Partner News | Connect4Climate

Our Future Water Berlin: We need to change our view of water

Our Future Water Berlin was held, by Robert C. Brears, on 7 November 2018 at the InterContinental Hotel Berlin. The event was part of the Berlin Science Week. Leading speakers discussed a selection of topics on achieving water security, examples include:

Removing microplastics from wastewater

Dr. Katrin Schuhen, Project Leader R&D at Wasser 3.0, spoke on ‘New materials for the removal of (in)soluble organic-chemical stressors from various waters and how to get them working in a standard wastewater treatment plant process.’ Due to the lack of cleaning performance of the current sewage treatment plants, more and more unwanted trace substances, including microplastics, enter the surface water. More than 250 organisms are known to confuse microplastics with food bioaccumulation. The presentation focused on Wasser 3.0’s solutions for improving water quality, including innovative materials that completely remove residues from wastewater and drinking water such as hybrid silica gels.

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[video:https://vimeo.com/299256998]

Building climate resilient cities

Nanco Dolman, Leading Professional in Urban Flood and Water Resilience at Royal Haskoning DHV spoke on the ‘CATCH project: Applying the Water Sensitive City framework for climate adaptation in the North Sea Region.’ CATCH stands for ‘Water Sensitive Cities: the answer to challenges of extreme weather events.’ Nanco’s presentation focused on the project’s objective of demonstrating and accelerating the redesign of urban water management of midsize cities in the North Sea Region to become climate resilient cities that are sustainable, liveable and productive on the long-term.

[video:https://vimeo.com/299803895]

Underground pipes of the future

Dipl.- Ing. Christoph Bennerscheidt, Managing Director of European Association for Ductile Iron Pipe Systems, spoke on ‘Implementation of the Sponge-City-Principle using a Soil-Pipe-System.’ When building roads and the structures of underground infrastructures, pore spaces are frequently used by the root system of trees, resulting in unintentional interactions with sewers and utility pipelines. With higher requirements for water quality and climate change (e.g., urban heat island effect), increased attention needs to be paid to the storage capacity of the soil so that rainwater can be managed where it falls. The soil-pipe system, consisting of crushed, large-grain bedding materials with a large pore space and robust ductile cast iron pipe systems, can be developed at scale to realize the sponge city principle.

Photo Credits: Pixabay

Perspectives in industrial water management

Dr. Thomas Track, Head of Water Technologies at DECHEMA, spoke on ‘Perspectives in industrial water management.’ Water is vital for the industry sector, both at the national and at the international level. The water technology needs of the industry sector do not only differ fundamentally from those of the municipal sector, but they also vary strongly between industries and locations so that standardized solutions are not feasible. There are many challenges to industrial process water including physical risks, regulatory risks, and strategic risks. As such, there is a need for integrated industrial water management.

Connecting global water and sanitation providers

Dr. Bastian Piltz, Head of Business Development Germany, Isle Utilities, spoke on ‘International Collaboration for the Future of Water - a consultancy approach.’ Collaboration in water- and sanitation industries between developing and developed nations can play a central role in ensuring equitable access to these vital services. However, copy-and-paste transfer of existing solutions is often not applicable since societal and economic conditions with regards to infrastructure vary significantly across the world. Traditional development aid — while carried out with the best of intentions — often fails to deliver on sustainable results. A crucial factor — the involvement and empowerment of local stakeholders — tends to be neglected. This presentation will highlight some of the activities carried out by a commercial consultancy firm, active in the global water and wastewater sector, that are designed to deliver on this matter.

Comparisons of water prices across Europe

Friederike Lauruschkus, Managing Partner civity Management Consultants GmbH & CO. KG spoke on the ‘Comparison of European Water Prices.’ Water supply systems are very different across the EU member states, observing differences in the water industry’s structure, infrastructures, and investments, prices, grants, taxes, and fees as well as standards of service and quality. Nonetheless, there are standards and requirements set on a European level concerning the access to high quality, safe and sufficient drinking water. So the water sector is the only economic sector in Europe for which EU directives lay down rules on the quality of services and pricing with the objective of the recovery of costs. Against this background, comparisons of water prices must take more into account than mere cubic meter prices. The study delivers a systematic approach by not only describing but also quantifying and integrating grants and quality of services into the price comparison. The study compares the water supply systems in Germany, England/Wales, France, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland covering slightly over half of the population of the EU-28. In the course of the study, the comparison leads to differentiated conclusions regarding the extent to which prices are cost-covering and what level of service and quality is achieved with them.

