NYU Heyman center for philanthropy and fundraising partners with World Bank’s Connect4Climate initiative to raise awareness about climate change issues around the world.

New York University’s George H. Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising (NYUHC) is the latest educational institution to partner with the World Bank and a broad range of partners in Connect4Climate (C4C): a campaign, a competition, and a community dedicated to raising awareness about climate change issues in Africa and around the world.  The C4C global partnership initiative uses social media and the web to give voice to local stakeholders who have stories to tell about climate change.

C4C’s goal is to create a participatory open knowledge platform that engages the global community in climate change conversation to drive local action. In just nine months, C4C has created a Facebook community of nearly 300,000 followers. Across multiple social media platforms and the www.connect4climate.org site, C4C’s weekly online reach is between 4 to 6 million.

According to NYU Heyman Center’ Executive Director  Naomi Levine: “Our  faculty is in a unique position to contribute its expertise in cause marketing, digital advocacy and fundraising, to help advance solutions to this key issue, affecting our planet and future survival.  The C4C partnership will also enable us to provide access to our distance learning courses designed to help nonprofits and activists better engage their supporters.” Upcoming Heyman Center online courses are Always On/Always There: Leveraging Mobile Applications and Engaging Supporters, taught online by faculty member, Elizabeth Ngonzi (C4C partnership liaison) on Wednesdays from 10:00am-12:30pm  ET, June 6 - June 27; and Fundraising Concepts and Practices, available May 21 - August 10 (10 sessions individually arranged), accessible to anyone around the world via Internet.

Lucia Grenna, C4C Program Manager, sees the partnership with NYUHC as a vehicle to provide educators, students and activists around the world with access to critical strategies and tactics that will help them  activate policy makers and increase stakeholder engagement in a meaningful manner, so as to lead help address climate change issues more effectively.  Other U.S. educational institutions participating in C4C include: Columbia University Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence-Climate Co-Lab, and Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.

Contact: Elizabeth Ngonzi 
Telephone: +1 732.208.3304
Email: en33@nyu.edu

The Nordic Climate Facility (NCF) is holding a call for proposals for "Innovative low-cost climate solutions with a focus on local business development in eligible developing countries." If you have a an innovative idea or solution to climate change that you are working on and live in one of the low-income countries listed, then this is your opportunity to apply for funding.

Grant financing of up to EUR 500 000 can be granted to partnerships between relevant Nordic (i.e. Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland) institutions, organisations, companies, authorities and qualified local Partners in low-income countries.

Countries eligible for the grant financing programme include:  Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe; Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam; Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua.

This and other "green" funding competitions offer an opportunity to low-income countries to jump-start green economies. The best thing about this call for proposals is that it offers innovators in these low-income countries an opportunity to partner with Nordic climate specialists for knowledge transfer. So your idea doesn't have to be fully-baked, just viable enough to peek the interest of specialists who would want to help your bring it to fruition. So you get the money and mentoring from experienced practitioners in the field.

So get you thinking caps on, cook up some great low-cost solutions to climate change and apply for a piece of the EUR 500,000. You never know, your idea just might be the one they are looking to fund. Good luck.

To me it seems like we might finally be coming out of what I like to call the post-COP15 climate change fatigue. The world is opening its eyes again. In the aftermath of 2012 there seems to be a broader acceptance that climate-induced extreme weather events are occurring, see WRI’s timeline of extreme weather events in 2012. I am encouraged to see increased climate change discussion happening around the world.

The extreme events experienced in the US in 2012 broke a number of records. This has resulted in Obama actively taking a stance on climate change. In his State of the Union address Obama said: “The 12 hottest years on record all came in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods all are more frequent and more intense… We can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science – and act before it's too late.”

Not only is action being seen in the US, but also in countries such as China and increasingly across the developing world. South Africa, for example, has finally signed off on a number of renewable energy projects to help relieve its electricity supply deficit, making it an attractive market for renewable energy project developers. In 2012 most of the new energy projects in the US were also renewable, and in Germany, where the feed-in tariff for renewables has been cut back, the rollout of solar and wind projects still continues.

