“An international crime of ecocide has been proposed for inclusion in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by a number of States and civil society groups. I welcome consideration of this and other measures to expand accountability for environmental damage, both at the national and international level.”
Seed: The Untold Story
This film follows passionate seed keepers protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy. In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared. As chemical companies control the majority of our seeds, farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers fight a David and Goliath battle to defend the future of our food. In a harrowing and heartening story, these reluctant heroes rekindle a lost connection to our most treasured resource and revive a culture connected to seeds.
“The world faces twin crises of climate breakdown and runaway inequality. The richest people, corporations and countries are destroying the world with their huge carbon emissions. Meanwhile, people living in poverty, those experiencing marginalization, and countries in the Global South are those impacted the hardest. Women and girls, Indigenous Peoples, people living in poverty and other groups experiencing discrimination are particularly at a disadvantage. The consequences of climate breakdown are felt in all parts of the world and by most people, yet only the richest people and countries have the wealth, power and influence to protect themselves. With that power comes huge responsibility.”
In celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington August 28, 2023 and the continuation of "The Dream" of Martin Luther King Jr.,
COP27 debrief: Milestones for climate-resilient development in Sharm el-Sheikh
I. Science and urgency
II. Enhancing ambition and implementation
III. Energy
IV. Mitigation
V. Adaptation
VI. Loss and damage
VII. Early warning and systematic observation
VIII. Implementation – pathways to just transition
IX. Finance
X. Technology transfer and deployment
XI. Capacity-building
XII. Taking stock
XIII. Ocean
XIV. Forest
XV. Agriculture
XVI. Enhancing implementation: action by non-Party stakeholders
Building A Clean Energy Economy
When President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in August 2022, he said the new law “is not just about today, it’s about tomorrow. It’s about delivering progress and prosperity to American families.” The Inflation Reduction Act makes a historic commitment to build a new clean energy economy, powered by American innovators, American workers, and American manufacturers, that will create good-paying union jobs and cut the pollution that is fueling the climate crisis and driving environmental injustice.
The Inflation Reduction Act includes some two dozen tax provisions that will save families money on their energy bills and accelerate the deployment of clean energy, clean vehicles, clean buildings, and clean manufacturing.
The Inflation Reduction Act also provides billions of dollars in grant and loan programs and other investments for clean energy and climate action. As with the tax provisions, Congress and President Biden designed these programs to benefit working families and parts of the United States that are too often overlooked and under-served.
The Inflation Reduction Act builds on the foundational climate and clean energy actions taken by the Biden-Harris Administration and investments that President Biden secured in his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (or Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), signed in November of 2021.
How the Inflation Reduction Act Helps Black Communities
The Inflation Reduction Act will lower health care costs, including prescription drug costs, and expand health insurance coverage for Black families.
The Inflation Reduction Act takes the most aggressive action on climate and clean energy in American history. The legislation will bring down energy costs for Black families and create thousands of good jobs, all while reducing climate pollution and ensuring that we have a clean, secure future energy supply.
ur Planet: Too Big To Fail
Our economy is fundamentally underpinned by the stability and the resilience of the natural world. But this stability is no longer guaranteed. Our Planet: Too Big To Fail is a 42 minute film that explores the risks of inaction, the impact of investing-as-usual, and the role the finance sector can play in powering a sustainable future.
The Future of “Fuels from Soil not Oil“
United States 2021 Aviation Climate Action Plan
This plan builds on individual and sector-wide commitments announced by the U.S. aviation industry. Our vision is that emissions will be decreased through:
The introduction of new, more efficient aircraft by airlines into their operational fleets and retirement of older, less efficient aircraft.
Development of new, more energy efficient aircraft and engine technologies by the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Improvements in aircraft operations throughout the National Airspace System (NAS) by the U.S. Government (USG) and by airlines flying more optimal trajectories for reduced fuel use and contrail impacts.
International initiatives such as the airplane CO2 standard and the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).
Domestic policies and measures to help meet emissions targets.
Support for research into climate science related to aviation impacts.
Production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) by the energy sector.
Electrification and potentially hydrogen as solutions for short-haul aviation.
Advancements in airport operations across the United States.