Photo Credits: Pixabay

Financing a water-secure future

Martina Macpherson, Partner, SI Partners Ltd. & President, NFSM & Visiting Fellow, Henley Business School, provided a ‘101’ on sustainable finance. This topic is critical given that water is the most massive climate-aligned theme of sustainable finance and that sustainable investing and green finance has moved from niche to mainstream: Sustainable Investing assets under management has already reached US$ 22.9 trillion and labeled green bonds issuances totaled US$ 101 billion in Dec 2017.

Digitalization to encourage resource savings

Dr. Anabel Ternès, CEO and founder of GetYourWings gGmbH, which is committed to sustainable digital competence, member of the board of NFTE Germany, global ambassador of SameSky, Executive Director of International Institute for Sustainability Management (IISM) and professor in E-Business and International Communications Management at the SRH International Management University Berlin, spoke on ‘How digital competence can support resource-saving behavior’. The careful use of our resources is a topic that concerns everyone. Last but not least, climate change shows how crucial it is to treat this topic from the very beginning. Water is a primary resource as well as the habitat of many animal and plant species. The digital transformation often seems contrary to environmental protection. But with sustainable digital competence, digital tools can help protect our resources. GetYourWings conveys digital competence in education, training and consulting with own, unique methods.

Photo Credits: Pixabay

Developing sustainable, ethical brands

Andrea Henao, the Managing Partner at 360 Agency Berlin, spoke on developing sustainable, ethical brands in a world facing water scarcity. Andrea’s presentation focused on (1) Assessment of our water situation including groundwater scarcity, the micro-plastic in ocean, rivers, etc.; (2) Companies which abused water in the past; (3) Our duty to boycott particular brands; (4) The importance of aligning image with production to avoid greenwashing; and (5) It is our duty now with all the information we have in hand to organize actions as changes start now.

The rise of blue-green cities

Robert C. Brears, the founder of Our Future Water, spoke on ‘Blue and Green Cities: The role of blue-green infrastructure in managing urban water resources.’ Faced with climate change and environmental degradation many cities are turning to Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) solutions to enhance climate resilience as well as restore the health of ecosystems. A key aspect of BGI is its multifunctionality, specifically, its ability to perform several functions and provide several benefits within the same spatial area. To enhance resilience to climate change and restore natural habitats, many leading cities around the world are implementing innovative fiscal and non-fiscal policies to encourage the uptake of BGI on the public and private property.

Banner and thumbnail photo credits to Pixabay

2018 winners named in Global Youth Video Competition

Two young activists from India and Mexico, with their video reports on actions to fight climate change, have been selected as the winners of the 2018 Global Youth Video Competition on Climate Change.

The winners, chosen through an online public vote, are Vikas Yadav, 20 years old, from India for the category "Green and climate-friendly jobs” and Andrea Sofia Rosales Vega, 20, from Mexico for the category “Responsible production and consumption.”

They will travel to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 24) in Katowice, Poland, in December and will work with the UN Climate Change’s Global Climate Action Team covering highlights of the meeting, reporting for a global youth audience.

The video by Sofia Vega shows how we can clean up urban areas while also making a difference in people’s lives. Her video describes the “Eco-Urban” project, which collects and re-uses waste, including plastic and old clothes, helping to clean up the streets. Selling products made from the recycled material raises funds, some of which are reinvested in collection centers, and 60 percent of the income used to fight childhood cancer. As she says at the close of the video, the participants are “ordinary people, making our world extraordinary.”

In his 3-minute entry, Vikas Yadav visits rural areas of India, where he reports that more than 70 percent of the population is engaged in agriculture. As food production is particularly sensitive to climate change, the farmers explain how innovative agriculture practices can play an important role in climate change mitigation and adaption. Vikas encourages people to “Go green” in moving towards more natural growing and management techniques.

