Displaying items by tag: Climate Change

This is a guest post prepared by Caroline Wimberly of Brighter Green. She attended the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP)23 in Bonn, Germany last month and reports on various civil society activities which brought attention to the link between animal agriculture and climate change. For more information on outcomes of COP23 and emerging advocacy opportunities for animal protection organizations see Janice Cox’s blog on COP23.

This blog analyses reports on the outcomes of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP)23, and outlines opportunities for animal protection organizations that have emerged as a result. For more information on activities at the conference from an on-the-ground perspective, please see this guest post from Caroline Wimberly of Brighter Green, who attended the COP23 in Bonn, Germany.

One important, yet low-profile, outcome from this year’s climate change conference was the end of a deadlock on agriculture which has lasted for years.

WAN participated in the 2014 People’s Climate March, where we brought a giant inflatable cow emblazoned with the words, “I’m full of greenhouse gases, do you have steak in it?” Three years later, we are proud partners of the People’s Climate March, which will take place April 29th. There will be numerous marches in the United States, but also around the world. As partners of the March, we want to take the opportunity to call on animal advocates to take part in the March.

At World Animal Net, one of our key initiatives is to help animal protection organizations around the world better understand and leverage international policy opportunities to improve the lives of animals. Unfortunately, WAN was unable to personally attend the recent Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Marrakech. However, we are pleased that our colleagues Tozie Zokufa of Humane Society International, the Pan African Animal Welfare Alliance, and member of WAN’s International Policy Forum and Caroline Wimberly of Brighter Green were kind enough to prepare reports of their experiences and work at the convention as well as outcomes and future directions for advocacy at the UNFCCC with the wider animal protection community.

On the weekend of December 12 and 13, 2015, something monumental happened—representatives of 195 nations adopted a climate agreement in Paris at COP 21. For the first time in history, nearly every country on the planet is committed to working to limit dangerous greenhouse emissions to combat the worst impacts of climate change. More specifically, these nations have agreed to pursue efforts to slow the increase in global temperatures to 1.5 Celcius degrees above pre-industrial levels. Among the legally binding elements of the agreement are the requirements to submit emission reduction targets and regularly review those goals.