Coming up: Using the Law To Fix the Climate Workshop at POP Festival
What’s happening?
On June 8th (15.00 IST / 09.30 GMT / 10.30 BST / 05.30 EST) William Wilson - co-founder of COP26 and beyond and an expert environmental and energy barrister - will present a COP26 and beyond workshop on "Using the Law to Fix the Climate" at the Third International Conference and Festival put on by The Protect Our Planet Movement, the youth-led worldwide climate 'POP' movement founded by the late Dr R.K. Pachauri. See full details on our events page.
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This workshop will an opportunity to explore how laws are made, how they are enforced, and what you can do to use them to help fix the climate. We will discuss ~
Making Laws: The UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement are international laws. New laws will be needed to put the conclusions of COP26 into practice. Will your country have its own climate legislation? Its own laws about the energy transition? Each of those laws is an opportunity for you to make a difference. Enforcing Laws: If laws are not enforced, they don’t mean anything. The Paris Agreement was a huge achievement. But if it was enough, then greenhouse gas emissions would be going down and COP26 would be a formality. We will look at the need for effective enforcement of climate pledges, and what that demands
What is The Protect Our Planet Movement (POP) and POP Festival?
The Protect Our Planet (POP) movement aims to empower the youth to actively participate in addressing issues of climate change. The Third International Conference and POP Festival for Youth-Led Climate Action aims to celebrate youth and amplify regional voices while giving platforms to a range of ideas to tackle climate change. It will take place during JUNE 5-10, 2021. In addition to the global festival event, this year, specific days of the festival will be dedicated to “Celebrating Youth and Amplifying Regional Voices” from the United States; Mexico and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC); Africa and the Middle East; and Others through sub-festival events. The POP Movement was founded by Dr. R.K. Pachauri.
Who was Dr R.K Pachauri?
Dr Rajendra Pachauri was Chair of the IPCC from 2002 to 2015 and under his leadership the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and delivered the Fifth Assessment Report, the scientific foundation of the Paris Agreement. Born in Nainital, India Dr Pachauri was a mechanical engineer and former Chief Executive of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi from 1981, leading TERI for more than three decades. Upon his death in February 2020, the IPCC wrote:
Dr Pachauri, universally known as Patchy, was an internationally recognized voice on environmental and policy issues, and through his tireless leadership of the IPCC the issue of human-caused climate change became recognized as a matter of vital global concern.
Dr. Pachauri was commited to youth involvement in the fight against climate change, commenting:
What do we need? In order to ensure that governments have the motivation, the ambition and the pressure to make commitments that would really ensure that the impacts of climate change in the future and the risks associated with them are minimized, and to a large extent eliminated beyond a certain period, we need actions at the grassroots level. And to bring about that action at the grassroots, what better section of society than the youth of the world? There are 1.8 billion youth between the ages of 10 and 24, and their future is at stake.”
William Wilson remembers an exchange with Dr. Pachauri:
Some years ago, I was preparing a talk on climate change, and struggling to find the right way to illustrate the key points. Then I found the slides from a talk given by Dr R.K. Pachauri. Not surprisingly, he put everything completely clearly, much better than I could hope to do. In exasperation with my own efforts, I sent him an email and asked his permission to use three or four of his slides to make the point, never seriously expecting a reply.
By return I received his response, the model of courtesy and friendly cooperation. Of course I could use his slides to make the point, most welcome. This from the Chairman of the IPCC and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize! It was a lesson in consideration for others that I have not forgotten.