These actions will not only help us meet ambitious climate goals, but they will also help improve the quality of life for those living near airports and under flight paths through reductions in community noise and pollutants that degrade air quality. In addition to their environmental benefits, these actions will also spur U.S. economic and job growth.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge Roadmap: Flight Plan for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Report
The roadmap lays out six action areas spanning all activities with the potential to impact the SAF Grand Challenge objectives of (1) expanding SAF supply and end use, (2) reducing the cost of SAF, and (3) enhancing the sustainability of SAF:
Enabling End Use
Communicating Progress and Building Support.
Feedstock Innovation
Conversion Technology Innovation
Building Supply Chains
Policy and Valuation Analysis
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)
While various policies have been implemented globally to mitigate climate change and reduce exposure to toxic air pollutants, policy assessments have considered few if any of the benefits to children.
RGGI, the United States’ first regional market-based regulatory program designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power sector within the Northeast, comprehensively assessed the co-benefits of climate change mitigation to children. It expanded the suite of adverse health outcomes in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMAP) to include additional outcomes associated with pre-natal and childhood exposure to ambient fine particulate matter(PM2.5). RGGI applied this newly expanded program to an assessment of the U.S.
Commissioner Ball Delivers State of Agriculture Address at 191st Annual New York State Agricultural Society Forum
“Our farmers are essential. Their work growing food for everyone and our work supporting this industry is essential. While we still have much work to do, I am incredibly proud of the way our agricultural community has risen to meet the challenges of the last few years with incredible strength, creativity, and innovation. For this reason, and despite all the change and uncertainty we face, I remain optimistic about the future.”
New York State to Collaborate with NASDA Foundation on $30 million Northeast Regional Food Business Center
“The NASDA Foundation is thrilled to bring together state departments of agriculture in the Northeast and public-private partners Cornell University’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement and Buffalo Go Green to build the USDA Northeast Regional Food Business Center. Collaborative partnerships and aligned efforts will enable a more resilient food system and focused support for local communities in the Northeast.”
BIPOC environmental justice leaders call for more resources, agency
Starting in 2014, what has been called the “worst example of environmental injustice in recent United States history” occurred in Flint, Michigan, a predominantly Black community that is home to about 100,000 residents.
Root causes of environmental injustice According to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the environmental justice movement began in earnest in the 1980s to counter discriminatory environmental practices such as toxic dumping, municipal waste facility siting, and land use decisions that impacted communities of color negatively.
Closing the Gap - Insights from the Field to Close the $2.7 Billion Funding Gap Between White-Led and BIPOC-Led Environmental and Conservation Organizations
$2.7 billion. That is the gap between what philanthropists award to white-led environmental and conservation organizations and to organizations in the field led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).
In the five-year period from 2014 through 2018, a total of $3.7 billion was awarded in the environmental and conservation field, with $3.2 billion going to white-led organizations and $498 million going to BIPOC-led organizations.
Sponsored by the Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in Environmental Philanthropy (InDEEP) initiative, the research team for this report set out to learn more about the reasons for this gap and to uncover ways the field can begin to close this gap.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Remarks to the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent
“... As EPA Administrator, I will never lose sight of our commitment to protecting all communities. Everything we do – everything I do – at EPA is rooted in the belief that all people, no matter the color of their skin, the money in their pocket, or the community they live in, deserve clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to lead a healthy life. Each of us have a role to play in this fight for justice. And together, we will achieve true justice for all.”
HEMP EXEMPTION 2023
Producers who choose to grow hemp for grain and/or fiber purposes are at very low, if any risk at all, of harvesting an illegal crop. Therefore, federal law should not mandate testing and instead enforce reasonable programs that require harvest designation and visual inspection of hemp fields, both of which are far less burdensome to the American farmer.
Slow Start to New York’s Legal Cannabis Market Leaves Farmers Holding the Bag
… The 700 pounds (318 kilograms) of pungent flower was harvested last year as part of New York's first crop of legally grown pot for recreational use. He also has roughly 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of distillate. Months later, there are only a dozen licensed dispensaries statewide to sell what Jacobs and more than 200 other farmers produced.
Now, another growing season is underway and farmers still sitting on much of last year's harvest are in a financial bind.
