Christmas Newsletter 2021

The Good Council – The official podcast of the World Future Council

The Good Council – The official podcast of the World Future Council, season 1 out now

First episode with founder of the World Future Council, Jakob von Uexkull, to be launched 6 September 2021.
Hamburg, 6th of September 2021 – The new podcast series of the World Future Council, The Good Council, launches today for the first season of intergenerational dialogues involving the World Future Council’s youth forum, Youth:Present. Each dialogue involves two changemakers—Councillors and Youth:Present representatives or young WFC members—who discuss their work towards a sustainable present and a common future.

Established in 2007, the World Future Council is a foundation that envisions a healthy and sustainable planet with just and peaceful societies – now and in the future. To achieve this, the foundation identifies, develops, highlights, and disseminates future-just solutions for the current challenges of humanity. Every year, it celebrates outstanding policies in areas of urgent attention, such as biodiversity, rights of women and children, or protection from hazardous chemicals, with the Future Policy Award. This podcast series provides a behind-the-scenes insight into how a revolutionary idea became reality, from the very beginnings to its current agenda, offering inspiration, best practices, entertainment, and food for thought.

“For the first season of this new podcast series, we’re bringing together our co-founders and Councillors with young activists and entrepreneurs from around the globe in intergenerational dialogues”, says Alexandra Wandel, Chair of the Management Board, “We are very excited by this podcast which covers some inspiring stories, and personal insights between the trailblazers and changemakers who make up the World Future Council”.

The first episode of this brand-new season focuses on the establishment of the World Future Council, told by founder Jakob von Uexkull, as well as his concerns for the present and hopes for the future. How can the course of destruction be reversed? And is humanity still up for the challenge?

Part of the first season are Youth:Present representatives Raina Ivanova (Germany) and Patricia Kombo and Akinyi Obama-Manners (both from Kenya). They talk to German pioneer and thinker Prof. Ernst-Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Kenyan environmentalist Wanjira Mathai (known for furthering the Green Belt Movement founded by Wangari Mathai), and Nigerian human rights activist Hafsat Abiola-Costello, respectively. Together with Greta Thunberg of Sweden, Raina is currently part of the first legal challenge by 16 young activists to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Patricia is promoting education for sustainable development in Kenya, including by planting trees, for which she has also been named a UNCCD Land Hero by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. And Akinyi Obama-Manners is advancing children’s education at Kenyan foundation Sauti Kuu, founded by Auma Obama.

Also featured in this first season of The Good Council are co-founders Prof Herbert Girardet, expert on regenerative cities and Club of Rome member, and Dr Michael Otto, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Otto Group in Hamburg, Germany. Both discuss successes of the work of the World Future Council, as well as what each person can do in their lives individually.

“In order to build our common future, it is of utmost importance to consult all generations. In particular, young people of today will be leaders of tomorrow – without them, we will not be successful in preserving our planet for future generations. That’s why intergenerational dialogues, as in The Good Council, play a crucial role in that endeavour, and I very much enjoyed being part of it,” says Jakob von Uexkull, Founder of the World Future Council and the Alternative Nobel Price.

Each episode will inform and entertain by providing listeners with inspirational stories of people and best practices that will help people and the planet towards achieving sustainable solutions for our common future. New episodes will be released every other Monday, starting 6 September 2021.

All episodes will be available at https://old.worldfuturecouncil.org/the-good-council/, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.


MEDIA CONTACT
Anna-Lara Stehn
Media & Communications Manager
World Future Council
anna-lara.stehn@worldfuturecouncil.org
+49 (0) 1703813807

Future Policy Award Chemikalien Jury

Press Release: World experts on Hazardous Chemicals form Jury of Future Policy Award 2021

On today’s World Consumers Day, the World Future Council announces the names of experts forming the jury of the Future Policy Award 2021.

A Global Call for our Right to a Healthy Environment

The right to a healthy environment is constitutionally protected in over 100 countries. Another 62 countries refer in their constitutions to a healthy environment, but do not make it a right.

Forward Thinkers Home Tile

Press Release: Forward Thinker Webinar Series launches

World Future Council to share its expertise in 2021 webinar series to address ecosystem loss, the food crisis, the rights of children and youth, and other urgent challenges.

Newsletter Cover February 2021

Newsletter February 2021

UN Biodiversity summit 2020 WFC

UN Biodiversity summit WFC calls for immediate action

Policy Roadmap for 100% Renewable Energy in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a global leader when it comes to ensuring energy production comes from renewable energy sources.

100% Renewable Energy

Achieving 100% Renewable Energy for all

The Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) initiative pledged to ensure universal access to modern energy services, double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030. Yet, it’s self-published progress reports states that the initiative has fallen short of its objectives.

This report summarises the initiatives often underlined structural shortcomings. Namely, a lack of integration into other UN frameworks, an excessive focus on centralization and profitability, a disproportionate emphasis on private finance, a lack of inclusion of diverse business models and a lack of representation and civil society involvement. The report then examines the SEforALL Action Agendas for eight African countries.

100% Renewable Energy for Costa Rica - A Decarbonisation Roadmap

100% Renewable Energy for Costa Rica – A Decarbonisation Roadmap

Cover of the report 100% Renevable Energy in Costa Rica - A Decarbonisation Roadmap. The cover shows the title and a satellite image of the country of Costa Rica

Excerpt

100% Renewable Energy for Costa Rica: Costa Rica is already a global leader when it comes to ensuring energy production comes from renewable energy sources. With a 98% share of renewables in its electricity matrix and solid achievements to prevent deforestation—around 25% of the country’s land area is in protected National Parks and other protected areas—Costa Rica is at the forefront of environmental sustainability, climate action and driving the renewable energy transition. Wanting to go even further, Costa Rica has adopted the National Decarbonization Plan in February 2019 to achieve a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, in line with the objectives of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. This report, commissioned by the World Future Council and La Ruta del Clima/Costa Rica, and financed by the One Earth Foundation USA to provide input into Costa Rica’s ambitious plan to achieve 100% renewable energy.

As the Costa Rican President, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, noted during the launch of the Plan, “Decarbonization is the great challenge of our generation and Costa Rica must be among the first countries to achieve it, if not the first.” The biggest challenge will be to increase the share of renewables in energy consumption. More than 60% of energy consumption in the country is from petroleum derivatives. 64% of Costa Rica’s emissions come´from energy use, and more than two thirds of that is from transport. A critical part will thus be to
decarbonize the transport sector. The growing demand for personal vehicles, the majority of which run on petrol, is keeping a high share of fossil fuels in the country’s energy consumption. The Decarbonization Plan aims to have 70 percent of public transport powered by electricity in 2035—and the whole fleet by
2050.

This study aims to complement these efforts and show pathways to 100%RE in order to meet the
decarbonisation challenge.

Read the full report