Tag: policy

Why the time may be ripe for a Green New Deal

Posted on by janet.crompton
Image credit: Senate Democrats.

On the 8th July, parliamentarians, researchers and practitioners gathered in the House of Commons to discuss and debate the possibilities and practicalities of a Green New Deal in the UK. Drawing on insights and experience from both the UK and the USA, speakers included Caroline Lucas MP, James Heappey MP, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, and Hannah Martin of Green New Deal UK.

The Green New Deal is a policy concept that asserts the need for wholesale, sustained and state-led economic investment to address the challenges of climate breakdown. Whilst it may often feel that these demands for a Green New Deal have come out of the blue, its entrance into the language of environmentalism can be found in 2007, when those concerned with climate breakdown and environmental problems argued that policies centred on improving the environment had important social consequences also.

2019 is, in many ways, the year where environmentalism has taken a radical step into the popular consciousness. Greta Thunberg, the School Strike for Climate and Extinction Rebellion have all occupied streets and seized the news cycle, raising awareness of (and anger at) the climate emergency.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The result? MP’s have declared a climate emergency, the Committee on climate breakdown calling for ‘net zero’ emissions, and public concern for the environment is at a record high. It is this new and rising awareness that frees up space for a new, wide-ranging policy mechanism like the Green New Deal to take the stage and gain traction.

Adopting the language of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policy response to the Great Depression, the Green New Deal has picked up the most traction in the USA, where Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement have spearheaded a growing movement around this idea, that soon took form in a Congressional Bill and a vision published by New Consensus. Several candidates for the Democrat nominee for President have announced Green New Deal-style policies.

A common criticism of the Green New Deal – evident in the parliamentary discussions – was that it can often take an “overly-ideological” flavour that isolates voters, constituencies and potential supporters. As the partisan-divisions around climate breakdown in the United States show, for a policy as wide-ranging as this to be accepted, it must have a base in cross-party support.

As the Gilets Jaunes in France have demonstrated, to forget the economic costs that environmental policy can impose on those who are already struggling can have profound consequences. Whilst we – as environmentalists – may often be focused on the ‘end of the world’, billions across the globe are, instead, worried about making it to the end of the month.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

This is, in many ways, an issue of branding. The key to understanding the Green New Deal is that it is synergistic – its policies simultaneously address environmental AND social issues. New policies of land ownership and use can be adapted to promote cooperative management, worker ownership and land justice. The wholesale fitting of solar energy panels to homes will also address issues of energy poverty. The application of a frequent flyer levy, taxing people based on how often they fly, will, in turn, represent a fairer system of taxing air travel than the current Air Passenger Duty.

Central under the current calls for a Green New Deal is the call for a global investment of 1.5 to 2.5% of global GDP in environmental policies per year. Available policies include targeted tax incentives and subsidies, land reform, transport electrification, green skills training, the expansion of carbon pricing and the rapid construction of renewable energy infrastructure. Green quantitative easing will also allow for the rapid influx of financial investment into communities, allowing for community-led sustainability projects.

These policies will function as powerful job-creators, with significant gains in employment numbers when compared to the relative numbers of those employed within a continued fossil fuel economy. Furthermore, rather than representing financial costs to be spent and lost, they represent an investment – with the environmental and social benefits of these policies leading to far greater economic returns.

Key, however, is where in the UK these policies will be implemented. Introducing low-carbon public transport will only go part of the way to addressing issues at the national level. Now is the time to implement these policies at the towns and places already left behind by rapid deindustrialisation – the Scunthorpes, the Welsh Valleys, the lost seaside towns. Already suffering from industrial decline, these sites must provide the sites of a new decarbonised economy of green investment.

The week before the parliamentary meeting, Common Wealth set out the numerous forms a Green New Deal can take in the post-Brexit UK. It is highly likely that more will follow, with the New Economics Foundation and Greenpeace both putting their own visions together.

For these policies to be successful, it must be accompanied by a strong policy steer from both Parliament and the UK Government. In calling for such expansive investment (likened to “three Marshall Plans and one Apollo moon landing” by Clive Lewis MP, the Labour spokesperson for the Treasury), it is essential that the plan moves beyond mere decarbonisation and towards a holistic approach to mitigating the climate breakdown and our role within it. For too long environmental policy has spoken of what is politically feasible, not what is scientifically urgent. Now is the time for that to change.
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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Ed Atkins, Teaching Fellow, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol.  

Dr Ed Atkins

The future of sustainable ocean science

Posted on by janet.crompton
Westminster Central Hall

May 9th ushered in the 9th National Oceanography Centre (NOC) Association meeting, held among the crowds, statues, flags, and banners, at Central Hall in an unseasonably chilly and rainy Westminster. But it was the first such meeting where the University of Bristol was represented, and I was honoured to fly our own flag, for both University of Bristol and the Cabot Institute for the Environment.

NOC is – currently – a part of the Natural Environment Research Council (one of the UK Research Councils, under the umbrella of UKRI), but is undergoing a transformation in the very near future to an independent entity, and a charitable organisation in its own right aimed at the advancement of science. If you’ve heard of NOC, you’re likely aware of the NOC buildings in Southampton (and the sister institute in Liverpool). However, the NOC Association is a wider group of UK universities and research institutes with interests in marine science, and with a wider aim: to promote a two-way conversation between scientists and other stakeholders, from policy makers to the infrastructure organisations that facilitate – and build our national capability in – oceanographic research.

The meeting started with an introduction by the out-going chair of the NOC Association, Professor Peter Liss from the University of East Anglia, who is handing over the reins to Professor Gideon Henderson from Oxford University. The newly independent NOC Board will face the new challenges of changing scientific community, including the challenge of making the Association more visible and more diverse.

Professor Peter Liss, outgoing chair of the NOC Association,
giving the welcome talk

As well as the changes and challenges facing the whole scientific community, there are some exciting developments in the field of UK and international marine science in the next two years, which are likely to push the marine science agenda forward. In the UK, the Foreign Commonwealth Office International Ocean Strategy will be released in the next few months, and there is an imminent announcement of a new tranche of ecologically-linked UK Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) for consultation. On the international stage, a new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report on the Oceans and Cryosphere is due to be released in September; the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) report on deep sea mining will be announced in the next few months; and the next United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC ) Conference of Parties (COP) climate change conference, scheduled for the end of this year in Chile, has been branded the “Blue COP”.