On a general note, although there was an apparent lull in global greenhouse-gas emissions in recent years, it was largely due to the global economic recession, and global emissions are still growing at an unprecedented rate. In 2012 CO₂ measurements soared. Even though this might have more to do with the fact that it was one of the hottest years on record, and hence the increase was more natural than human induced, the Mauna Loa records do indicate that we are heading above the “standard emissions scenario” of the IPCC and towards a 3°C or even 4°C warmer world, see also the World Bank Report, Turn Down The Heat.

Nonetheless there seems to be an increased realization that the best way of getting out of the global recession is through low-carbon development. Actually, it is the only way. As Betty Williams recently said at the Right Here, Right Now event “climate change is an injustice to Mother Earth.” To let us live in harmony in the future and make sure we and our children continue to enjoy our Mother Earth, low-carbon development is a necessity.

Besides mitigation, the adaptation agenda has really picked up, particularly in because of extreme weather events. There is an increased realization by cities and regional governments that we are already living with the impacts of climate change and that adaptation planning is a necessity. The EU is coming up with its Climate Change Adaptation Strategy and in 2013 Connect4Climate will be represented at the first European Climate Adaptation Conference.

 

Such local and regional action is a welcome driving force. To me it seems that local action will drive global change, and as more and more actors come on board, the movement will no longer be local. It will become global. It is time to connect as far and wide as possible. Every industry, from fashion to energy, needs to take on the sustainability challenge, and every audience needs to come on board, which is why we are pushing for the broadest engagement possible at Connect4climate. In the words of Jim Yong Kim: “To deliver bold solutions on climate change, we need to listen to and engage broader and more diverse audiences. We need to hear the voices of young people. Their futures are at stake. The time for all generations to act is now.”

So while I see an awakening in the world, climate change is more of a reality than ever before. The wasted years from 2009 may finally have caught up with us, and we must not forget the challenge of dealing with climate change. We will have to peak global emissions in the next few years, and we will need to continue building our resilience to the climatic changes we have already set in motion. As Achim Steiner puts it: “the sobering fact remains that a transition to a low carbon, inclusive Green Economy is happening far too slowly, and the opportunity for meeting the 44 Gt target is narrowing annually.”

This makes me wonder why I still see adverts on CNN advocating the growth of the US petroleum industry by BP and other players and why, when 97% of all scientists know that climate change is a reality, the renowned debating forum at the Oxford Union still feels the need to give the platform to a climate skeptic.

In conclusion, thank you all for embracing climate change reality, but please realize that now more than ever it is time to act. In the words of Jim Yong Kim: "Connect4Climate is important because we have to take this struggle to a different level. We have been talking about the numbers. 98% of scientists agree, we are going to see a 4 degree Celcius world by the end of the century... We have said all the numbers again and again, but what we yet have failed to do is actually connect."

So I say, connect right here and right now to solve the climate challenge.

On April 8, 2015 we had the unique chance to sit in at the heart of the "Lets Talk Climate" webinar hosted by Earth Day Network and Connect4Climate at the World Bank Group HQ. (To listen to the entire webinar, go to connect4climate and scroll to "Let's Talk Climate"). The idea behind the webinar was to get leading thinkers talking about innovative strategies to communicate climate change. From social medias influence on spreading awareness, to connecting messages to concrete actions, and understanding your audiences values to find achievable solutions, the conversation was dynamic and non-stop, and the room itself was buzzing with energy. Clearly, the buzz was picked up around the world; the webinar boosted Connect4Climate's Twitter impression to 12 million that day!

 

The webinar "Let's Talk Climate" seriously spiked Connect4Climate's Twitter impressions! While the discussion touched on the many angles of climate change communications that we think about every day, it also gave us some new ideas to consider. It also provided some serious food for thought for our upcoming conference "Communication for Climate Change 2.0" on Wednesday, April 15, when Connect4Climate and the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at Columbia University are bringing together a fantastic blend of scholars and leaders during the World Bank Group's spring meetings to dissect the science of climate change communication and determine the most effective ways to move forward.

