No Impact Project

Every year, growing numbers of us are unhappy with the shopping frenzy that surrounds the holidays but most of us don’t know how to get off the treadmill.

What if we worked together to find another way to celebrate? This holiday season join us in finding more of what matters. During the two-weeks of the historic UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (December 7th-18th), we’re bringing people together to talk about the impact of holiday spending on their lives and the environment.

Join the New Dream and No Impact Project for nationwide pre-DVD release community screenings of the documentary, No Impact Man, and a post-screening discussion about how to simplify our holidays this year. To host a screening in your community or to learn more, contact us.

To find a screening near you, click here.

To participate in their No Impact Week-Long Study (starts Jan 10) go here

UN News May 12

UN-BACKED SUMMIT TO SPOTLIGHT PRIVATE SECTOR’S ROLE IN TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE
New York, May 12 2008 4:00PM
The United Nations will take part in a global meeting next year to assess how a new global climate change policy can also address the needs of the business community, it was announced today.

The World Business Summit on Climate Change, which will take place next May in Copenhagen, Denmark, seeks to ensure that the successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol will provide the right incentives to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Along with the <" http://www.unglobalcompact.org/">UN Global Compact – the world body’s voluntary corporate citizen initiative – the gathering will be convened by the Copenhagen Climate Council, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Organizers expect hundreds of top executives, government officials, leading experts and heads of civil society to attend to assess how the private sector can play a role in addressing global warming through innovative business approaches, new joint ventures and the development of low-carbon technologies.

The World Business Summit is expected to produce recommendations to be forwarded onto world leaders negotiating a successor pact to the <" http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php">Kyoto Protocol, expiring in 2012. Those talks are scheduled to wrap up at a key UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (<" http://unfccc.int/2860.php">UNFCCC) in December 2009, also to take place in Copenhagen.
2008-05-12 00:00:00.000

THOUSANDS GATHER FOR MEETING ON UN-BACKED TREATY ON BIOSAFETY
New York, May 12 2008 8:00PM
More than 3000 participants from 147 countries have assembled in Bonn, the former German capital, for the start of a week-long <" http://www.cbd.int/mop4/">meeting on how to improve their commitments to ensuring the safe use of modern biotechnology as outlined under a United Nations-backed treaty.

The fourth meeting of the parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, itself a supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity, began today in Bonn, according to a <"http://www.cbd.int/doc/press/2008/pr-2008-05-12-mop-en.pdf">news release issued by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The agency said that one of the priorities of this week’s meeting will be to try to reach agreement on international rules on liability and redress for potential damages caused by the movements of living modified organisms (LMOs), often known as genetically modified organisms.

Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary to the Convention, urged the delegates at the meeting to “seize the moment” and reach agreement.

“You are mandated to fulfil the requirement, set out in Article 27 in 2000, when the Protocol was signed,” he said. “In doing this, you will ensure the effective implementation of the Protocol.”

Participants at the conference in Bonn will also discuss other issues, including finding ways to finance the continued work of the Protocol and assessing the socio-economic impact that LMOs have on biodiversity.
2008-05-12 00:00:00.000