The Global Commons Alliance, partners and our core components – Accountability Accelerator, Earth Commission, Earth HQ, Science Based Targets Network and Systems Change Lab – gathered in New York last week for Climate Week NYC and the UN Summit of the Future. Here are some of the highlights of our week.
As the latest Safe and Just science tells us, we are living in an age of urgency – and we need a holistic Earth system approach that integrates social justice and local knowledge to respond to the climate and nature crisis effectively. That’s why the Global Commons Alliance held a series of key events focused on the equitable path to prosperity for people and the planet.
PLANETARY HEALTH
At the start of the week, the Earth Commission co-hosted a high-level roundtable with Earth4All, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Planetary Guardians, Future Earth, the Earth League and the International Science Council to address the links between planetary stability, inequality, justice and human well-being.
This was followed by the unveiling of the inaugural Planetary Health Check, a first-of-its-kind scientific tool and report on the health of the Planet. Earth HQ, in partnership with PIK and the Planetary Guardians, helped to build and host the online presence of the Planetary Health Check.
The Planetary Guardians at the launch of the Planetary Health Check
The overall diagnostic of the report is that the ‘patient’, Planet Earth, is in a critical condition. With seven of the nine Planetary Boundaries processes showing increasing transgression, we will soon see the majority of them in the high-risk zone. The reports, which will be published annually, support collective efforts to understand and protect the stability and resilience of Earth.
Professor Johan Rockström, PIK Director, Co-Lead of Planetary Boundary Science and Pioneer of the Planetary Boundaries Framework said: “The Planetary Health Check is a major leap forward in our collective mission to understand and protect our planet. We have known for some time that we are weakening the planet’s resilience. This scientific update shows that, irrespective of what scale we operate on, all actions need to consider impacts at the planetary scale.”
FOOD SYSTEM
One such transformation that is urgently required is within the food system. Systems Change Lab organized a session on driving food systems transformation, including sharing a glimpse of the new indicators on food and agriculture that will be launching on the data platform soon.
The panel discussion focused on interconnected solutions and systemic approaches, emphasizing the importance of a sustainable food system that considers both climate impacts and the need for nutritional food for all.
Experts discussed how companies, NGOs, and investors can work together to break down silos and develop food and agricultural solutions within and across sectors. “Actions you take in the food system today actually impact the climate tomorrow,” said event moderator Andy Jarvis, Director of Future of Food, the Bezos Earth Fund. Cross-cutting shifts must address both production and consumption, climate and biodiversity impacts, health and equity concerns, and accountability.
Co-hosted by the Bezos Earth Fund and World Resources Institute, this conversation was informed by forthcoming insights on the shifts needed to transform food and agriculture:
- Increase productivity sustainably, resiliently, and without expanding into ecosystems
- Reduce food loss and waste
- Shift to healthier, more sustainable diets for all
Events like these transcend and break down barriers and silos between sectors, because it is clear that transition pathways are not informed by short-term trends but by science. This way, the Global Commons Alliance is able to bring the idea of systemic transition into the mainstream of business and government – convincing decision makers to take action, by showing them what can be achieved.
CORPORATE TARGET SETTING
This was the case for sustainability leaders who gathered to hear insights from companies who piloted the first science-based targets for nature at an event organized by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and co-hosted by the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN).
SBTN shared key outcomes from the pilot including the news that the majority of participating companies received validation for some or all of their targets.
Insight from one of the companies who had piloted the first science-based targets for nature.
The corporate leaders’ discussions during the event underscored the value of the pilot, reinforcing the SBTN’s role in closing a critical gap in corporate sustainability. During a panel discussion, Henri Bruxelles, Chief Sustainability Officer of Danone, representing its plant-based brand Alpro, explained how preserving nature through science-based targets for nature is a “big win” for them in terms of supply chain resilience. [Read the SBTN’s event summary.]