“We are really under the gun here. We’re all losing money,” Jacobs recently said at his farm on rolling land near the Vermont border. “Even the most entrepreneurial and ambitious amongst us just can’t move much product in this environment. …
EPA Outlines $27B ‘Green Bank’ For Clean Energy Projects
The so-called Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, created by Congress in the landmark climate law approved last year, will invest in clean energy projects nationwide, with a focus on low-income and disadvantaged communities.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the green bank — modeled after similar banks established in states such as Connecticut, New York and California — will unlock billions of dollars in private investment to enable neighborhoods and communities “that have never participated in the clean-energy economy to participate in full force’’ in creating green jobs.
International Day of Cooperatives
Celebrated worldwide for more than a century and officially proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly on the centenary of the ICA in 1995, the International Day of Cooperatives is annually commemorated on the first Saturday of July.
Cooperatives as a Vital Piece of Black History in the U.S
Less recognized, and less appreciated, is the role that agriculture has played as a strategy of Black resistance. For as long as land – stolen from Indigenous people and then worked by enslaved Africans – has been used as a means of theft and exploitation throughout US history, it has also given rise to rich forms of resistance and liberation. The land has been a space to build solidarity, to heal, to take care of one another, to meet the basic needs of Black people, and to chart a future for Black liberation.
With the end of slavery and Reconstruction, Black farmers and rural folk faced multiple barriers to self-sufficiency and the means to actualize their new status as freed people. The lynching of black men was often because whites wanted access to the land that Black people held. Between 1910 and 1970 when Jim Crow laws were enacted across the South, Black people lost nearly 90% of the land that they had owned. On the other hand, during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, agricultural cooperatives grew.
Being one of the world’s oldest and largest business networks, the cooperative movement was the first group of enterprises worldwide to endorse the SDGs and be recognized as a partner in achieving these goals.
As natural vehicles of collaborative partnership and prosperity for all, cooperatives contribute to economic, social, and environmental sustainability across regions and economic sectors. It is inherent among them to safeguard community relations, enhance local resources, advocate social responsibility, and adopt sustainable and long-term business practices.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 SDGs, which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
A historic moment as the UN General Assembly adopts the first ever resolution on the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE)
Following the events organised in July and December 2022 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the United Nations has adopted the first Resolution on promoting the SSE for sustainable development during the General Assembly held today 18th April 2023. As an observer of the UN Task Force on the Social and Solidarity Economy (UNTFSSE), the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has been part of the discussion over the last few years, and welcomes this important step in mainstreaming and enhancing the international dimension and profile of the SSE.
Black Political Economy, Solidarity Economics, and Liberation: Toward an Economy of Caring and Abundance
Combining Black political economy and solidarity economy theories and practices provides alternative models for group development based on recognizing and developing internal (to the individual and to the community) capacities and creating mechanisms that equitably produce, distribute, recycle, and multiply local expertise and capital within communities of color, especially Black, communities—creating a solidarity economy of caring community for survival (successful social reproduction), sustainability, and liberation.
The history of mutual aid, cooperative ownership, and economic democracy among African Americans demonstrates how economic cooperation and solidarity economics have enabled Blacks to address human needs, generate income, and at the same time be family and community friendly, in reaction to anti-Blackness and racial economic inequality. Cooperatives enable low-income residents, women, immigrants, and people of color (who often are without any avenue to gain income or assets) to provide affordable, quality goods and services in ecologically sustainable ways and generate jobs, stabilize their communities, and accumulate some assets.
The history of African American cooperative ownership demonstrates that Black Americans have been successful in creating and maintaining collective and cooperatively owned enterprises that often provided not only economic stability for members and their communities but also developed many types of human and social capital and developed community-wide well-being. I discuss how this helps us to define an economics of abundance and explore possibilities for achieving economic liberation in the twenty-first century.
9 R’s of Circular Economy, Using Nature’s Blueprint
Circular Economy, when successfully implemented, can clearly bring environmental, social and economic benefits. Potential economic growth is expected to be worth 4.5 trillion dollars globally. Without transitioning to a circular economy, we will find ourselves in a destructive environment, a surge in prices and inundated with waste.
Circular Economy also improves product quality and saves production cost as it focuses on products with longer life and being able to upgrade and repair. Implementing the circular economy approach in manufacture of more durable products can save be-tween €340 to €630 billion per year in the EU alone.