“These two young people and their videos are encouraging examples of the global climate action needed to address climate change,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa. “I congratulate Sofia and Vikas, and I applaud all the entrants showcasing international youth’s essential response to climate change.”

Entries were received from over 100 countries, from Azerbaijan to Yemen, with young people between the ages of 18 and 30 submitting over 300 videos.

All of the shortlisted entries can be viewed here

The competition was launched by UN Climate Change as part of its work on Action for Climate Empowerment, in partnership with tve (Television for the environment), the Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Programme, which is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme, and Connect4Climate, and supported by Fondation BNP Paribas and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt DBU).

16th Seoul Eco Film Festival: Call for entries

Seoul Eco Film Festival (SEFF) seeks the co-existence between human and the environment through cinema. Since 2004, as the sole environmental film festival in Korea and the biggest one in Asia, SEFF is dedicated to introduce and promote environmentally significant films to a wide range of audience.

SEFF is open to fiction/non-fiction films and animation of all genres dealing with environmental issues.

The deadline to submit films is January 18, 2019.

Requirements

Films completed after Januray1, 2017 and never been submitted to SEFF before

Both short and feature-length films can be submitted.

Call for Entries

To reduce carbon emissions, SEFF prefers online registration. There are no entry fees.

#1. SEFF Online Submission
#2. SEFF Official E-mail - please download the entry form here
#3. FilmFreeway

Category & Awards

International Competition

       Best Film: 10,000,000 KRW
       Special Jury Award: 5,000.000 KRW
       Audience's Choice: 1,000,000 KRW

Korean Competition

       Grand Prize: 5,000,000 KRW
       Excellence Prize: 3,000,000 KRW
       Special Audience Award: 2,000,000 KRW

Unless otherwise indicated on the entry form, submitted films will be included in the non-competitive sections after pre-selection for the competition.

Banner and thumbnail photo credits: Pixabay.com

Low-carbon cities: exploring new crediting approaches to deliver carbon and climate finance

With accelerated urbanization and growing population density, cities have become centers of global economic activity. Also, the urban sector accounts for a considerable share of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing cities’ carbon footprint will become an important factor in meeting the climate change goals of the Paris Agreement. In developing countries, rapidly urbanizing areas hold the largest climate change mitigation opportunities in sectors such as urban development, transport, energy, and buildings.

Air pollution and child health: prescribing clean air - WHO

The report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to air pollution. Air pollution is a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year. Ambient air pollution (AAP) alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than US$ 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013.

"The evidence is clear: air pollution has a devastating impact on children’s health."

This public health crisis is receiving more attention, but one critical aspect is often overlooked: how air pollution affects children in uniquely damaging ways. Recent data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that air pollution has a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival. Globally, 93% of all children live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines. More than one in every four deaths of children under 5 years is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks. Both AAP and household air pollution (HAP) contribute to respiratory tract infections that resulted in 543 000 deaths in children under 5 years in 2016.

Download the report

Although air pollution is a global problem, the burden of disease attributable to particulate matter in air is heaviest in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in the WHO African, South-East Asia, Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific regions. LMICs in these regions – especially the African Region – have the highest levels of exposure to HAP due to the widespread use of polluting fuels and technologies for basic daily needs, such as cooking, heating and lighting. Poverty is correlated with high exposure to environmental health risks. Poverty can also compound the damaging health effects of air pollution, by limiting access to information, treatment and other health care resources.

"Children are uniquely vulnerable to the damaging health effects of air pollution."

Children are society’s future. But they are also its most vulnerable members. The immense threat posed to their health by air pollution demands that health professionals respond with focused, urgent action. Although more rigorous research into how air pollution affects children’s health will continue to be valuable, there is already ample evidence to justify strong, swift action to prevent the damage it clearly produces. Health professionals must come together to address this threat as a priority, through collective, coordinated efforts. For the millions of children exposed to polluted air every day, there is little time to waste and so much to be gained.

