A third Climate Congress will be held on Saturday, March 6, 2010, from 9am to noon, in City Hall. The Climate Congress is open to the public. The main aim will be for delegates to unite on specific recommendations for City action. The Congress will use the opportunity to decide on whether to accept a final report on proposals and to bring the new citizen action teams together.
During the second Climate Congress, 75 delegates convened to develop recommendations to the city for addressing climate change, but also organize and develop citizen generated solutions. Highlights from the second congress include:
The Congress discussed priorities among the proposals in the Draft Report. Several common themes emerged and these will be documented in the final report of the Congress.
Delegates formed action teams
… [view entry]
by congress planning committee member Joanna Herlihy:
The second session of the Climate Emergency congress was even livelier that the first. Delegates found that prioritization of their recommendations had not progressed much beyond the ‘laundry list’ categorization of the ‘Draft Recommendations’ issued a few weeks earlier. Apparently this was partly due to technical and organization problems with incorporating responses to the online survey, most of which came in during the last few days.
The version of the recommendations presented to the second session included a new proposal advanced by the drafting group to encapsulate suggestions to set up provisions for ensuring citizen participation in and adequate city staffing for follow-up on the recommendations.
The next breakout into small groups was self-organized by delegates according to ‘open space’ principles, grouping according to areas… [view entry]
As world leaders gathered in Copenhagen, Our Fair City held its own climate summit inviting townspeople to gather together and brainstorm ideas on how to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions.
On December 12, 100 Cantabrigians from a high school student to a climate expert spent the day at City Hall developing proposals that included eliminating all street parking by 2020 and incorporating landscaped or reflective roofs into building codes.
The ideas seemed rather ambitious, but if the city plans to start meeting its greenhouse gas reduction goals it will likely need to get creative. In 2002 city officials launched a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. Earlier this year, however, they announced that despite their best efforts emissions… [view entry]
While we still have great expectations of the upcoming talks in Copenhagen are all fine and dandy, it’s a rather elite event about a topic that touches us all. There have been efforts to democratize the discussion, such as the Museum of Science’s, “World Views on Global Warming,” but participation is still limited to those who can be physically present. Of course, you have another chance to do so at a follow-up session tomorrow (12/5) morning. MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence has also launched a new project, the Climate Collaboratorium, to allow people to share, vote on and discuss ideas about reducing emissions on a large scale.
