Category: Special October 2019

By Khaled Diab, EEB, with additional reporting by Tanja Gohlert, GCAP

During the Global Week of Action (20-27 September 2019), which included the Global Climate Strike, the largest climate protest in history, SDG Watch Europe partners and the Make Europe Sustainable for All (MESA) project organised and were involved in actions, activities and events across Europe and beyond.

The action week marked the fourth anniversary of the adoption by the UN of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This year marked a new joint mobilisation of the climate and youth movements and a wide range of civil society partners to #StandTogetherNow. The Global Week of Action was a huge success, with over 50 million people in more than 1,000 cities and 125 countries participating. In addition, approximately 7 million people took part in the global climate strike campaign on 20 and 27 September alone. 

In Brussels, which has been the scene of sustained protest for months with the largest climate demonstration drawing 70,000 in January, an estimated 15,000 people marched through the Belgian and EU capital. The Brussels march was spearheaded by the Belgian chapter of Fridays for Future, with the EEB and GCAP as a co-organisers on behalf of SDG Watch Europe.

https://twitter.com/Green_Europe/status/1177567368601624577

 The march ended up on Schuman Square, at the very heart of the European quarter, to send a clear message to EU leaders. There, SDG Watch Europe, in an action conceived and executed by the EEB, rallied hundreds of protesters to form three words with symbolic significance for sustainability: ‘climate’, ‘equality’ and ‘voice’.

 In the Czech Republic too, Czechia Against Poverty and Inequalities (MESA’s Czech member) partnered up with the local Fridays for Future movement, joining the climate march on 20 September in Prague, which attracted 3,000 protesters. That same day, MESA took part in the Festival for the Future and Sustainable Development, appearing on the main news programme of the Czech Republic’s most popular TV channel that evening during prime time.

In Germany, MESA partner Forum Umwelt und Entwicklung joined the climate march carrying 17 umbrella boats, one for each of the SDGs, and distributed to protesters postcards with seven SDG-related slogans.

https://twitter.com/ForumUE/status/1177518900138790912

 

Reaching policymakers

On 24 and 25 September, heads of state and government gathered in New York for the UN  SDG Summit, the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, under the auspices of the UN’s General Assembly. 

GCAP, in cooperation with 21 global and regional partners, organised a parallel People’s Assembly in New York, which brought together 300 civil society representatives at the UN Church Centre. These delegates, from 80 different countries and over 200 organisations, represented thousands of people whose voices would not otherwise be heard, much less given seats at the UN. A key result of the discussions was the People’s Assembly Declaration which calls on governments to adopt more responsive policies and implement radical measures in the economic system to stave off environmental devastation. 

In addition to attending the climate march in Dublin, MESA partner the Irish Environmental Network co-drafted an open letter to Irish officials in advance of their departure to New York and delivered it to Irish parliamentarians. In Spain, Movimiento Por La Paz briefed the Spanish delegation before it left for New York.

Some members of the project, including GCAP Italy and Movimiento Por La Paz in Spain, were in New York for the SDG Summit and People’s Assembly. In Portugal, CPADA carried out an analysis of the programmes of eight political parties from the perspective of the SDGs.

Similarly, MESA partner World Vision Romania sent a letter to the Romanian president before he attended the UN General Assembly urging him to engage Romania in the 2030 Agenda and to commit to combating all forms of violence against children. An event to launch the ‘Stamping out inequalities’ report, organised by World Vision and the Romanian Anti-poverty Network, resulted in more than 40 media appearances, reaching an audience of some 2.5 million. 

Combating inaction

The action week marked the fourth anniversary of the SDGs, the set of 17 ambitious targets agreed at the United Nations which seek, among other things, to eradicate poverty, narrow inequalities, tackle global warming, protect nature and ensure that humanity lives within the boundaries of the planet.

“Four years of inaction have passed: 2020 to 2030 must now be the decade of action in which we change course and lead humanity on the path of sustainability,” said the EEB’s Director of Global Policies and Sustainability Patrizia Heidegger.

To help build the necessary momentum, the Hellenic Platform for Development coordinated the largest awareness-raising campaign in Greece and Cyprus related to the SDGs. Over 17 days, 91 organisations implemented 61 actions, including festivals, children’s workshops, public events, informative workshops, discussions, exhibitions and services in 30 towns and villages, attracting more than 39,000 citizens.

Back to school

During the Sustainable Action Week, the Lithuanian NGDO Platform launched initiatives involving 40 schools and youth centres, which reached over 1,800 young people in Lithuania, and included an SDG Ambassadors initiative and quiz games. CPADA in Portugal also targeted nine schools in Lisbon with its ‘In my school fits a world’ campaign.