The afternoon was dedicated to a discussion of the upcoming UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, starting in 2021. With such a wealth of national and international agreements and announcements in next two years, the UN Decade will help to “galvanise and organise” the novel, scientific advice in the light of ever increasing and cumulative human impacts on the oceans.
Alan Evans, Head of the International and Strategic
Partnerships Office and a Marine Science Policy Adviser, giving a presentation
on the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development
The UN Decade is aligned strongly with the key global goals for sustainable development and has two overarching aims: to generate ocean science, and to generate policy and communication mechanisms and strategies. The emphasis is being placed on “science for solutions”, bringing in social scientists and building societal benefits: making the oceans cleaner, safer, healthier and – of course – all in a sustainable way.

Research and development priorities include mapping the seafloor; developing sustainable and workable ocean observing systems; understanding ecosystems; management and dissemination of open access data; multi-hazard warning systems (from tsunamis to harmful algal blooms); modelling the ocean as a compartment of the Earth system; and pushing for a robust education and policy strategy to improve “ocean literacy”.

Whilst these are exciting areas for development, the scheme is still in its very early stages, and there’s a lot to do in the next two years. As the discussion progressed, it was clear that there is a need for more “joined-up” thinking regarding international collaboration. There are so many international marine science-based organisations such that collaboration can be “messy” and needs to be more constructive: we need to be talking on behalf of each other. On a national level, there is a need to build a clear UK profile, with a clear strategy, that can be projected internationally. The NOC Association is a good place to start, and Bristol and the Cabot Institute for the Environment can play their parts.

Lastly, a decade is a long time. If the efforts are to be sustained throughout, and be sustainable beyond The Decade, we need to make sure that there is engagement with Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and mid-career researchers, as well as robust buy-in from all stakeholders. Whilst there are several national-scale organisations with fantastic programs to promote ECRs, such as the Climate Linked Atlantic Sector Science (CLASS) fellowship scheme and the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) doctoral training program, this needs to be extended to ambitious international ECR networking schemes. Together with the future generation of researchers, we can use the momentum of the UN Decade make marine research sustainable, energised and diverse.

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This blog is written by Dr Kate Hendry, a reader in Geochemistry in the University of Bristol School of Earth Sciences and a committee member for the Cabot Institute for the Environment Environmental Change Theme. She is the UoB/Cabot representative on the NOC Association, a member of the Marine Facilities Advisory Board (MFAB), and a co-chair of a regional Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) working group.

UK Climate Projections 2018: From science to policy making

Posted on by janet.crompton

On a sunny day earlier this week, I attended the UK Climate Projections 2018: From science to policy making, meeting in Westminster on behalf of the Cabot Institute. Co-hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group and the UK Met Office, the main purpose of this event was to forge discussions between scientists involved in producing the latest UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) and users from various sectors about the role of UKCP18 in increasing the UK’s preparedness of future climate change.

Many people in my constituency come and ask about climate change every day.

The event began with an opening remark by Rebecca Pow, the MP for Taunton Deane in Somerset. Somerset has seen some devastating floods over the years, and a new land drainage bill was passed a week prior to manage flood risk in the area. Constantly faced with questions from her constituents about climate change, Rebecca is particularly interested in regional climate change, both at present and in the future, and any opportunities that may arise from it.

Everyone would like a model of their back garden.

Prof Sir Brian Hoskins, the Founding Director and Chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, and Professor in Meteorology at the University of Reading, gave an overview on climate projection. He listed three main sources of uncertainty in 21st century climate projection: internal variability, model uncertainty, and human activity uncertainty. Climate scientists deal with these uncertainties by using large ensembles of simulations, a range of climate models, and a range of climate scenarios. However, there is always tension between model resolution, complexity and the need for many model runs in global climate projections due to constraints in computer resources. Regional climate models can be embedded in global domains to provide local weather and climate information, but they cannot correct large scale errors. The peer-reviewed UKCP18 provide both the statistics of global climate by combining data from different climate models and runs, and regional daily data for the UK and Europe.

A greater chance of warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers.

This was one of the headline results from UKCP18 shown by Prof Jason Lowe, Head of Climate Services for Government at the Met Office Hadley Centre. UKCP18 is an update from its predecessor, UKCP09, but with constraints from new observations and data from more climate models from around the world. The horizontal resolution of regional climate projections for the UK and Europe has increased from 25 km in UKCP09 to 12 km in UKCP18, with an even higher resolution (2.2 km) dataset coming out in summer 2019. UKCP18 results show that all areas of the UK are projected to experience warming, with greater warming in the summer than the winter. Summer rainfall is expected to decrease in the UK, whereas winter precipitation is expected to increase. However, when it rains in summer it may rain harder. Sea-level rise will continue under all greenhouse gas emission scenarios at all locations around the UK, impacting extreme water levels in the future.

Heat and health inter-connections are complex.

Prof Sarah Lindley, Professor of Geography at the University of Manchester, shared how UKCP18 could be used to study the health effects of climate change and urban heat in the UK. Many of us would remember how hot it was last summer; by 2050, hot summers of that type may happen every other year, even under a low greenhouse gas emission scenario. The most extreme heat-related hazards are in cities due to the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI), i.e. urban areas are often warmer than surrounding rural areas. For instance, Manchester’s UHI intensity (difference between urban and rural temperatures) has increased significantly since the late 1990s. By the end of this century, the city of Manchester is projected to be 2.4ºC warmer than its surrounding rural area in a UKCP09 medium emission scenario. With an aging population, UK’s vulnerability to heat may increase in the future. Both exposure and vulnerability to heat contribute to heat disadvantage. High-resolution UKCP18 data, together with social vulnerability maps of the UK, provide new opportunities to heat disadvantage and adaptation research.

European birds will need to shift about 550 km north-east under 3ºC warming.