In her closing remarks, Erin Billman, Executive Director, the SBTN, highlighted the significance of this milestone for corporate target setting, stating that companies now have a “vetted” proof of concept for credible action on nature. However, she acknowledged the complexity of the task, remarking: “If it were easy, we’d be reinforcing the status quo.”
CITIZEN ACTION
While corporate leadership is critical, so too is engaging the public to act – not least because they are also increasingly conscious business customers. Hosted by New Zero World, Earth HQ and H&M foundation, the Earth Public Information Collaborative (EPIC) held a special event to share a unique collaboration between the scientific community, creative and communication industries to explore new ways to meet the climate-nature challenge.
The new ‘Most important brief’, aims to not only engage agencies, industry and media, but the public – to build Earth-centric campaigns and content that will drive wide scale behavioral change.
The Most Important Brief, from the Earth Public Information Collaborative (EPIC)
ARTIVISM
Many sessions during the week highlighted the inaugural Global Artivism Conference, convened by the Global Commons Alliance, the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism, the Community Arts Network, and Tshwane University of Technology, from September 5th-8th, in Tshwane (Pretoria), South Africa. GCA partner Kumi Naidoo’s appointment as President of the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty brought attention to his ongoing call for social change efforts to fully embrace the power of arts and culture in their work.
On Thursday, the Ford Foundation and the Shifting Systems Initiative of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors convened an event titled: Collaborating to BUILD Transformational Change, which featured a conversation on Artivism, and the necessity of fully engaging people emotionally and spiritually, in addition to intellectually. The dialogue also focused on ways philanthropy can move toward essential support of Global Majority-led, long-term, systems change efforts.
POWER OF SCIENCE AND LAW
The final event of the week for the GCA was co-hosted with ClientEarth at an iconic venue in New York, the art auction house Christie’s, about the latest innovations in law and science to protect all life on Earth. Attended by over 120 Climate Week NYC participants, the event had an expert panel who discussed how groundbreaking science and bold and innovative legal interventions are transforming corporate action and attitudes towards the climate and nature crises.
Margarita Astralaga, Chair, the Global Commons Alliance, stressed the importance of covering “how legislation can help us to improve and strengthen the governance of the global commons”. She explained why placing human rights and science at the forefront of local, national, and international governance and legal action can spur the positive change we so urgently need to see.
“We need to have people in the center. We have to make sure that what we are proposing is respecting their rights. The rights of the most vulnerable communities and Indigenous Peoples. [..] Part of our job is to discuss these possibilities of new legislation that will help these rural and vulnerable communities.”
Speakers at the ClientEarth and Global Commons Alliance law and science event at Christie’s
Reiterating the significance of centering the most impacted people, Eriel Deranger, Executive Director and Founder of Indigenous Climate Action, member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, said: “We need to actually have conversations with people on the frontlines, the frontlines of law, the frontlines of land defense, the frontlines of human rights activism.”
SAFEGUARDING OUR HOME
Laura Clarke OBE, CEO, ClientEarth agreed that the day’s conversations were pivotal to the wider movement to safeguard the global commons as governance arrangements must be in place: “We’ve brought together amazing discussion about how science and the law can drive the change that we need for people and planet to thrive together. […] What laws do we have in place, what governance arrangements do we have in place to protect our people and our home for those future generations.”
Sweta Chakraborty, President of US Operations, We Don’t Have Time Organization, also on the Global Commons Alliance SteerCo, summarized the event powerfully when she said: “If we can actually use litigation in a way that successfully holds oil and gas polluters accountable for decades of knowledge and ultimately the poison that they have introduced to the natural environment, then we will make massive headway on overcoming the climate crisis – and being able to usher in a future that is more breathable and more equitable for our future generations.”
Together and alongside GCA partners in New York, through business, food systems, legal action and planetary health, we are starting conversations to help shift cogs that will accelerate the system shift we urgently need toward a safe and just future for all.
The Global Commons Alliance will be at CBD COP16 in November. We hope to see you there.