In France, more than 5,000 people impressed their handprints on the SDGs wall in Paris, a participative street-art performance created by one of MESA’s French partners, 4D.

https://twitter.com/sanwatforall/status/1186903564607787008

SDG Watch Austria, together with UNESCO Austria and the Austrian National Youth Council (Bundesjugendvertretung), organised an SDG Workshop for young people. Over 100 engaged students discussed the complex issues related to sustainability.

Despite progress in some areas, Europe, like most of the world, is way behind on its implementation of the SDGs, both at home and abroad, as reflected in the widening inequalities within Europe and in how the EU exports misery to other parts of the world.

To convince policymakers and politicians of the importance of championing a holistic approach to sustainability, SDG Watch Europe sent out a job ad for ‘Sustainability Heroes’ to members of the European Parliament. The EEB, on behalf of SDG Watch Europe, also took to filmmaking. In a light-hearted animated film, a selection panel inspired by the pantheon of ancient gods interview prospective MEPs for the role of Sustainability Heroes. Watch the video below.

https://www.facebook.com/SDGwatcheurope/videos/908546286192691/

By ROBERTA ARBINOLO, EEB

Every day, tons of fresh food end up in the bin. What if you could save them from waste while getting a cut-price meal? The good news is, you actually can, and through your smartphone. Roberta Arbinolo explains.

The app is called Too Good To Go. The concept is simple: by connecting consumers with local restaurants, cafes and bakeries that have unsold food, To Good To Go allows them to buy surplus for knockdown prices at the end of trading time.

Launched in Copenhagen in 2016, the app has taken Europe by storm and is now available in 12 countries, from Norway to Italy, Spain and Poland, with over 13 million app installs. This is not by chance: people across Europe are increasingly worried about food waste and hungry for solutions.

To Good To Go allows them to buy surplus for knockdown prices at the end of trading time. Launched in Copenhagen in 2016, the app has taken Europe by storm and is now available in 12 countries, from Norway to Italy, Spain and Poland, with over 13 million app installs. This is not by chance: people across Europe are increasingly worried about food waste and hungry for solutions.

About one third of all food globally produced is wasted or lost, and at a very high price. Throwing away perfectly edible food is not only a waste of the huge amounts of energy and natural resources needed to produce it, freeze it, store it, and transport it; it also creates dangerous emissions that pollute the air we breathe and accelerate climate breakdown.

According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), food waste has a global carbon footprint of about 8% of all global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans. If food waste was a country, it would be the third biggest carbon emitter after the US and China. The waste of milk and meat products is particularly problematic: in Germany, the meat and dairy which end up in the garbage every year account for over 6% of the country’s methane emissions. At the same time, meat accounts for the highest amounts of water and nitrogen resources that are lost when edible food is thrown to the bin.

On the other hand, a 60% cut of food waste by 2030 could reduce Europe’s burden of land-use by an area greater than the size of Croatia, generate financial savings to European households of over €73 billion and prevent the emission of over 80 million tonnes of climate-harmful greenhouse gases.

According to Clean Air Farming, a joint project involving EEB members DUH and FNE, cutting the waste of meat and dairy products is key to reducing absolute emissions of methane and ammonia.

Ending food waste is also among the EU commitments to meet the UN’s sustainable development goals, and is expected to play a role within the new Commission’s Green New Deal.

On their end, Too Good To Go reports that the app has already helped save 19.8 million meals, and prevent 50,324 tons of CO2. The perfect solution to turn the tables on food waste?

For the EEB’s circular economy expert Piotr Barczak, initiatives such as Too Good To Go can raise awareness about the insane amount of fresh food that ends up in the garbage, while directly contributing to save some of it.

However, working on the supply level is key: “to get food waste off the table, supermarkets, restaurants and caterers need to stop overproducing in the first place, and adjust to have their stock empty by the end of the day.”

Another aspect not to be forgotten is packaging: “food waste and packaging waste often go hand in hand”, Barczak told META. “The app is already inviting users to bring a reusable bag to carry their savings home. It would be even better if they also encouraged them to bring reusable containers”.

At the end of the day, the success story of To Good To Go is yet another evidence of the growing appetite for a better food system that feeds people instead of bins.