The next speaker was Dr Olly Watts, Senior Climate Change Policy Officer for the RSPB, the largest nature conservation charity in the UK. Climate adaptation is an important aspect of nature conservation work, as it should be in everyone’s work. The Climatic Atlas of European Breeding Birds finds that not only will European birds shift 550 km under a likely 3ºC increase in global average temperature, but also a quarter of the bird species will be at high risk. Currently 5000 bird species are changing species distribution, and they face an uncertain future. The UKCP18 data of 2-4ºC warmer worlds could be used to derive qualitative strategies to build wildlife resilience against climate change. Adaptation strategies including informing nature reserve management will be in place across the RSPB conservation programme. The RSPB will also use UKCP18 data to raise public awareness of climate change.

Water demand can increase by 30% on a hot day.

Dr Geoff Darch, Water Resources Strategy Manager at Anglian Water, began his talk by highlighting the inherent climate vulnerabilities in water management in the East of England. It is a “water stressed” region that has low lying and extensive coastline, sensitive habitats, and vulnerable soils. On a hot day, water demand can go up by 30%. Climate change alone is expected to have a total impact of 55 Ml/day on water supplies in the region by 2045. A growing risk of severe drought means an additional impact of 26 Ml/day is expected, not to mention the impacts of population growth. The water industry is proactively adapting to these challenges by setting up plans to reduce leakage and install smart meters for customers. UKCP09 has been used extensively for climate change risk assessment across the water sector; the latest UKCP18 could be used in hydrological modelling, demand modelling, storm impact modelling, flood risk assessment, and sensitivity testing to assess the robustness of water resources management solutions under a range of climate scenarios.

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute member Dr Eunice Lo, from the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. Her research focusses on climate change, extreme weather and human health.

Dr Eunice Lo

 

Interrogating land and water use change in the Colombian Andes

Posted on by janet.crompton

Socio-ecological tensions, farming and habitat conservation in Guantiva-La Rusia

Highlighting the Cabot Institute’s commitment to growing the evidence base for water-based decision making, Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello (Co-Investigator) and Dr Susan Conlon (Post Doctoral Research Assistant) introduce the social science component of an exciting three-year project called PARAGUAS, an interdisciplinary collaboration between UK and Colombian researchers to investigate how plants and people influence the water storage capacity of the Colombian Páramos…

In June 2018, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) jointly awarded funding to five UK projects under the Newton-Caldas funded Colombia-Bio programme. The Colombian Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (Colciencias) subsequently awarded funding to 24 smaller Colombian projects under the same programme. PARAGUAS – How do the Páramos store water? The role of plants and people” is one of the five UK-funded projects.

Páramos are crucial for the livelihoods and wellbeing of millions of people (Photo © María Paula Escobar-Tello, University of Bristol)

Crucial source of land and water

The páramos are tropical mountain wetlands found between 3000m and 4500m of elevation in the Andes. Known for their extreme water storage and regulation capacity, they generate exceptionally high and sustained water supplies to farmland, settlements and cities downstream. They are also an important repository of biodiversity. Páramos have been historically inhabited; first by pre-Colombian indigenous communities and nowadays by heterogeneous campesino communities who depend on them as a primary source of water crucial for their livelihoods and wellbeing.  In the last few decades, several political, economic and armed conflict dynamics have pushed the agricultural frontier to increasingly higher elevations. The combined pressure of land use and climate change has already degraded many páramo areas and their potential demise has generated widespread concern across all levels of governance in Colombia, as well as within the NGO sector and research community.

Growing tensions in water conservation

A diversity of actors – government, NGO, community organisations, farmers – are interacting in the conservation of water in the Guantiva-La Rusia páramo, each with their own knowledges and understandings of the water storage function of the páramo, as well as contrasting views on who should benefit from this function and on the political economy of conservation efforts. Our team began to explore two sets of dynamics where these contrasting views were manifest during a pre-fieldwork campaign in January 2019.

In the first dynamic, local populations experience national and regional conservation efforts to address land and water degradation through the delimitation of the páramos – a controversial ongoing land management process whereby government authorities seek to map the areas they believe should be conserved to protect the páramos. One approach in these new land management policies and plans is to extend national park land under protection through land acquisition, which overlaps with complex pre-existing land ownership arrangements. In addition, the Ley de Páramos 233, 2018 (Páramos Law 233) prohibits farmers from carrying out productive activities on formerly-used land, which is now defined as páramos by authorities, and tasks local authorities with negotiating with farmers and supporting them in finding alternative economic activities.  While this ban may sound ecologically necessary, multiple actors question the processes that have defined the páramo borderline for several reasons including its implications on farmers’ livelihoods, identities and ecosystem knowledges.

In the second dynamic, water conservation policies and plans prioritise the channelling of water from the páramos to the aqueducts that supply the populations downstream through land purchases that lead to changes in land use and the piping of springs and streams. These processes are equally contested and have led to community-level forms of organisation, representation and resistance; as well as to multi-scale and multi-issue conflicts between different campesino sectors; between local, regional and national-level political and environmental authorities; and between different discourses about environmentalism and modernisation.

Our project goals

As the social science component of PARAGUAS, we want to explore these different sets of socio-cultural and political tensions. We will do this by investigating how and why land and water use has changed in the Guantiva-La Rusia páramo and how this is related to public policy decisions that have shaped (or not) how local páramo inhabitants, particularly crop and livestock farmers, interact currently with the páramo through their day-to-day farming practices. Our aim for this part is to expose lesser heard voices in the conservation debate and listen to how local inhabitants articulate their understanding of the water regulation function of the páramo.

We are busy preparing for the first round of fieldwork in May 2019 and are designing our methodology of interviews, focus groups and digital storytelling techniques in close collaboration with our colleagues at Loughborough University. Watch this space for further updates!