See all Connect4Climate's events and initiatives surrounding Earth Day. 

Communications Officer Max Edkins and Lucia Grenna, Program Manager of Connect4Climate, and Joelle Auffray, Director of Apidae Development Pty Ltd., prepare for the webinar.

Liz Ngonzi's introductory remarks for April 20th Connect4Climate 'Local Climate, Global Change: Development Communication in a social media landscape' forum.

"Until the lion has his or her own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best part of the story."

Ewe-Mina (African) Proverb

Young people's access to new media worldwide brings new and in some peoples opinions, authentic voices into the global conversation about the issues that affect all of us the most, such as: climate change, conflict, economic crisis, education disparity, access to healthcare, and food security. 

While traditional media and development agencies are able to provide the world with visibility into these issues, they are only able to do so through specific lenses colored by the interests of their leadership - in the case of the media-- keeping advertisers happy and maintaining ratings and with development agencies - satisfying donors requirements.  The result being that the people whose lives are most affected by the issues, have traditionally been left out of the conversation, leading to policy decisions and development projects that in some instances solve the wrong problems, and ultimately do more harm than good, for those they are intended to assist.

What is particularly exciting about new media is that it widens the conversation by providing channels for new voices to be heard and amplified in a matter of minutes. If we think about traditional news cycles and the amount of time it typically takes for a development agency to compile and publish a report, what in the past may have been seen as timely information may in fact become irrelevant by the time it is accessed by the public. Contrast that with social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook which enable a young woman in Mbarara Western Uganda (from where I hail) to use a basic SMS-enabled mobile phone to (in real-time) write about the circumstances in her village and potentially have her voice heard by many people across the globe who can help her affect change. With a more sophisticated video-enabled phone, she can now even record and upload a video to a computer in her local Internet caf (assuming her phone is not WiFi-enabled) and show her reality in a richer manner.

If we take the example further and put it within the context of the Connect4Climate video contest which was piloted in Africa last fall and received over 700 submissions from the continents young people, we really start to see the power of new media.  For instance, the video by South Africa's Thabo Edkins, entitled "The World Has Malaria", through one Connect4Climate outlet alone - Facebook - can be accessed by its 1/4 of a million followers, all of whom could potentially watch each of those videos and even more importantly, forward any of them to their friends - resulting in amplification on a scale unimaginable in the past.  Additionally, if the videos revealed any particular trend that needed to be addressed immediately, policy makers from the countries videos countries of origin can access them on the Connect4Climate Youtube channel and potentially take action in real-time. 

Of course when we speak about this sort of citizen journalism, one of the potential risks we have to consider is that the stories are unvetted, however with enough data points and mechanisms in place to verify information, citizens could very well be some of our best sources.  Another potential risk is that of retribution by governments in countries that disallow free speech, which could lead to some of the censorship efforts weve seen in the last 18 months during the Arab Spring and elections worldwide.  Finally, with the increase in content comes the need for crowdsourced mapping tools to turn the data into actionable information, such as with the case of Ushahidi and ReVoda election monitoring platforms and of course, Microsofts Local Impact Map.

Ultimately, I see new media as providing access to new voices, but I also still believe the traditional outlets are valuable, however as with other industries that have been affected by the disruptive technologies, they will have to find a way to add more meaningful analysis and potentially incorporate the new voices into their reports, in order to remain relevant in the future. 

Ladies and gentlemen, ironically I agree with The New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman the world is indeed "flattening".

 

Liz Ngonzi

Adjunct Professor

New York University Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising

You can find Liz Ngonzi on Twitter at @LizNgonzi. 

When I moved to the US I realized that the consumption habits related to my new household and everyday life were not the most sustainable. Air conditioning 24 hours a day, and to always use the drying machine instead of drying your clothes naturally in the sun is something unbelievable in my home country (Portugal) and not the right path if you care about your impact on the environment.

