of other children planting a total of 1 million trees around the world.

Two sisters from Bali banned plastic from entire island: The Wijsen sisters from Bali are the living example that empowered and determined youth can solve the plastic pollution challenge. The young sisters, Melati and Isabel, successfully campaigned 4 years to get plastic bags banned from the Bali island. Indonesia is the 2nd largest plastic polluter in the world, after China.

“If we could meet with world leaders and speak to them, we would tell them to listen more to the youth, consider us as more than just inspiration. We have bright innovative ideas of how to deal with some of the greatest issues of our time”
– Wijsen sisters

Leave the smartphone, reconnect with your closest forest

May our decisions enlighten not a brighter future, but a greener present. Science and politics talk about changes to be carried out by 2030, 2050 or next millenia to protect forests. I believe that we simply cannot wait for decades to solve our greatest challenges.

On March 21st 2018, we stand for a change – now and not tomorrow.

Today, take a moment off, go to the closest forest or green space in your city, your village or town. Think about the impacts of your lifestyle, reconnect with nature, discover life beyond human beings and beyond the concrete jungle.

Meditate on the lives on the other side of the smartphone. Celebrate the hidden, still unknown and sheltered life in our green forests (and outside the scope of the International Day of Forest, celebrate also life in our blue oceans).

Stop thinking drama,
Start thinking solutions,
Stand up for forest protection
Empower Youth as forest warriors.

The post A youth pledge on forest’s day appeared first on Global Change Ecology.

1. What is the World Climate Simulation?

Developed by the think tank Climate Interactive, in partnership with the MIT School of Management and the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the World Climate simulation is a simplified UN negotiation. The model uses C-ROADS – a climate policy software – where agreed climate policies are entered and climate patterns get projected until the end of the century. Having had so far an astonishing success, this simulation has been carried out since 2008 over 800 times with over 38000 participants worldwide.

“Education is our strongest weapon to fight Climate Change”

When I first heard about World Climate, I was captured by the convincing arguments – such as the one above – shared during the Education Side Events at COP23 in Bonn. Motivated by the positive impacts this simulation has had and as a Global Change Ecology Master student, I decided to share with young future Latin American leaders this learning experience as well.

2. Game participants: Latin American young graduates

With the support of the KAAD (Catholic Academic Exchange Service) and as part of the Latin American Seminar for scholarship holders held from 2nd-4th February 2018, the World Climate simulation was carried out with 32 participants from 13 different countries.

The weekend-long seminar offered cross-sectorial training for Latin Americans studying in Germany. The seminar focused on the topic “El Buen Vivir” or “good living”, an alternative development concept that gathers South American indigenous wisdom to deliver sustainable answers to current social and environmental challenges.

Within this framework, the World Climate simulation aimed to put participants in the spotlight and give them the responsibility to take political decisions that affect mankind’s and nature’s future with the goal of achieving the good common life.

3. Let the game start

The 32 graduate students from 13 different nationalities were divided for the World Climate Simulation into 6 regional groups to represent China, India, European Union, USA, Other developed countries and Other developing countries. The simulation was carried out in the following way: As a facilitator I welcomed participants, introduced them to the C-ROADS model and World Climate simulation. I also made participants aware of the realistic (scientific facts and emotions) and unrealistic (simulated negotiation) elements of the simulation.

The simulation started when I (as facilitator) adopted the role of Patricia Espinosa (UNFCCC) and participants adopted their respective roles as nation’s delegates.

Photos courtesy of: Yasuo Matsuzaki

Overall, the workshop took about 2.5 hours. Key scientific facts about the Climate Change problematic were introduced first with a slide presentation and handouts to participants (materials available here).

There were two negotiation rounds, each of 20 minutes, after which proposals by delegates were collected on a flipchart and then entered in the C-ROADS software. In the first round the negotiations led to a projected temperature by the year 2100 of about 3.1°C, after the second round, negotiations improved the climate outlook with a 2.9°C temperature increase, thus not meeting the expected Paris agreement goals.

After the negotiations the role-play session concluded. Participants gathered in a circle to give their impressions of the session.

A 2.9°C warmer world, can we do better?

The impressions of the session focused on three key questions: (1) How did you feel during the simulation? Weak or powerful? (2) What were your most important learnings? (3) How do you think we could achieve the ambitious climate action?

Participants highlighted the powerful impact the simulation has left on them, as they experienced directly the need for more ambitious political and civil society initiatives. Participants also brainstormed on solutions from their own professional backgrounds, starting with sustainable consumption, trade and markets, education for sustainability and legal and fiscal mechanisms so implement political action.

There is space for improvements

Here I list some aspects for further improvements when running the World Climate simulation

1. Briefing statements could contain more concrete economic facts for region delegates to negotiate better. Sending reading material in advance may also help.
2. Having “developing countries” delegates sitting on the floor to metaphorically refer to unbalanced geopolitical relations may not be the best call. Ask in advance, as participants may take this personally. Alternatively find milder ways of representing power relations in the simulation.
3. Adapt examples of climate change impacts to your audience backgrund. I used Latin American cases, to engage Latin American audience with at-home ongoing issues.