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The PARAGUAS project is supported by the Newton-Caldas Fund and funded by the NERC and AHRC [grant number NE/R017654/1].  PARAGUAS is led by Principal Investigator Dr France Gerard (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology) and Co-Investigators Dr Ed Rowe (Centre  for Ecology & Hydrology), Mauricio Diazgranados (The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), David Large (University of Nottingham), Wouter Buytaert (Imperial College London), Maria Paula Escobar-Tello (University of Bristol), Dominic Moran (University of Edinburgh), Michael Wilson (Loughborough University) and supported by the research group ‘Biología para la conservación’ of the Universidad Pedagógica Tecnologica de Colombia (UPTC) – Dr Liliana Rosero-Lasprilla and Dr Adriana Janneth Espinosa Ramirez, the Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt (IAvH) – Dr Susana Rodríguez-Buriticá, The Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UN) – Prof Conrado de Jesus Tobon Marin and the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) – Dr Liz Johanna Diaz.
NERC Programme: Exploring and Understanding Colombian Bio Resources
Newton-Caldas Fund
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This blog is written by Cabot Institute members Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello nd Dr Susan Conlon from the School of Veterinary Sciences at the University of Bristol.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello

 

Reflections and insights on COP24

Posted on by janet.crompton
COP24 plenary. Image credit Wikimedia Commons Doman84.

The topic of climate change has fascinated me ever since the age of 17 and I haven’t looked back since then because it is something that is beyond my passion. I completed my Bachelors in Environmental Science at the University of Nottingham and now here at the University of Bristol I am enrolled in Climate Change Science and Policy MSc.

I am also part of a youth-based Climate Change NGO, Malaysian Youth Delegation (MYD), which constantly pushes for more ambitious national and regional climate policies and liaises with the government. The organisation also represents youth climate movement on national and International platforms, educates Malaysian Youth on UNFCCC in relation to Malaysian climate policies and holds Malaysian leaders accountable for their promises. Being in the organisation has taught me about the intricacies involved in climate policies such as the global north-south divide, climate adaptation, mitigation, finance and capacity building.

Being at the University of Bristol has made me intrigued to know more about the science-policy interface that occurs in climate negotiations like COP. I was also intrigued to find out more about how negotiations took place and the role of politics being part and a consequence. I am thankful for Cabot Institute for assisting and funding me with the logistics to my trip to Katowice. During my time at COP24 and aside from tracking negotiations, I was predominantly taking the youth narrative and was working with the organisation I represented – the Malaysian Youth Delegation (MYD) and Youth NGO constituency (YOUNGO).

My experience at COP24 was a profound one, primarily because I saw the subject of climate change coming to life through the form of formal and informal negotiations, high-level meetings and other side events in the premises. This COP was an important one since the draft text for the Paris Agreement Working Programme was supposed to be completed by the end of the conference – the document is vital for the implementation of the Paris Accord that took place in 2015. The two weeks that I’d spent at the COP were some of the most exhilarating and engrossing adventures in the world of climate policy – days often started at 6 am and completed around 2 to 3am the next day leaving a short time to rest each day. At the conference, I attended and observed negotiation sessions, youth constituency meetings, side events related to other aspects of climate change during the day and helped to produce position papers, proposals and write reports for MYD and YOUNGO in the evenings and overnight.

Highlights

One of my main highlights was that I got the chance to meet the Malaysian Minister for Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change, Ms. Yeo Bee Yin, and Dr. Gary Theseira, the special functions officer to the minister and a highly experienced negotiator in the UNFCCC. We, the MYD team, attempted to shadow the minister while she was at the conference. Unfortunately, we couldn’t follow the minister as many of her meetings were predominantly “closed door” meaning those meeting not being open to observers. However, the initial purpose of tracking the minister at the conference was to know her views on her unprecedented attendance of a climate conference and how she would take back any outcomes to Malaysia. We also had the opportunity to transcribe Ms. Yeo Bee Yin’s COP speech which can be read here.

Another highlight was having the opportunity to meet my tutor, Cabot Institute theme co-lead for Environmental Change research, Dr. Jo House, at the conference too.  We visited the Polish “coal exhibition” center together where chunks of coal were stacked up. They were termed “clean coal” which were made to supposedly reduce the environmental impact of its combustion as compared to regular coal.

I was also presented with an opportunity to deliver an intervention (a term used in COPs where non-country stakeholders provide their expressions to the chair of a respective meeting) on behalf of YOUNGO. Due to time constraints and other internal reasons, this fell through but the position paper I was about to present was handed over as a written draft to the respective chair of the meeting.

The most important highlight of the conference  was the production of the 133-page rulebook for the implementation of Paris Agreement, which was unanimously adopted at the conference.  This contains the framework for the various articles and implementation modalities mentioned in the Paris Agreement.

The next COP will take place in Chile from 11-22 November 2019 with the pre-COP happening in Costa Rica at an earlier date. COP25 and the intersessional meetings before 2020 will make the rulebook less ambiguous to enact the Paris accord. The United Kingdom has also officially submitted a bid to the UNFCCC to host COP26. This conference would be crucial since it would be the first COP during the implementation period of the Paris agreement – the UK would have to successfully host nations and lead it to a productive outcome considering the interest of various parties.

The most deliberate question in our minds, as youth representatives, is that after the publication of the IPCC’s Special Report, will the Earth’s average surface temperature stay below 1.5C since pre-industrial levels?

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This blog is written by Varunkanth Muralikanth, a Climate Change Science and Policy masters student at the University of Bristol.

Varunkanth Muralikanth

 

Courts can play a pivotal role in combating climate change

Posted on by janet.crompton
Calin Tatu/Shuttestock.com
The international community has widely acknowledged the severe threats posed by the impacts of climate change to a series of human rights, including the rights to life, health, and an adequate standard of living. But a stark gap has emerged between this acknowledgement in global climate policy – evidenced by a non-binding clause in the preamble of the Paris Agreement – and their actions to meet promised targets.
How can we hold governments accountable to their human rights duties? A Dutch case recently upheld by the appeals court might hold the answer.
In June 2015, The Hague District Court and a group of 886 concerned citizens, united by the environmental interest group Urgenda Foundation, made history. This, the first successful climate change case brought on human rights and civil law grounds, saw the Dutch government ordered to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 25% on 1990 levels by the year 2020.
Three years on – against a backdrop of intense scrutiny and after an appeal lodged by the government – The Hague Court of Appeal upheld this decision on October 9. Indeed, it has gone significantly further in affirming the duties of care owed by the state to its people. The court considered the weight of the scientific evidence presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the recommendations of successive UN conferences to reach an informed conclusion on the required mitigation targets commensurate with the prevention of dangerous climate change.
Marjan Minnesma, director of environmental group Urgenda, arrives at court prior to the appeal. Jerry Lampden/EPA
Significantly, the judges reached this decision by applying the European Convention on Human Rights: the right to private and family life and the right to life more broadly. As such, this case reaffirms the existence of obligations on the part of the state to take concrete measures to prevent the infringement of these rights where the authorities are aware of the existence of a real and imminent threat.
These obligations were held to extend to industrial activities which threaten the rights of people within the state’s jurisdiction. Based on an analysis of the scientific evidence, the court concluded that climate change presents a real and imminent threat to the enjoyment of citizens’ rights as spelled out in the EU convention. They ruled that a 25% emissions reduction is the minimum required to fulfil the government’s duty of care.