So, after this consumption shock, I realized that I had to green my routine and thats when I decided to transform the 12x5 backyard garden of my house into a vegetable garden.

Gardening and growing your own vegetables is easier than it seems and is also a fulfilling experience. Gardening is an action that is more than a funny, relaxing, and rewarding outdoor exercise. It requires you to learn more about crops, watering methods, soil characteristics, and to feel the real impacts of climate change on living species. Besides this knowledge advantage, growing your own vegetables will bring you several benefits. It allows you to really know what you are eating, to always have fresh vegetables, to try better tasting food since you will be sure to avoid pests and food modifying processes, and to reduce food waste. At the same time, you will save money on groceries and you will even be able to involve your family and friends in an outdoor activity a great way to engage everyone in sustainable actions and to promote a green lifestyle. You will be making an healthier and smarter choice for you and for the planet!

With a small sunny piece of soil, a packet of seeds, and the right mood to become a modern farmer everyone can grow his or her own vegetables. Here I am with my beautiful first pumpkin, happy and ready to celebrate Halloween, or to transform it into a delicious pumpkin cake!

Got a personal climate change story to share with us, then submit it to Voices4Climate for a chance to win!

I am still surprised by how much climate change denial we come across.

Recently Connect4Climate ran the iChange competition, challenging students to present the climate challenge in a 30-second video. We received great responses from around the world and compiled a video with some of the best for MTV. Posting this on our YouTube channel quickly resulted in more than 7000 views, a hearty discussion, and this comment: lol i havent even watched this video. but ive read some of the comments. global warming is a MYTH!

 

What? Such outright denial! How can this be when the science is so overwhelming clear, when world leaders have shown their support for climate action, when reports left right and centre highlight the dire impacts of climate change, not least the World Banks own 4ºC report?

I couldnt let such comments go without responding.

The report, Hearth and Hiraeth: Constructing Climate Change Narratives around National Identity draws on the findings of a major programme led by Connect4Climate's partner COIN for the Welsh Government. This programme developed language and narratives that could work with all social groups and be applied in all its communications.

The two-year programme built on the latest research into climate change attitudes and a detailed analysis of cultural values. It conducted rigorous testing of messages in groups that had been recruited according to a values-based segmentation model. It is one of the first programmes in the world to apply the research into values-based climate communications across an entire country.

I could go into my journey of environmental awareness, which is a winding path through veganism and vegetarianism, attempts at neutral impact living in the style of No Impact Man, and adventures in water-saving techniques (you learn to conserve water when you live in a flat with water flowing for only about 4 hours a day, and it’s senseless to waste water in a country with limited access), but there is a word limit on this blog post. Long story short, mindful living is a journey that touches on our personal ethics, habits with which we have grown up, and traditions in our own society. We all do what we can, and that with which we are comfortable. Meanwhile, each individual action amounts to a rain drop in a flood of positive change.

Here are a few steps I’ve taken that are fairly easy to replicate:

-As a renter, I cannot install low-flow toilets, so I like to fill used bottles with water, seal them, and submerge them in the toilet tank at home to save water.

-I always turn off my computer and monitor when I leave the office in the evening. It saves a miniscule amount of energy, but think of how much energy is wasted when millions of people leave their idle machines on.

-A few months ago, I won an annual membership to Capital Bikeshare during a safe cycling class they taught at the World Bank. After a cycling commute, I arrive at the office more refreshed and with a bit more money in my pocket than if I spent my morning sitting on a Metro train. (My coworkers, TMS Ruge and Simona Palummo have also blogged on manual commuting!)

-About 5 years ago I transitioned to a vegetarian, and mostly vegan, diet. You don’t have to be vegan to reduce your impact, but just replacing a few meals a week with plant-based foods can have a huge impact. Animal agriculture has been estimated to contribute anywhere from 18% (FAO’s 2006 report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow”) to 51% (The World Watch Institute’s 2009 “Livestock and Climate Change”) of total greenhouse gas emissions measured by warming ability (carbon dioxide equivalents). Animal agriculture also requires more land and water, and diverts food crops from human consumption to animal consumption, where energy is lost before reaching the table.

