Monday, January 26 - Lord Stern at World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi

Lord Stern, speaking at the World Future Energy Summit: "While the economic crisis is big, the planetary crisis is still bigger" (from GreenBusiness.com):

Delegates at World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi were told that despite global downturn businesses must provide the push towards a low carbon future.

Leading politicians, academics, economists and business leaders attending the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi today called for firms around the world to accelerate efforts to address their carbon footprint, despite the short term financial pressures arising from the global economic downturn.

Delegates and speakers at the conference admitted that the financial crisis had undoubtedly hit efforts to curb carbon emissions in recent months, primarily as a result of the drying up of credit for costly renewable energy projects.

Also speaking at the conference, Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the UK government's Stern Review, said that despite the onset of the economic downturn the case for investing in low carbon technologies and business models remained compelling.

"The costs of inaction are immense and the costs of action are manageable," he said, reiterating his view that it will cost far less in the long-term to invest in tackling climate change now.

"Inaction will rewrite where we can live, leading to mass population movements, and plunging us into global conflict," he said. "While the economic crisis is big, the planetary crisis is still bigger."

Read the full article at Business Green:

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/

2234261/world-future-energy-summit

Blogging will resume January 26

PowerUP Canada - Canadians for Climate Leadership named one of TOP 10 Organizations in 2008

Yesterday Tides Canada Foundation announced PowerUP Canada - Canadians for Climate Leadership is one of its TOP 10 organizations for 2008:

"We chose them for:

• * building momentum on a Canada-wide push for decisive laws and policies to power up the green economy and reduce Canada’s carbon emissions.
• * calling for the Canadian Government to match world-leading standards for vehicles, buildings and appliances, and invest in a modern "smart" power grid, public transit, carbon sequestration and clean energy.
• * having all living Prime Ministers call for user-friendly areas of policy change, such as an economy-wide cost for carbon emissions and a staggering rate of climate-safe technology deployment.
• * pushing for the Canadian Government and Provinces to match Barack Obama’s planned investments in green jobs and renewable energy."

Details at the Tides Canada website:
http://tidescanada.org


(GiveClimate blog author Natasha van Bentum is Director of Outreach with PowerUP Canada.)

UN Climate Meeting in Poland - Canada gets more Fossil of the Day Awards

For the latest on Canada's ranking at the vital UN Climate Change meeting in Posnam, Polland, visit the Fossil of the Day website to view our lamentable performance:

"Which countries were the most active
in undermining the United Nations negotiations
to save the world from dangerous climate change?

Welcome to the Fossil-of-the-day Awards.

Canada is included in a group of "umbrella countries (Japan, Russia, Australia and New Zealand) --and Canada in particular--wins its Fossil for insisting that they haven't been obstructing progress. Their best evidence? The fact that they reaffirmed the decisions on targets made in Bali. Guess what progress isn't? Begrudgingly saying the same thing you did last year, and refusing to go any further."

http://www.fossil-of-the-day.org/go/

SiG - Social Innovation Generation

For donors interested in knowing more about fostering real change, here's some good news:

- Tim Draimin, formerly CEO of Tides Canada Foundation, is the new Executive Director at Social Innovation Generation (SiG). [Tim and I share a keen interest in the world of Social Finance; he is Canada's leading expert on the topic of this emerging 'hybrid universe'.]

SiG is a collaborative partnership between the Montreal-based J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, the University of Waterloo, the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto and PLAN Institute in Vancouver.

The goal of SiG is to provide practical support for social innovators in cultivating organizations and initiatives across Canada:

"Social Innovation Generation (SiG) is an initiative devoted to building the capacity for social innovation in Canada . . . To foster innovation and to build resilience it is key to engage the rich natural, social and cultural diversity of this country . . Our ultimate goal is to support whole system change through changing the broader economic, cultural and policy context in Canada to allow social innovations to flourish."

To learn more visit the SiG website:
http://www.sigeneration.ca/about_en.htm

George Monbiot on climate change

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting George Monbiot:

From the Guardian, UK: "George Monbiot is the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man's Land.

His most recent book is Heat: How We Can Stop the Planet Burning.
He has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics) and East London (environmental science).

He is currently visiting professor of planning at Oxford Brookes University. In 1995 Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has also won the Lloyds National Screenwriting Prize for his screenplay The Norwegian, a Sony Award for radio production, the Sir Peter Kent Award and the OneWorld National Press Award. A full archive of his articles, with references, is available at monbiot.com"

Take a moment to visit George Monbiot's website, in particular the section on climate change:

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/category/climate-change

From India, The Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation, climate change (& social entrepreneurship)

Based in New Delhi, The Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation focuses on climate change. Their website can be found at: KhemkaFoundation.org, click on the "climate change" tab.

"The recognition that climate change could potentially have devastating impacts on the Indian sub-continent as it threatens key water sources such as the glaciers of the Himalayas and annual monsoons, has informed the Foundation’s work in India. To that end, we are working with strategic partners including TERI on creating an integrated Indian Energy and Climate policy. We are also researching the effects that climate change may have on the monsoons and how societies can both stem these affects as well as adapt to them".

The Khemka Foundation is also active on the international scene and is involved with the Climate Change Philanthropy Action Network which we wrote about in an earlier post.

They are also involved with social entrepreneurship.

If you're looking for a resource on venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship, visit my other website "Venture Philanthropy Guide". It's a few years' old now, but has alot of helpful links. The site is hosted by CharityVillage so look at the menu-bar on the left hand side of the page:

http://VenturePhilanthropyGuide.org