Human rights alarm

The Urgenda appeal decision was handed down too early for the findings of the most recent IPCC report on global warming of 1.5ºC, which was published the day before the ruling, to be integrated into the judges’ reasoning. But these findings will significantly strengthen the evidential basis of future claims.
The IPCC report outlines the stark increase in the risks to human health, food and water security, and livelihoods associated with 2ºC of warming, when compared to 1.5ºC. The evidence presented on human health, including the increased risk of heat-related morbidity and mortality, projected with “very high confidence”, is particularly striking. The climate is currently 1ºC warmer than pre-industrial levels, and with the planet projected to reach 1.5ºC as early as 2030 if current trends continue, the alarm on the imminence of the threat to human rights has been sounded.
No legally binding human rights provisions or remedies are provided within the international climate change regime. And so we must turn to the courts to clarify state duties. The Urgenda case sets an encouraging precedent. And there are many more examples of rights-based claims being brought against governments in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, the UK, and even against the EU institutions. This marks a sea change in the use of human rights to hold policymakers to account for their inaction on climate change.


The decision by the Netherlands court of appeals in #Urgenda immediately becomes the most important judicial decision yet on the application of human rights law to climate change. 1/10 https://t.co/8ioKxFEjly

— John H Knox (@JohnHKnox) 9 October 2018


A new approach

In the face of the severity and imminence of the environmental risks we face, the approach to human rights protection adopted by the Urgenda judges is crucial. If courts focus on the imminent risks to human life and health, cases brought forward by particularly climate-vulnerable groups should be prioritised.
Individuals most at risk from rising temperatures and extreme weather events – including those whose livelihoods, socio-economic status, and geographic susceptibility result in them being disproportionately affected – would have the strongest claims. Civil society organisations have a crucial role to play in facilitating access to justice for such individuals, for whom entrenched structural barriers often mean that individual access to the courts remains out of reach.
To effectively accommodate climate risks of this nature the existing legal doctrine will need to be adapted, bringing together environmental principles and human rights. The role of the courts themselves is being called into question by climate litigation: the separation of powers between policymakers and the judiciary is embedded in legal systems around the globe, yet the protection of fundamental rights is intended to transcend this divide. It is the duty of the courts to act as a check on executive action and, in this case, inaction, where the enjoyment of rights is in jeopardy.
Never before has the role of the courts been so significant in influencing the path of global policy. In the face of inadequately ambitious action by policy-makers, civil society movements and the courts are the agents of change securing climate action.The Conversation


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This blog was written by Cabot Institute member Alice Venn, a PhD Candidate in Environment, Energy & Resilience and Unit Coordinator in Environmental Law, University of Bristol.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. 
Alice Venn
 
 

The Paris Agreement – where are we now?

Posted on by janet.crompton

Cabot Annual Lecture 2018

This year the Cabot Institute Annual Lecture posed a critical question: where are we with current efforts to tackle global climate change? The event brought together over 800 people to hear from leading Cabot Institute experts in climate science, policy, and justice, Dr Jo House, Dr Dann Mitchell, Dr Alix Dietzel and Professor Tony Payne. It was both an appraisal of the findings of the recently published report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and a grounded call to climate action.

Paris commitments

In 2015 world leaders adopted the Paris Agreement committing all parties to limiting global average temperatures to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 °C. All countries undertook to achieve global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and to enact increasingly ambitious mitigation measures in line with the overarching temperature goals. The Paris Agreement, in contrast to the preceding Kyoto Protocol, is not based on legally binding reductions targets for developed countries, but on a voluntary system of pledges known as ‘nationally determined contributions’ for all parties which will be subject to a stocktake of global progress every five years, beginning in 2023.

Although the Paris Agreement initially offered great promise with pledges being made by both developed and developing countries, a report by the UN Environment Programme in November 2017 examining progress towards the global temperature goals found that even if all current pledges are honoured, we remain on track for some 3 °C of warming by 2100. In light of this, and under the Presidency of Fiji, the first Small Island State to preside over a Conference of the Parties at COP23 last year, the focus has been on building momentum for more urgent action through the facilitative ‘Talanoa dialogue’ and on hashing out the final operating procedures for the Agreement. The findings of the IPCC Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, published on 8 October represent a further important piece of the picture of global progress, which three of the Cabot speakers shed light upon as contributing authors.

Why 0.5°C of warming matters

The findings of the report are significant in illustrating the projected differences in climate change impacts between the 1.5°C and 2°C temperature thresholds. Dr Dann Mitchell outlined the evidence for increases in regional mean temperatures and for the increasing likelihood of temperature extremes of the kind witnessed during this summer’s European heatwave, which we could see occur almost every year at 2°C of warming. These extremes, together with the projected intensification of storms presented in the report, are closely linked to human risks to health, wellbeing and livelihoods.

Cabot Annual Lecture 2018
Dr Dann Mitchell

Professor Tony Payne echoed these concerns with respect to the findings of the report on sea-level rise which predict an extra 10cm rise between the 1.5°C and 2°C temperature thresholds, equating, in turn, to an additional 10 million people at risk of related impacts including inundation and displacement. The destabilisation of the ice sheets is set to become more likely beyond 1.5°C, entailing risks of much greater sea-level rise in the future. Professor Payne further outlined the strikingly severe consequences for coral reefs of the two temperature thresholds, with projections that at 2°C all coral in the oceans will die, while by limiting temperature to 1.5°C, some 10-30% of coral will survive. Reefs are not only crucial for the maintenance of healthy marine ecosystems, but also for the millions of people around the world who depend upon those ecosystems for their food security and livelihoods.