Banner and thumbnail photo credits to Pixabay.com

Climate Vulnerable Forum Virtual Summit 2018

Timezone:

The CVF Virtual Climate Summit will be broadcast live on 22 November 2018 starting 8 AM Majuro Time (MHT) / 8 PM Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). It is a strategically-timed political moment for national leaders to stand in solidarity with those most vulnerable to the growing impacts of climate change, and reinforce efforts under the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5ºC.

Doors open for Ethiopian women in climate-smart land use

Story highlights

Land registration reform and certification for women across Ethiopia, boosted by the World Bank’s capacity building through the Sustainable Landscape Management Program II (SLMP II), has led to significant progress over the past four years.

A new land certification process in the country means that land rights are now registered in the names of both spouses, ensuring women’s ability to own and manage their family land, as a result, play a greater role in securing livelihoods.

In coffee farming, for instance, women now enjoy more job opportunities in the land use sector. In the Oromia region, the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes in Ethiopia has been working to help coffee farmers boost productivity with improved climate-smart practices. This work involves a training initiative with Nespresso and women are now taking an active part in landscape management, through learning about sustainable farming practices.

Across Ethiopia, programs that support new land management practices have opened doors to opportunities for local communities, especially climate-smart jobs that reduce emissions.

But until recently, Ethiopian women’s unclear and insecure land rights meant they were effectively shut out of these new income and employment opportunities. Women could only act as heads of households if they had no husband. In most cases, only the male head of household was listed on landholding certificates and, in the case of death, the title passed to another male in the family.

With support from the World Bank’s Sustainable Landscape Management Program II (SLMP II), the Government of Ethiopia has made significant progress over the past four years reforming land registration and certification for women across the country so they are able to take more active roles in their family’s farming businesses and community decision-making. The country’s new land certification process gives women an opportunity to fix their own land rights within the family because a household’s land right is registered in the names of both spouses.

“This land certificate is our family’s future,” says Chaltu Beratu, a young widow from the Ejere district in Ethiopia’s Oromia region. Her husband recently died, leaving her with two children and no income to support them.

“With this land certificate, I can decide what’s best for my family,” says Beratu.

Formal recognition and protection of women’s land rights has helped to balance decision-making powers in the family. Reforms have also helped to clarify women’s land rights under polygamous marriage arrangements.

“A key feature of this national certification program is that it has empowered locally and democratically-elected land administration and use committees at the village level to implement these reforms,” says Shewakena Aytenfish Abab, from the World Bank’s Environment and Natural Resources Global Practice. “Women are actively engaged in these grassroots committees, and they are best placed to deal with conflicts and identify cost-effective solutions to land tenure disputes depending on the cultural or religious dynamics of a given village,” says Abab.

New opportunities for women in Ethiopia’s coffee sector

Since 2014, the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) in Ethiopia has been working in the Oromia region to reduce deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions in the land use sector. Part of this work has partnered with Nespresso, a global company producing personal use brewing machines and coffee capsules, to help coffee farmers in Oromia boost productivity with improved farming practices.

Doors Open for Ethiopian Women in Climate-Smart Land Use

Photo Credits: Nespresso

Gender equality is a key focus area of Nespresso’s Sustainable Quality Program (AAA) and through this initiative, the company aims to ensure that women enjoy the same opportunities in coffee farming as men. Over the past few years, the company has focused on training more women farmers on climate-smart practices, such as planting shade trees and selective picking. One of the ways that Nespresso helped to reach more women farmers was by training and hiring female agronomists, after their research showed that 63% of women prefer a female trainer. Female agronomists can improve women farmers’ access to support, enabling them to take up new practices and empowering them to earn more from their coffee production. These agronomists work with hundreds of smallholder farmers, running group training sessions and making support visits to farms. The partnership with the World Bank’s ISFL includes expanding adoption of the AAA Program throughout Oromia, with the goal of enhancing livelihoods of families under the ISFL’s multi-sector, multi-partner intervention on all forested landscapes in Oromia.

“What amazes me about this job is looking at farmers who’ve adopted the techniques I’ve shown them and seeing how their lives are changed,” says agronomist Meseret Kanto who was trained under the AAA Program.

