SD for real

EAUC

Jonathon Porritt1st April 2009

Forum For The Future

• A registered charity committed to accelerating the building of a sustainable way of life

• Solutions-oriented approach• Over 180 different partners from national, regional and

local government, higher education, and business• Green Futures magazine Mission:

To accelerate the building of a sustainablesustainable way of life by taking a positive solutions-oriented approach

IPCC Consensus

Staying below2°C

means stabilisingat 450ppm CO2

which meansc. 80% cut

by 2050

• Sea levels will rise twice as fast as official estimates predict. Possibly by as much as 1 metre by the end of the century

• Rising temperatures could kill off 85% of the Amazon Rainforest

• Modest warming could unleash a carbon “timebomb” from melting permafrost

• A failure to cut emissions could render half of the world uninhabitable.

Copenhagen Conference, March 2009

Copenhagen Conference,March 2009

“Do the politicians understand just how difficult it could be? Just how devastating 4,5,6 degrees centigrade would be? I think not yet. Looking back, the Stern Review underestimated the risks and underestimated the damage from inaction”

(Nick Stern, 12/3/09)

550

450

350

(Jonathon Porritt, Director of Friends of the Earth, Environment Now Magazine 1988)

Taken from Evening Standard 15th January 2009

Making the Connections

Global

systems

International

diplomacy

National

policy

Regional

drivers

UnitaryAuthorities

District Councils

Local

communities

Each one

of us

EU Targets• 20% reductions in CO2 by 2020• 20% Renewables by 2020

Germany• 36 % reductions in CO2 by 2020

UK Climate Change Act• 26% cut by 2020; 80% by 2050• Independent Committee; annual report to Parliament• Carbon Reduction Commitment

Raising the bar

• Climate Change Act

• Energy Performance of Buildings Directive

• Zero Carbon Homes (2016)

• Code for Sustainable Buildings

• Carbon Reduction Commitment

Sticks and Carrots

Get a realistic priceon a tonne of CO2

just as fast as possible

‘Realistic’ Prices

• EU ETS €14

• DEFRA £27

• Treasury £70

• Stern > £100

• Hansen > $250

Climate change just one part of

sustainable development

Sustainable Development as the CENTRAL ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE for everything we do

• as a BIG IDEA

• as an INTEGRATING FRAMEWORK

• as a TOOL KIT

• Good Practice all over the place

• Universities that Count(BiTC Corporate Responsibility & Environment Indices)

• Universities in the Community

• SD across the Curriculum

• Mobilising for a different world(“Transition Universities”)

HE State of Play

• From abundance to scarcity

• From growth to wellbeing

• From cornucopianism to frugality

• From high-carbon to near-zero carbon

• From global to global/local

The World Ahead