300 people from 80 countries and 203 civil society organisations participated in the People’s Assembly 2019 on 24-25 September in the UN Church Center in New York. There were many representatives from social movements fighting for justice at the local level. They analyzed the people’s perspectives and challenged heads of state attending the UN SDG Summit across the road in the UN Headquarters. The demands from the People’s Assembly were presented in the CSO Forum of the SDG Summit.

You can read the full declaration here. 

This declaration highlights key demands on the following issues: 

• Peace and Conflict
• Climate and Environment
• Inequalities
• Decent Work & Discrimination on the basis of Work and Descent
• Gender 
• Persons with Disabilities
• Civic Space

 

INTRODUCTION & FINAL STATEMENT

The world is on fire. We exist in a world of profound inequality, climate emergency, a crisis of human rights and closing civic space and where violence is increasingly protracted and normalised. We live in a world where there is a crisis of accountability and governance. In 2019, at the end of the UNGA Summit, we are saddened by the persisting lack of political will & leadership to even begin to address these issues.  This is not good enough. This is failure.

We are over 300 delegates, representing 1000s of people’s movements and organisations, and millions of people across the world. 

We should not need a parallel People’s Assembly to UNGA, the Climate Action Summit and the SDG Summit. The UNGA and Member States should serve their people, not work to strengthen themselves. We are coming together because our voices are not heard, we are denied access and meaningful participation, our recommendations are not integrated. In some regions, we do not even have the right to information, to a free media or to express ourselves.

We live in a world of defiant brave and principled people movements and communities. Civil society will no longer tolerate this ongoing political failure and Government’s non-binding agreements prolonging business-as-usual instead of systematic transformation. While we extend the offer to work with Governments, we will call Governments out and hold them to account as we stand together for people and planet. We will not let our world burn and we will protect our children, the marginalised, and stand up for all right holders, including by protecting our right to civil space, democracy, and political participation. The voices and agency of the youth are critical to achieving these aims. Processes and political leadership need to be put at the service of people, and their resilience, now. As people read this, environmental and human rights defenders and activists are being killed, the Amazon, forests in Central Africa and Siberia – the world’s lungs, are burning. Inequalities, poverty, discriminations and exclusions stubbornly persist with over 730 million still living in extreme poverty, 1.1 billion without access to electricity and 2.7 billion still without access to clean cooking facilities and more than 820 million still going hungry every day. A furthermore than 260 million people across the world suffer daily exclusion and discrimination based on supposed caste and ethnicity.  A disproportionate number of them are women and girls who also suffer routine and normalised violence and femicide. Our global economic system is failing the majority of our populations, we demand fundamental structural and system change to serve the many, not the few and put people and the planet over corporations, greed and profit.

The world is in the midst of a climate crisis and we face the imminent danger of mass extinctions with unprecedented ecosystems and biodiversity loss. There are already irreversible and severe impacts on peoples’ lives, and livelihoods, with those most severely affected having contributed negligibly  and are already the most marginalized and impoverished, including women, Indigenous Peoples, communities of colour, young people, older people, persons with disabilities (PLWD), and people living with HIV.

Across the world right wing populists, nationalists and extremist groups are mobilising dominant populations to attack the most vulnerable. Democratic values are under strain from unaccountable strong men attacking civil society and the media in unprecedented – and often brutal ways. To improve the state of national democracy, as civil society we need to develop and advocate for new standards for electoral management, institutions that are free from political control and subject to democracy accountability, and new standards to keep election periods free from misinformation and illicit interference. 

Final Statement

People all over the world, in every country, every day, suffer from the overlapping impacts of inequality, poverty, violence, discrimination, militarisation, environmental degradation and a shrinking of their rights. We no longer accept this as our norm. Climate change threatens our existence, and the children and young people of the world are calling on us to stand with them. We, the people’s movements, communities and civil society commit to do so. We will not reach our global commitments without addressing climate change. 

The economic, financial and political systems are concentrating power and wealth in the hands of a few, favouring a limited number of individuals, countries and businesses. Nature is our life support system – when it is degraded, polluted and overused there are disastrous impacts for our food security, water supply, air quality and for our economy. 

We call on the Governments across the world to meet our demands with urgency and political determination. We call on Governments to meet and deliver on the global commitments made in 2015 in relation to the Paris Agreement, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, WPS Agenda (1325) and deliver on the 2030 Agenda. It is imperative that Governments address the interconnectedness of these agreements including agreements on financing.

We commit to working with our Governments to meet these demands, we commit to holding our governments to account against these demands, and we commit to calling out the differences between public commitments and domestic realities. 

Our world is on fire, we commit to doing everything we can to put that fire out, so we can live in peace, dignity and within planetary boundaries.