In September, Nespresso launched a new report and global awareness campaign to highlight the ways in which Ethiopian women are playing a more central role in sustainable coffee production. Key to the success of this initiative has been working closely with local communities to tailor recruitment initiatives. For example, instead of advertising a job opportunity, the program advertises a free training course, which women are far more likely to attend. And at the end of the training, they are hired.

Ethiopia’s efforts, enabled by the ISFL, SLMP II, and Nespresso, have not only enabled national-scale land registry reforms and led to sustainable landscape approaches, but also paved the way for coordinated regional and national efforts, including with the private sector, to carry out climate change mitigation, resilience, and conservation efforts.

And it also sends another, vital message: The full participation of women is key to delivering inclusive national land sector transformation and sustainable growth.

Earth Challenge 2020: A Citizen Science Initiative

April 22, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. In recognition of this milestone, the Earth Day Network, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the U.S. Department of State are launching Earth Challenge 2020 as the world’s largest coordinated citizen science campaign.

Earth Challenge 2020 will engage millions of global citizens and will aggregate and collect more than one billion data points in areas including air quality, water quality, biodiversity, pollution, and human health. Citizen science volunteers around the world will collect and share Earth science data on an unprecedented scale, providing new insight on the state of our environment to drive meaningful action.

Right now, we are inviting citizen scientists of all ages and concerned global citizens to participate in defining the critical research questions that will guide Earth Challenge 2020.

The process is open to the public and we are encouraging everyone to participate.

Earth Challenge 2020 is recruiting research questions via a simple web form. The site includes instructions for submitting research questions as well as sample questions.

In addition, we invite questions to be submitted via Twitter by using the hashtag #EC2020. Questions should center around what is impactful to you and your community, such as the following:

How much plastic is in my water? #EC2020 @Earth_Challenge #citsci

Are invasive species being effectively managed? #EC2020 @Earth_Challenge

How does air quality impact the health of my community? #EC2020 @Earth_Challenge

Research questions may be submitted from October 22, 2018 to November 22, 2018. After research questions have been collected, the Earth Challenge 2020 research team will analyze submissions for common themes, distilling the questions for review and refining by an expert panel.

The panel will choose the final research questions that will guide Earth Challenge 2020. Selections will be made based on criteria including level of global interest, geographic diversity, global impact, partnerships, and feasibility. The final research questions will be announced early 2019.

The timeline for Earth Challenge 2020 spans eighteen months. In 2019, hackathons will be hosted around the world to help create the technologies that will underpin Earth Challenge 2020 and encouraging existing citizen science projects to join our efforts. Finally, in April 2020, a new mobile app and global data collection campaign will launch with the objective of collecting one billion data points by Earth Day that year.

With the support of valued partners and global citizens, Earth Challenge 2020 has the potential to be the largest coordinated citizen science project ever attempted on Earth.

To learn more about Earth Challenge 2020 please contact here.

Voting now open in Global Youth Video Competition 2018

Voting is open for the 2018 Global Youth Video Competition, in search of the best of the best from the 40 short-listed videos on the themes ‘Responsible production and consumption’ and ‘Green and climate-friendly jobs.’

This year’s competition attracted a record 209 entries from youth from 105 countries. The organizers have completed the difficult task of finding the 20 best in the two theme categories. Now it’s your turn!

Each view counts as a vote, until 28 October. So, have a look, and share the videos you consider the best at inspiring action on climate change.

The short-listing judges considered each video’s clarity in delivering its message, its innovation in delivering its message, and technical quality. You can keep these criteria in mind as you view and share the videos.

Responsible production and consumption - Global Youth Video Competition 2018

Vote now - Responsible Production & Consumption videos

Green and climate friendly jobs - Global Youth Video Competition 2018

Vote now - Green & Climate-Friendly Jobs videos

The 2018 Global Youth Video Competition was launched by UN Climate Change’s Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) team, in partnership with Television for the Environment (tve), and with support from the Global Environment Facility-United Nations Development Programme Small Grants Programme, Connect4Climate and BNP Paribas. Young people between the ages of 18 and 30 were called on to participate.

The two winners will travel to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018, all-expenses paid. There they’ll work with the communications team of UN Climate Change covering the highlights of the conference.