I hope these actions inspire you to examine where you feel comfortable making positive changes, and I invite you to share your stories in the Voices4Climate competition.

Grocery runs deep in my genetic code, but all I ever wanted to do was work for my hometown congressman. I was a two-issue girl, and I decided early to devote my life to campaign finance and energy policy – two areas I felt were poised for progress. I spent every summer of college interning and eventually landed a job as a legislative aide responsible for campaign finance and environmental issues. I spent the better part of the next decade working for Democrats, Independents and Republicans, who prioritized both (with a brief stop at the Justice Department, suing companies for violating the Clean Air Act). Most recently, I worked in the Senate on the American Power Act, the last major Congressional effort aimed at capping greenhouse gas emissions and creating a domestic clean energy economy.  

When that effort failed, I took a hard look at the prognosis for legislative progress, and my conclusions were bleak. But that didn’t weaken my resolve.  I decided to start a business that would make climate change progress incrementally or, as we say at Glen’s Garden Market, one bite at a time.

Television reporter Holly Morris, Chef and television host Carla Hall, and Glen's Garden Market founder Danielle Vogel. 

My father was a grocer. His father was a grocer, and so was my great grandfather. My mom’s dad owned supermarkets too. It wasn’t entirely counterintuitive that when it came time to start a business of my own, grocery would be my avenue of choice. But unlike my (actual) forefathers, my approach would be entirely mission driven.

Every single decision we make at Glen’s Garden Market in Dupont Circle is made with the environment in mind.

• Foremost, we source our food from the states of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed; and so we cut transportation and refrigeration emissions by bringing our food in from very close by. 
• We seek out thoughtful, meticulous producers who treat their land, their animals and their ingredients with respect.
• We built our store with old cattle fencing that had been discarded by one of our vendors in West Virginia.
• Our countertops were constructed from compressed, post-consumer recycled paper.
• We offer only reusable bags (what sense would it have made to send plastic right back into the watershed that provides our nourishment?).
• Our lights and equipment all meet the most rigorous efficiency standards.
• We retrofit our display cases to include doors to prevent the unnecessary waste of ultra carbon-intensive hydrofluorocarbons.
• We installed showers in our team’s bathrooms and bike racks in our break room to encourage our folks to bike, walk or run to work – and most of them do.
• Our kitchen operates under a no-waste mandate.
• We recycle and we compost, aggressively. 

But the thing we spend the most time on is helping other small businesses grow along with our own. In the 17 months since we opened, we’ve helped launch 17 food businesses. Seventeen companies have seen their products on a grocery store shelf for the very first time here. Often, those products come in through our front door in the arms of the person who made them. And after that happens, we promote them aggressively and help grow their brand. It’s one of my greatest pleasures to eventually find them on the shelves in our competitors’ stores – not just because it means their businesses are maturing, but because I know how thoughtfully those products were made. I want to see them displace demand for industrially produced food, which is exactly what they’re doing when they bump less carefully-crafted items off the shelves in other stores.

The notion of a “green” business is so ubiquitous these days that it’s trite. We don’t make the choices we do because we need the “you’re vaguely progressive, finger snaps for you” t-shirt. We make them because this business exists, fundamentally, to make progress toward addressing climate change. We do it by growing small, local businesses that create food thoughtfully, by being conscious of the real costs of food waste and working to mitigate them, by sourcing locally – not “whenever possible” but always. Even when that means our produce department includes little more than apples, potatoes, onions and kale in the cold months. And by working to create a space where only good food choices can be made. 

Glen’s Garden Market is very much a grocery store and killer craft beer bar with $4 pints all the time, and a heck of a sandwich and pizza shop, but it’s also a small business incubator, a community participant and a mission-driven progress-mobile.

It’s not an economy-wide climate change bill, but it’s progress, one bite at a time.