2nd Climate Diplomacy Week 2018 - Highlights
Climate Diplomacy Week is a perfect opportunity to highlight positive climate action, set new goals and engage more and new actors in the fight against the devastating impacts of climate change. Each year, the week has its own character. Climate Diplomacy Week 2018, from 24-30 September, was marked by action – throughout the world, civil society participated in inspiring educational activities and engaged the wider public in the climate cause. We’ve selected some of the highlights for you.
In Venezuela and Serbia, citizens went on cycling tours to remind us that low-carbon transportation is possible…and fun!
Meanwhile, EU ambassadors spoke to local communities in Malaysia and hosted a river clean-up event:
Many organizations and embassies have hosted a range of climate-related events, tackling region-specific problems and focusing on engaging a key societal group in the climate change talk: youth.
#ClimaDiplo Week is also an ideal occasion to address in-depth some of the cross-cutting issues that contribute to climate change, such as waste management and industry-specific impacts, as demonstrated by the German Embassy in Nigeria.
Climate change is all about inequality, both in terms of who will suffer its effects most and who contributes most to its causes. During Climate Diplomacy Week, vulnerabilities and responsibilities come to the surface and pave the way for fruitful dialogue and exchanges:
Incidentally, have you seen our best climate diplomacy stories of 2018 yet?
And last but absolutely not least, our touring exhibition on Environment, Conflict and Cooperation (ECC) in Indonesia was a blast! If you are in Jakarta, make sure to drop by until 14 October 2018. If not, take a look at our permanent online exhibition and share it in your networks.
This is just a glimpse of all that happened during this (second) #ClimaDiplo Week 2018. The climate community is a global force which is becoming stronger. We are excited to see what Climate Diplomacy Week 2019 will bring!
Meanwhile, take a look at our summaries and highlights of the (first) 2018 Climate Diplomacy Week. See you next year!
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To fight illegal coca plantations and conflict actors’ income sources, Colombia’s president wants to loosen the ban on aerial glyphosate spraying. However, considering the dynamics of organised crime, the use of toxic herbicides will not only fail to achieve its aim, it will have many adverse effects for the environment and human health, fundamentally undermining ways to reach peace in the country. International cooperation and national policy-makers need to account for this peace spoiler.
As India grapples with the worsening impacts of climate change, the need to strengthen its adaptation efforts has become more significant than ever. Climate diplomacy and mainstreaming climate adaptation into the most vulnerable sectors could provide some solutions to overcoming barriers, such as the lack of sustainable funding.
“Climate Security risks will materialise in very different ways and forms, whether we talk about Lake Chad or about the Arctic, Bangladesh and the Small Island Developing States,” said the EU’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Joao Vale de Almeida, in his opening remarks. “But for the EU, there is no doubt, as underlined in 2016 in our Global Strategy, and reaffirmed by the 28 Ministers of Foreign Affairs, that climate change is a major threat to the security of the EU and to global peace and security more generally,” he said.
The challenges facing the international community are growing while the willingness to cooperate seems to be waning. Foreign policy must help bridge this gap. One way to accomplish this is by pushing forward a major achievement of multilateralism: the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. At a side event during the 2019 High-Level Political Forum, diplomats and policy experts discussed the role of foreign policy in the global sustainability architecture.