Cabot Annual Lecture 2018
Professor Tony Payne

A call for action

Against these stark warnings on the significance of limiting global temperatures to 1.5°C, Dr Jo House outlined some key recommendations for how we can get on track. The IPCC report sets out a number of pathways for action, each calling for changes across a broad spectrum of policy sectors with the aim of rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing the absorption of existing carbon in the atmosphere. These changes include moving away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, greening the transport sector, replanting forests, and investing in carbon capture and storage technologies. Dr House underlined the importance of action at all levels of governance to meet these goals. At the national level in the UK under the provisions of the Climate Change Act we are already committed to an 80% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050, while at the city level in Bristol, the Climate and Energy Security Framework commits to the same target, with a 50% reduction to be achieved by 2025.

Cabot Annual Lecture 2018
Dr Jo House

This action in climate policy is increasingly being driven by sub-state actors and Dr Alix Dietzel highlighted the crucial role that local government, civil society groups, citizens initiatives, corporations, and individuals are playing in this. Dr Dietzel expressed cause for hope in the reaction of sub-state actors to the announcement of the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, with the ‘WE ARE STILL IN’ movement garnering support from city mayors, governors, tribal leaders, universities, and businesses for continuing commitment to the Paris goals. At the individual level, the actions we can all take within the boundaries of our own capabilities were discussed, outlining our capacity to affect change through our consumption and lifestyle choices. The need to consider the ethical questions surrounding our responsibilities as individuals and global citizens remains crucial, particularly in light of the disproportionately harmful effects that climate impacts will have upon those who have contributed least to the problem.

Cabot Annual Lecture 2018
Dr Alix Dietzel

The risks of inaction on the 1.5°C threshold were balanced against the opportunities and benefits of action by the panel. The successful lobbying efforts of climate-vulnerable states to embed the 1.5°C threshold within the Paris framework, alongside the commitment of many governments and sub-state actors to meet it, are cause for hope but we still have a long way to go.

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute member Alice Venn, a PhD Candidate in Environment, Energy & Resilience at the University of Bristol’s Law School.

Alice Venn

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Systems thinking: 5 ways to be a more sustainable university

Posted on by janet.crompton
As part of Green Great Britain Week, supported by BEIS, we are posting a series of blogs throughout the week highlighting what work is going on at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment to help provide up to date climate science, technology and solutions for government and industry.  We will also be highlighting some of the big sustainability actions happening across the University and local community in order to do our part to mitigate the negative effects of global warming. Today our blog will look at ‘Considering the actions businesses can take on climate change’.

Our University is justly famous for the breadth and depth of its work on Sustainability. This ranges from research on the effect of micro plastics on the oceans, through food and farming, to the effect of resource-driven migration. We are also tackling arguably the biggest problem of all: developing the tools and techniques that will help us to fight climate change.

Our Sustainability Policy is clear that we need to walk the talk and demonstrate that we are supporting a sustainable world in our operations and strategies.

The University of Bristol’s Sustainability team co-ordinates sustainability activity across the organisation, continually innovating to find ways of reducing our environmental impact against a backdrop of growing staff and student numbers, increasingly bespoke teaching and ever more complex research requirements. The team has particular responsibility for waste resource management, energy, water and transport, and engages with staff and students in many different ways through community engagement, biodiversity activities, sustainable food and sustainable procurement.

1. A changing landscape

The team is led by Martin Wiles, who has been with the University since 2001. “Innovation is at the heart of what we do,” says Martin. “Everyone in the sector knows that the fundamentals are changing, and that change is accelerating. It’s difficult to see what the pedagogical, economic or political landscape is going to be even a year ahead. So, we see our activities as being guided by three principles: how do we support excellence in teaching, research and the staff and student experience? How do we reduce resource use whilst saving money? How do we ensure that we are compliant with increasingly complex environmental legislation? We also feel that we have a role in distilling our findings and disseminating good practice to the wider sector.”

2. Sustainable Laboratories

A good example of how this thinking is applied in practice is the Sustainable Labs Initiative, which focuses on improving the safety, sustainability and success of our laboratories. Energy manager Chris Jones says, “We had known for a long time that our highly-serviced labs represent only 5% of our floor area but use 40% of our energy. In recent years, controls for air handling have improved immensely and we have started to roll out best practice, starting with our Synthetic Chemistry building. We have been able to reduce electricity consumption by 30% there whilst still delivering the same level of service.” The project has been implemented by Chris, working with Anna Lewis, the Team’s Sustainable Labs officer.  A former Research Technician herself, Anna works closely with academic and research staff to minimise resource use by better management. “Staff understand the issues,” says Anna, “and they are very happy to help. We can usually achieve better environmental performance and better safety through relatively small changes to our way of working.”

3. Closing the loop on waste

This sentiment is echoed by Rose Rooney, the Environmental Management System (EMS) and Circular Economy Manager. “If we treat everything in isolation, the task of compliance becomes unnecessarily expensive and intrusive in people’s work. Adhering to the EMS processes saves time and aids compliance. A good example is waste. If we are informed early and fully that a consignment of waste needs to be removed, we can deal with it cheaply and easily, often finding a route for it to be reused or recycled. We are moving away from the idea of waste to becoming a circular economy, where the output from one process becomes the input for another.”  She cites the University’s popular and successful Re-store programme, which allows furniture and equipment from one group to be used by another, and The Bristol Big Give, where students’ unwanted items that would normally go to waste at the end of term are collected and sent to be sold for charities. Many tonnes of items are now being reused that might otherwise have gone to landfill.

4. Be The Change

Bristol Big Give is just one example of a number of behaviour change initiatives delivered by the team to encourage the sustainable behaviours as part of work, study and home life. Maev Moran, Communications and Campaigns Assistant, oversees the delivery of these initiatives: “We have found that audiences respond more positively and proactively to messages of empowerment than to negative messages.  Be The Change, a scheme we launched in June, has quickly become the most popular ongoing initiative among University staff. It covers all areas of sustainability while making rewarding everyday actions, creating a step-by-step guide towards reducing our environmental impact both at home and in the workplace. The breadth of the scheme also means we can factor wellbeing in to our ability to have a positive impact, particularly as part of a wider community.”

