Published on Sep 3, 2016
Breakthrough as US and China agree to ratify Paris climate deal
Campaigners hail key moment in battle against global warming as presidents Obama and Xi announce deal on eve of G20 summit in Hangzhou
Watch a new Climate State video series made entirely in 3D.
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Sydney Opera House Talks & Ideas
Published on Sep 3, 2016
Is American politics dysfunctional or does it just look that way? What happens when aggressive hyper-partisanship collides with a political system that can only work co-operatively? Is the damage fatal to the democratic system?
http://sydneyoperahouse.com/ideas
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Bloomberg’s Hidden Legacy: Climate Change and the Future of New York City chronicles the historic effort by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city leaders to safeguard the five boroughs from the effects of climate change. Experts say New York’s accomplishments rank among the most comprehensive of any of the world’s leading cities, despite rarely capturing the attention of the public during the mayor’s tenure. This book from Pulitzer Prize-winning InsideClimate News is based on extensive interviews with the mayor and key players on his team.
It contains key moments that help readers understand the human side of the massive urban rethink, with real people making tough decisions, facing sleepless nights, contending with resistance and disappointment, and still pushing ahead into uncharted territory.
Praise for Bloomberg’s Hidden Legacy: “The definitive account of Bloomberg’s greatest achievement … The book reads somewhat like a dispatch from inside the campaign trail such as Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.” — Ben Adler, Grist “Perhaps above all, Hidden Legacy reminds us why climate literature matters—why telling this story can change the way we relate to the challenge of global warming and improve our ability to solve it.” — Amanda Little in BOOKFORUM
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Nov 5, 2013 Katherine Bagley and Maria Gallucci
Bloomberg’s Hidden Legacy: Climate Change and the Future of New York City, chronicles the historic effort by Mayor Bloomberg, his staff and other city leaders to safeguard New York City from the effects of climate change.
Bloomberg’s work in this area has been barely mentioned by many journalists who have analyzed his legacy as he leaves office after three terms, but experts say New York’s accomplishments rank among the best of any of the world’s leading cities.
The book is based on extensive, exclusive interviews with the key players on Bloomberg’s team, including Bloomberg himself, and illustrated with charts, diagrams, maps and photos, and in the ICN Books version, enhanced with audio and video.
The book contains key moments that help readers understand the human side of the massive urban rethink, with real people making tough decisions, facing sleepless nights, contending with resistance and disappointment, and still pushing ahead into uncharted territory.
Few if any of the hundreds of measures and dozens of initiatives that made up the city’s ongoing experiment with sustainability generated headlines. Only spectacular failures, like the bid to institute congestion pricing on drivers entering Manhattan, secured much public interest. Yet almost invisibly, the city’s fabric has changed in character.
New Yorkers might notice one thing or another – a new pedestrian plaza, or community gardens, or Brooklyn Bridge Park – but few to this day understand how sweeping and comprehensive Bloomberg’s ambition has been.
His long term plan has decades of implementation ahead – if it continues – but already it has reduced energy use in large buildings and improved air quality, re-imagined and reconstituted the urban landscape, and set the city on a trajectory to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2030 below 2005 levels.
The book will be of interest to anyone who cares about New York; to citizens and leaders of other cities interested in learning how to practically and incrementally confront climate change; and to those interested in Michael Bloomberg and his relationship to an issue that will likely remain one of his core concerns in public life.
…(read more).
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By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg aims to use his new role as U.N. envoy on cities and climate change to help “frustrated” U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon motivate world leaders to cut greenhouse gas emissions by showing them progress made by large cities.
Bloomberg, who left office in December after 12 years as New York’s mayor, said he would help Ban drum up support for a U.N. summit on climate change in September by spreading the message that tackling the issue does not have to be controversial or cost a lot of money.
Ban is seeking to re-energize the global climate change debate and boost the role of the United Nations, which diplomats say has been side lined since a 2009 summit in Copenhagen failed to secure a deal on a binding treaty on reducing emissions.
“(Ban) probably is a little bit frustrated that the nations of the world haven’t come together,” Bloomberg told reporters on Tuesday ahead of a meeting in Johannesburg of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, an international group of mayors created in 2005. Bloomberg is now president of the C40 board.
“There’s nothing inconsistent between what we do at the city level and what he would like to get done at a national level,” said Bloomberg, the billionaire philanthropist who was appointed to the U.N. role on Friday.
There are 63 cities – including New York, Rio de Janeiro, London and Sydney – that are part of the C40 group, representing 600 million people. They share ideas to tackle climate change like bus rapid transit systems, environmentally friendly outdoor lighting, and bike sharing schemes.
“Mayors don’t have time to debate politics, they have to deliver results, and mayors around the world increasingly recognize the threats climate change poses to our cities,” Bloomberg said.
“Cities account today for 70 percent of the world’s carbon emission and more than three-quarters of the world’s energy use, and so the action that they take today to confront climate change really will have a global impact,” he said.
…(read more).
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Campaigners hail key moment in battle against global warming as presidents Obama and Xi announce deal on eve of G20 summit in Hangzhou
Tom Phillips in Beijing, Fiona Harvey and Alan Yuhas
Saturday 3 September 2016 10.12 EDT
The United States and China, the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have announced they will formally ratify the Paris climate change agreement in a move campaigners immediately hailed as a significant advance in the battle against global warming.
Speaking on Saturday, on the eve of the G20 summit in Hangzhou, US president, Barack Obama, confirmed the long-awaited move, the result of weeks of intense negotiations by Chinese and American officials.
“Just as I believe the Paris agreement will ultimately prove to be a turning point for our planet, I believe that history will judge today’s efforts as pivotal,” said Obama, who was speaking in the presence of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.
“Where there is a will and there is a vision and where countries like China and the United States are prepared to show leadership and to lead by example, it is possible for us to create a world that is more secure, more prosperous and more free than the one that was left for us,” added Obama, for whom the commitment is part of a final push to secure a green legacy for his presidency.
Earlier China had announced it would formally ratify the Paris accord with President Xi vowing to “unwaveringly pursue sustainable development”.
“Our response to climate change bears on the future of our people and the well-being of mankind,” Xi said, according to the Associated Press.
Obama said the joint announcement showed how the world’s two largest economies were capable of coming together to fight climate change.
“Despite our differences on other issues we hope that our willingness to work together on this issue will inspire greater ambition and greater action around the world,” he said.
“We have a saying in America that you need to put your money where your mouth is,” Obama told an audience at Hangzhou’s West Lake state guesthouse. “And when it comes to combating climate change that is what we are doing … we are leading by example.”
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Current Time 1:28
President Barack Obama announces that the US and China have formally joined the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions. Speaking on the eve of the G20 summit in Hangzhou on Saturday, he says he believes history would judge today’s announcement as a ‘pivotal’ moment in the fight against climate change
Source: AP Saturday 3 September 2016 07.57 EDT
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Published on May 11, 2015
*Part of “The Big Picture: 10 Ideas To Save The Economy” by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and MoveOn.org.
Right now, there are adult breadwinners who work full-time, or more than full-time, and still live in poverty. If the minimum wage in 1968 had simply kept up with inflation, it would be more than $10 today. If it also kept up with the added productivity of American workers since then, it would be more than $21 an hour. A decent society ensures that all workers get a decent wage. It’s the least we can do. And a $15 wage is the place to start.
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Transition Studies 