Sustainability News

Gail Karlsson reports: One of the most encouraging signs I saw in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference was on the shirt worn by the desk clerk at my hotel in Malmo, Sweden, across the Oresund bridge. It said ‘I am a citizen of Hopenhagen’.

After weeks of struggle with Congress and various forces within the US to achieve an official US commitment on carbon emission targets and actions, President Obama delivered his speech to the world and heads of state who arrived in Copenhagen

President Obama will attend the climate change talks in Copenhagen in early December. The President will travel to Copenhagen on December 9, 2009 on his way to Oslo, where he will pick up his Nobel Peace Prize the next day. The administration has not committed to any stopover again after the Oslo trip. The summit takes place from December 7 to December 18.

Washington, DC. A number of civil society representatives met in Washington today with members of the US government delegation to the upcoming 18th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, discussing why and how US citizens can learn about and engage in the process.

Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature, founded the group 350.org to generate public action around the world to demand that world leaders work towards a goal of 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere. The group has called for worldwide demonstrations on October 24.

Yesterday President Obama signed an executive order "to establish an integrated strategy towards sustainability in the Federal Government and to make reduction of greenhouse gas emissions a priority for Federal agencies.

Twelve organizations, including CitNet, sent a letter to President Obama requesting enthusiastic support for the UN proposal to hold an Earth Summit in Brazil in 2012.

Gail Karlsson, New York City Coordinator for the Citizens Network for Sustainable Development, organized and moderated a September 23 panel discussion on  "Responding to Climate Change in New York City and Around the World."