5. Travel and transport

Amy Heritage is responsible for Transport at the University, including managing the University’s travel plan, facilities for people who walk or cycle to work or study, the University’s bus services (Bristol Unibus), including the new U2 bus service to Langford and initiatives/incentives to encourage behaviour change on all other modes of travel. “Our Staff and students are great at making sustainable travel choices. Our job is to make this as easy as possible.” She says that our travel plan is a key part in ensuring we are acknowledged as a good corporate citizen, and her team is looking at ways of improving the management of University vehicles and making it more attractive to replace meetings that would otherwise have required flights with video conferences.

Future plans

The team are starting the new academic year with plans for plans for efficiency savings on heating, laboratory ventilation and lighting, making sure we are compliant with new legislation, and collaborative work with Computer Science staff on how the operation of building services translates to staff and student wellbeing. There are plans for more renewable energy generation, smart controls for buildings, and adding to our electric vehicle fleet. “Once more, it’s a project about reducing our environmental impact while freeing up resources for excellent teaching and research, and staff and student wellbeing,” says Martin Wiles, “and that’s what we’re here to do.”

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This blog is written by John Brenton, Sustainability Manager in the University of Bristol’s Sustainability Team.

Read other blogs in this Green Great Britain Week series:
1. Just the tip of the iceberg: Climate research at the Bristol Glaciology Centre
2. Monitoring greenhouse gas emissions: Now more important than ever?
3. Digital future of renewable energy
4. The new carbon economy – transforming waste into a resource
5. Systems thinking: 5 ways to be a more sustainable university
6. Local students + local communities = action on the local environment

The new carbon economy – transforming waste into a resource

Posted on by janet.crompton

As part of Green Great Britain Week, supported by BEIS, we are posting a series of blogs throughout the week highlighting what work is going on at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment to help provide up to date climate science, technology and solutions for government and industry.  We will also be highlighting some of the big sustainability actions happening across the University and local community in order to do our part to mitigate the negative effects of global warming. Today our blog will look at ‘Technologies of the future: clean growth and innovation’.

On Monday 8 October 2018, the IPCC released a special report which calls upon world governments to enact policies which will limit global warming to 1.5°C compared with pre-industrial levels, failure to do so will drastically increase the probability of ecosystem collapses, extreme weather events and complete melting of Arctic sea ice. Success will require “rapid and far-reaching” actions in the way we live, move, produce and consume.

So, what comes to mind when you hear carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas? A waste product? You’re not wrong to think that given the predicament that our planet faces, but this article is going to tell the other side of the story which you already know but is often forgotten.

For over a billion years, carbon dioxide has been trapped and transformed, almost miraculously, into an innumerable, rich and complex family of organic molecules and materials by photosynthetic organisms. Without this process, life as we know simply would not have evolved. Look around you, – I dare say that the story of carbon dioxide is weaved, one way or another into all the objects you see around you in this moment. Whether it’s the carbon atoms within the material itself – or that old fossilised sourced of carbon was used to smelt, melt or fabricate it.

The great growth and development of the last two centuries has been defined by humanity’s use of fossilised carbon which drove the first and second industrial revolutions. But now – the limitations of those very revolutions are staring us in the face and a new revolution is already underway, albeit it quietly.

An industrial revolution is said to occur when there is a step change in three forms of technology, Information, Transport and Energy. The step change that I will discuss here is the use of carbon dioxide coupled with renewable energy systems to deliver a circular carbon economy that aims to be sustainable, carbon neutral at worst and carbon negative at best. This burgeoning field comes under the name carbon capture and utilisation (CCU). CCU, represents a broad range of chemical processes that will most directly impact energy storage and generation and the production of chemical commodities including plastics and building aggregates such as limestone.

In our research we are developing catalysts made of metal nanoparticles to activate and react CO2 to form chemicals such as carbon monoxide (CO), formic acid, methanol and acetate. They be simple molecules – but they have significant industrial relevance, are made on vast scales, are energy intensive to produce, and all originate in some way from coal. The methods that we are investigating while being more technically challenging, consume just three inputs – CO2, water and an electrical current. We use a device called an electrolyser, it uses electricity to break chemical bonds and form new ones. The catalyst sits on the electrodes. At the anode, water is broken into positively charged hydrogen ions called protons and oxygen, while at the opposite electrode, the cathode, CO2 reacts with the protons, H+, to form new molecules. It sounds simple but encouraging CO2 to react is not easy, compared to most molecules, CO2 is a stubborn reactant. It needs the right environment and some energy such as heat, electricity or light to activate it to form products of higher energy content. The chemicals that can be produced by this process are industrially significant, they are used in chemical synthesis, as solvents, reactants and many other things. CO for example can be built up to form cleaner burning petroleum/diesel-like fuels, oils, lubricants and other products derived by the petrochemical industry.

Formic acid and methanol may be used to generate energy, they can be oxidised back to CO2 and H2O using a device called a fuel cell to deliver electricity efficiently without combustion. One day we could see electrically driven cars not powered by batteries or compressed hydrogen but by methanol which has a higher volumetric energy density than both batteries and hydrogen. Batteries are heavy, too short-lived and use high quantities of low abundance metals such as lithium and cobalt – meaning their supply chains could suffer critical issues in the future. While the compression of hydrogen is an energy intensive process which poses greater safety challenges.

However, there are still many hurdles to overcome. I recently went to the Joint European Summer School on Fuel Cell, Electrolyser and Battery Technologies. There I learned about the technical and economic challenges from an academic and industrial perspective. In an introductory lecture, Jens Oluf Jensen was asked “When will we run out of fossil fuels?”, his answer “Not soon enough!”. An obvious answer but there is something I wish to unpick. The task for scientists is not just to make technologies like CO2 capture, CO2 conversion and fuel cells practical – which I would argue is already the case for some renewable technological processes. The greatest challenge is to make them cost competitive with their oil-based equivalents. A gamechanger in this field will be the day that politicians enact policies which incorporate the cost to the environment in the price of energy and materials derived from fossil fuels, and even go so far as to subsidise the cost of energy and materials-based on their ability to avoid or trap carbon dioxide.

