Climate change affects us all. But some of the poorest and most underprivileged communities are hit especially hard: for example, some areas in Southern Asia and on the African continent. Insufficient economic opportunities to earn and secure the family’s living, poverty, hunger, incurable diseases and ecological disasters are closely interlinked with each other and are threatening the lives of countless families. Whereas the people living in these regions are suffering most from climate change, its effects are mainly caused by the highly developed industrial nations in the northern hemisphere. This fact is without controversy among leading climate scientists.
To successfully reduce hunger, poverty and many of the life-threatening diseases we first have to get the effects of climate change under control. But today geniuses and experts still disagree in their opinions on which methods and approaches will work best to reduce global warming. Many industries and companies still rely on fossil fuels for energy production and on traditional production methods consuming lots of resources. And governments are still reluctant to sufficiently promote and encourage the use of renewable energies. This situation creates a new and a wide field of activity for social investors: from supporting research in developing or promoting social entrepreneurs to advocating, campaigning and lobbying to have an influence on industry and politics.
What makes climate change so important to Active Philanthropy? It is the far-reaching consequences and implications climate change will have and already has on human life, it is the close link between climate change and other big global challenges, but it is at the same time the big and hopeful opportunities to effectively reduce and manage global warming. We are eager to support engaged donors make their contribution to a sustainable development of our ecosystems.
Since 2008 we have run expeditions to Greenland in cooperation with different partners like the Tällberg Foundation (May and September 2008) or the European Environment Agency (September 2009). On each of the expeditions about 20 entrepreneurs and their families from all over the world joined us to experience the effects of climate change on the spot and to develop possible solutions to the challenge of limiting global warming together with experienced practitioners and scientific experts. To have a look at the programme of one of our expeditions please click here: Programme Greenland.
Active Philanthropy will shortly be publishing a report in collaboration with Susan Joy Hassol, Director, Climate Communication, and Dr. Robert Corell, Chair of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and one of the leading climate scientists worldwide on the critical issues concerning climate change.
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Online publication: www.unfccc.int
- Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Online publication: www.unfccc.int
- 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) of the UN. Online publication: www.ipcc.ch
- Official website of the UNFCCC: www.unfccc.int
- Official website of the IPCC: www.ipcc.ch
