WSF

Goal 13 aims to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact”, while acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC) is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.
More specifically, the associated targets of SDG 13 focus on the integration of climate change measures into national policies, the improvement of education, awareness-raising and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warnings. Whereas, its alphabetical targets respectively call for the implementation of the commitment undertaken at the UNFCCC and for the promotion of mechanisms able to raise capacity for effective climate –change related planning and management in least developed countries and SIDS.

It is recognized that climate change is a sustainable development issue and not just an environmental problem. Climate change impacts pose threats to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development in almost all countries.
Source: Expert Group Meeting on Integrating Climate Change into National Sustainable Development Strategies New York, 12-13 November 2007

The climate system is a complex and interactive system. It consists of the atmosphere, land surface, snow and ice, oceans and other bodies of water, and living things. The atmospheric component of the climate system most obviously characterises climate. Therefore, the climate can be defined as ‘ an averageof the weather’. Climate is usually described in terms of the mean and variability of temperature, precipitation and wind over a period of time (the classical period is 30 years). The climate system evolves in time under the infl uence of its own internal dynamics and due to changes in external factors that affect climate (called ‘forcings’).

The climate can change because of natural causes like vulcanic eruptions or Ice ages etc. Especially the last one is not very common. At the moment it is more likely that human influence causes climate change. Human influence in the last 120 years has changed so quickly that the earth is not able to handle this influence by it’s own ability for adaption. We completely overuse natural soruces. The earth is just not able to restore these sources that quickly. It could be able to do this if we would use all natural sources in a more sustainable way. If we only take the amount in a time the earth can reproduce it, it would be completely in balance. But it is not like that unfortunate.

Global warming studies started from the early 50’s. Before the 1950s there were practically no global warming studies as such. After about 1980, efforts that would be relevant to global warming were generally undertaken with an awareness of potential connections.
Source: https://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm

A short Global Warming Timeline
Our understanding of climate change began during intense debates arount the 19th century. Scientists discussed about whether northern Europe had been covered by ice thousands of years ago. But the idea of global warming languished until 1938, when Guy S Callender suggested that the warming trend revealed in the 19th century had been caused by a 10% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. The possibility that humans could contribute to global warming was now being taken seriously by scientists. By the early 1960s some began to raise the spectre of severe climate change within a century. They had started to collect evidence to test the idea that global temperatures were increasing alongside greenhouse gas emissions and to construct mathematical models to predict future climates.

Since the 1960s, evidence of global warming has continued to accumulate. There is now little doubt that the temperature increase over the last 150 years is real, but debate still surrounds the causes. We know that the warming during the first half of the last century was almost certainly due to a more vigorous output of solar energy, and some scientists have suggested that increased solar activity and greater volcanic emissions of carbon dioxide are responsible for all of the increase. But others point out that during the last 50 years the sun and volcanoes have been less active and could not have caused the warming over that period.

In 1992, countries joined an international treaty, the UNFCCC, to cooperate and consider what they could do to limit average global temperature increases and the resulting climate change. Also they discussed how to cope with whatever impacts. By 1995, countries realized that emission reductions provisions in the Convention were inadequate. They launched negotiations to strengthen the global response to climate change. Two years later they adopted the Kyoto Protocol. This Protocol legally binds developed countries to emission reduction targets and entered into force in 2005. The Protocol’s first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. The second commitment period began on 1 January 2013 and will end in 2020. So it is still an ongoing protocol. There are now 192 Parties taking part in the Kyoto Protocol. The UNFCCC secretariat supports all institutions involved in the international climate change negotiations and particularly the Conference of the Parties (COP). The Conference of the Parties serves as the meeting of the Parties and subsidiary bodies.

The CDM allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. These CER’s can be traded and sold. They can also be used by industrialized countries to a meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The mechanism stimulates sustainable development and emission reductions and gives some flexibility to industrialized countries in how to meet their emission reduction limitation targets.