Even without such political input there is still hope as we’ve seen the cost of solar and wind drop dramatically, lower than some fossil fuel-based power sources and only with limited government support. Already there are companies springing up in the CCU sector. Companies like Climeworks and Carbon Engineering are demonstrating technology that can trap CO2 using a process known as Direct Air Capture (DAC). Carbon Engineering is going even further and developing a technology they call Air to Fuels™. They use CO2 from the air, hydrogen split from water and clean electricity to generate synthetic transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel or jet fuel. You may question why we should need these fuels given the rise of battery powered vehicles but a better solution for fuelling heavy goods vehicles, cargo ships and long-haul flights is at the very least a decade way.

In 1975, Primo Levi wrote a story about a carbon dioxide molecule and he said in relation to photosynthesis “dear colleagues, when we learn to do likewise we will be sicut Deus [like God], and we will have also solved the problem of hunger in the world.”. The circular carbon economy may still be in its infancy, but the seeds have sprouted. Unlike the first and second industrial revolution, the 3rd industrial revolution will not be dependent on one single energy source but will be a highly interdependent network of technologies that support and complement each other in the aim of sustainability, just like nature itself.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Gaël Gobaille-Shaw, University of Bristol School of Chemistry. He is currently designing new electrocatalysts for the conversion of CO2 to liquid fuels.
For updates on this work, follow @CatalysisCDT @Gael_Gobaille and @UoB_Electrochem on Twitter.  Follow #GreenGB for updates on the Green Great Britain Week.

Gael Gobaille-Shaw

Read other blogs in this Green Great Britain Week series:
1. Just the tip of the iceberg: Climate research at the Bristol Glaciology Centre
2. Monitoring greenhouse gas emissions: Now more important than ever?
3. Digital future of renewable energy
4. The new carbon economy – transforming waste into a resource
5. Systems thinking: 5 ways to be a more sustainable university
6. Local students + local communities = action on the local environment

 

Marvin Rees interview on the Sustainable Development Goals

Posted on by janet.crompton

This week is UN Global Goals week, an annual week of action where the United Nations and partners from around the world come together to drive action, raise awareness and hold leaders to account in order to accelerate progress to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals.

Dr Sean Fox, Senior Lecturer in Global Development at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment, recently interviewed me about why I support the Sustainable Development Goals. You can read the transcript below.

SF: You’ve been a vocal supporter of the Sustainable Development Goals, when some mayors don’t talk about them. Why do you think they’re important?

MR: I think it’s important to talk about them because we often fall victim to the stereotype of thinking the SDGs are for the global south, when actually the SDG themes clearly cross over. For example, take Water. It’s a northern hemisphere issue as well. The challenges may not be as extreme as in sub-Saharan Africa or Asian countries, but it is increasingly an issue for us with Climate change and migration.

But then the other thing is really making sure this is not just about national governments. In fact if you leave it to national governments we’ll fail, because they don’t cooperate they contest. They have hard borders. They don’t talk about interdependence like we do at the city level. We share a population in Bristol with so much of the rest of the world and we need to work as though that is true, because our population here cares about the population there. The SDGs are real and raw in the Northern and Southern hemisphere as well as within families.

SF: How can the SDGs be beneficial for Bristol?

MR: We are trying to build a global network of cities through the Global Parliament of Mayors and that involves coming up with a common language. The SDGs can be that language. There’s a proposition that national governments are failing in everything from climate change to migration, inequality and health, and it’s a failure of national policy. But it’s also a failure of a global governance structure that is overly dependent on nations. We urgently need global governance to move into its next iteration, with international networks of cities working and sitting alongside national leaders as equal partners in shaping international and national policy. We’re trying to change the architecture.

However, if we want these international networks of cities to work, we have to be able to talk to each other. One of the things that bonds mayors at a mayoral gathering is their challenges: Rapid urbanisation, health and wellbeing, adequate housing, air quality, quality education, water supplies. All mayors face the same challenges. Mayors connect at these gatherings because we’re trying to do something. I think the SDGs offer language, images and targets around which a global network of cities could rally. We need to attach ourselves to them, and interpret the SDGs as they are relevant to our local area so we can deliver them locally and globally, even if our national governments are failing.

SF: National government also share common objectives. What is the difference between being a city leader rather than a national leader?

MR: One is the proximity of leadership to life. National leadership is much more abstracted from life. I met the mayor of Minneapolis and she told me they had the largest Somali community outside of Somalia. Then I was in a taxi with a Somali taxi driver, and I was talking about this and said ‘I was in Minneapolis, there’s a big Somali community there’. He said ‘I go to Minneapolis regularly, my family are there!’ So a Bristolian lives here, but he also lives in Minneapolis because his family are there.

Now we don’t govern like that, but he lives like that. We’re a city with a global population, so there’s a vested interest in cities looking out for each other’s interests because they share populations, families, and remittances flows. There must be someone in Somaliland that wants Bristol to do well and there must be someone in Bristol that wants Somaliland to do well because that’s thier cousin, that’s their gran. I want Jamaica to do well, I want Kingston to do well.

Additionally, cities are better placed to recognise their interdependence. Nations may recognise their interdependences but they’re always drawn to borders, competing GDPs and trade deficits. It seems to be a much more a zero sum game.

SF: Why should UK mayors bother with Global Goals and networks? Why not just focus on Bristol?

MR: Often politicians offer to purchase your vote with promises. I don’t like that. It needs to be what are we going to do. We should be a city that wants to change the world, all cities should! We should want to deliver on the SDGs not just for Bristol but for the world, even if you don’t have family elsewhere, because we’ve got to save the planet. I think it’s pretty clear.  We need to be delivering against the SDGs as part of our global responsibility in an interdependent world.

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This blog has been reproduced with kind permission from Marvin Rees and Bristol Mayor’s Office.  You can view the original interview here.

Marvin Rees is the Mayor of Bristol. He leads the city council and its full range of services – from social care to waste collections. He also performs a broader role representing the interests of Bristol’s citizens on a national and international level.

Marvin Rees

 

Dr Sean Fox

Dr Sean Fox is a member of the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment and a Senior Lecturer in Global Development.

This is the second blog in our #GlobalGoals series as part of Global Goals Week 2018.  Read the other blogs in the series:

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