Emotions were key, audience became aware, goal was achieved

As an individual aiming to spread the word for climate action outside the scientific circles, the opportunity to run the World Climate simulation with a very diverse audience was deeply motivating, empowering and touching.

It was truly fantastic to see how, regardless of the professional background, participants would engage and discuss the urgent need to limit global warming by the end of the century in our small simulated world that day.

Professionals from different fields such as international business, history, medicine, law and even philosophy would leave their “comfort zones” for two hours and experiment in the roles of politicians and advocates to decide for what is good for one or for all nations.

Personally speaking, it was touching to see how the message of climate action can and must spread outside the barriers of natural science. I closed that day’s World Climate session by reminding the participants that having a more powerful role in society was in fact not needed, as our position as organized and aware citizens in society is in fact powerful enough.

The World Climate simulation is a strong tool that beyond a climate action narrative, sends out a message of strength and empowerment, especially important for youth leaders from the global south.

Within the framework of the good common life or “Buen vivir”, the lesson learnt as professionals, regardless of the role or position we may have, is that we shall never forget that life on this planet is our highest responsibility and main goal. That is what Climate Action stands for.

Special thanks

The World Climate simulation was possible thanks to the KAAD Catholic Exchange Service support and thanks to the facilitator advices provided by Eduardo Fracassi (ITBA Instituto Tecnologico de Buenos Aires, Argentina).

References

• World Climate simulation website
• Facilitator Resources and Materials here
• To play around: C-ROADS online
• KAAD press release here

The post 13 countries, one game – A call for Climate Action appeared first on Global Change Ecology.

Although the negotiations in the Bula Zone were still going on until Saturday midnight, the exhibition booths and pavillions in the Bonn Zone – where the side events had taken place for the past two weeks – were being dismantled and packed for the next occasion.

During our stay in Bonn, all of us heard many opinions about COP23. Those opinions were a mixed bag. While some of them were optimistic, some were pessimistic. Some people had criticized the slow pace of the #ClimateChange negotiations and there were others (including me), who remained thoughtful.

Throughout my time at COP23 I had a nagging thought in my mind. I had witnessed how world-class politicians would talk about #Change, but as soon as they would leave the room, their #ChangeMomentum would vanish. Their rhetoric speeches that had called for global climate efforts vanished into empty ambitions, in an aesthetic diplomacy, in “just words”.

Many were wondering why the political discourse at COP23 sometimes resemble a business talk that gave the impression that our future was being negotiated and traded. Perhaps going back to one essential thought was necessary at COP23 to realize the urgency of a Changing Climate and of a Changing Nature:

With every second, minute and hour that went by during the Conference:

One more tree was cut in the Amazon
One more fish died drowned in oil
One more ice drop thawed from the Arctic and Antarctic ice shields
One more ton of Greenhouse Gas was emitted
One more human suffered the consequences of a Climate Change

And overall,  as another day passed by,
in the lives of some, the day brought no big news nor worries,
and in the lives of others, the day brought damages and losses.

So, how could we all talk for hours,
when it is exactly now that things are happening?
It is exactly right now that Action is needed?

On one hand, the ongoing negotiations of COP23 left behind a taste of uncertainty in regards to concrete efforts towards Global Climate Action, towards Energy transition and towards an effective and pragmatic implementation of the Paris Agreement 2015 in the subscribed countries’ national policies.

On the other hand, a collective call for urgency and hope was also heard at COP23 and it forged the necessary optimism and confidence that Change is not only possible, but that it should be done by Our Hands.

Perhaps, after all what has been said and done, the greatest achievement of COP23 was to unite around twenty thousand voices of agents of change from all over the World and to gather them in the same place and at the same time.

COP23 brought the vulnerable, the emerging and the powerful Nations together. In spite of their political and historical differences – reunited them around the goal of protecting Nature and its inhabitants – from ourselves.

From Pacific Island Climate Warriors and indigenous Amazonian and Andean voices, to change-driving Eco-villages and civil initiatives in Africa and Europe, everybody shared their own testimonials of change, of local empowerment, and existing solutions.

The message that impressed me the most was from the “African Voices” Event (Talanoa, Bonn Zone) which reminded us that there are no seventeen Mankind Goals*, instead, there is just one and that is love. Love for nature and love for each other, to reflect on our actions, to assume responsibility and to take care of all the inhabitants of this planet.

To the Love component, the Action component was added this past Wednesday, when Timoci Naulusala – a 12-year old Fijian schoolboy – reminded us that “it’s not about how or who, but it’ s about what you can do as an individual”.

As complicated as international agreements may seem, the Change we all really stand for is as basic as Love put into Action, Conviction put in practice and Justice made reality.

International negotiations and agreements either at this COP23 or at any COP ahead will stand for Sustainability and Peace. However, what we should truly stand for is the empowerment of our individual Potential of Change, the courage to challenge our mindsets, the conviction to improve our lifestyles and the realization that this is the only Planet we have, for us today, and for the coming generations.

* Mankind Goals referring to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The post COP23: Hope and love to protect nature appeared first on Global Change Ecology.