In 2007 the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development organized an Expert Meeting on Integrating Climate Change into National Sustainable Development Strategies. Countries across the world have recognized that a national sustainable development strategy (NSDS) can be an effective tool to allow countries to achieve their sustainable development goals. In doing so, countries are also fulfilling their commitment made in 2002 in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, adopted at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to take immediate steps to make progress in the formulation and elaboration of national strategies for sustainable development as well as to begin their implementation by 2005.

NSDS are comprehensive strategies that help countries achieve their economic, environmental and social objectives in an integrative manner. They are typically the outcome of an iterative and participatory process, and their development involves consultations with a broad set of stakeholders. Addressing climate change in an NSDS is not only a reflection of the importance of climate change for sustainable development, it also provides a framework to design effective climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.
Source: Expert Group Meeting on Integrating Climate Change into National Sustainable Development Strategies New York, 12-13 November 2007

Chapter 2. Integration of climate change actions in daily life – and companies

In this SDG it is all about integrating climate change actions and sustainable development into policies and into business management. That will be a challenge. Indeed, companies do not always try to run their business on a long term horizon. They want to make quick and easy money and in general, this is not in a sustainable way. Neither compliancy of companies with rules about emmission reduction can be secured. This must be checked and restricted carefully by governments or other responsible bodies. WSF can take part in this. Our country managers can try to investigate how the current situation of emmission reduction, and control is. We can also try to lobby to make politicians more alart on it. So that makes awareness an important subject as well.

Commitment from governments an campanies is very important here. They must check and fullfill the emmission reduction. To achieve this, they must be willing to cooperate with this. But just compliancy is not enough. People and companies must change their lifestyle and mindsets. If it comes at climate change, people and companies do not act towards it in daily life. They might fin dit sad if they see the consequences for it on television, but they continue their lives in the same way the next week. It can take several generations to change people’s mindssets and lifestyles towards this. Untill now we still deal with the fact that poor people want to have the same luxury life as we westerners have, but if this would be truth, we would need 3 planets for it.

It is very difficult to restrict poor people these kinds of luxuries, while we are living with it. Everyone should have equal rights (SDG 10 – reduce Inequality in and among countries). Here, it is very clear that all SDG’s have interaction with each other. They have great Interdepedency.

Behaviour is the key element for changing the climate and to reduce emmissions. Therefore the Behaviour, Energy and Climate change Conference (BECC) has been lanced. BECC is the premier event focused on understanding individual and organizational behavior and decision-making related to energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and sustainability.

Environmental problems and environmental solutions are rooted in organizations and cultures. While technological and economic activity may be the direct cause of environmentally destructive behavior, individual beliefs, cultural norms and societal institutions guide the development of that activity. To properly address climate change, we must change the way we structure our organizations and the way we think as individuals. It requires a shift in our values to reflect what scientists have been telling us for years. The certainty of climate change must shift that of being a ‘scientific fact’ to that of being a ‘social fact’.

Environmental issues, like climate change, can cause deep emotional response within individuals and organizations. This can create resistance to change. There are some very strong motivations for people to resist change for very personal reasons. Addressing climate change can threaten established power bases and personal interests. And even if a change in the organization does not threaten the established political order, people may still resist because of fear of the unknown or defensive perception. People automatically assume that change will be painful, costly, difficult or be accompanied by some kind of loss, whether that loss is in the form of familiar routines, established rewards, or expected competencies for success within the workplace.

The solutions to climate change within the organization must emerge from an alteration of the organizational system, reaching deep into the levels of the core beliefs and values that members hold toward the relationship among the organization, the market and the natural environment.

Source: Scientific fact (2010): Climate Change as a Cultural and Behavioral Issue

WSF and Climate change (behaviour)
The possibility to fullfill SDG 13 is completely depending on human behaviour and their will to change. It is also highly depending on organizations and their will to change. WSF can take part in this. Country managers can try to investigate the status of the climate actions in their countries. With this, it is very important to look at the real situation and not only on papers. Of course, companies will put efforts for being eligle on paper. But that does not mean they really fullfill their responsibilities towards climate change. This can be a case of a long breath for the country managers. But they must be patient and should not give up.

Carbon dioxide is a colorless and odorless gas vital to life on Earth. This naturally occurring chemical compound is composed of a carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. Source: www.wikipedia.com