State of the World Forum Announces: 2020 Global Climate Leadership Forum

Reposted in full from Ecocities Emerging, April 2010

'Breakthrough Thinking, Innovations, and Networks In the Emerging Climate Economy

Ecocity Builders is bringing city design and planning to State of the World Forum's upcoming conference on climate change, Salvador, Brazil, May 27 -30, 2010

State of the World Forum was founded in 1995 by Jim Garrison with Mikhail Gorbachev, who served as the Convening Chairman.

The Forum was established to create a global leadership network comprised of eminent individuals - ranging from Heads of State to grass roots organizers, Nobel Laureates to business leaders, policy makers to social activists - drawn from the governmental, business and civil society sectors, committed to discerning and implementing those principles, values and actions necessary to guide humanity wisely as it gives shape to an increasingly global and interdependent world.

Working with partners worldwide, State of the World Forum seeks to serve as an incubator, catalyst and integrator for innovative leaders and institutions working to gather creative solutions to critical global challenges.

The 2020 Global Climate Leadership Forum is being convened by the Brazil 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign, Globo TV, and the Roberto Marinho Foundation, sponsored by Braskem and a consortium of corporate and industrial groups, and supported by the Government of Bahia State and the city of Salvador.

The purpose of the Forum is to examine how innovative leadership can emerge to create international connections and collaborations in the development of climate economies, green technology and eco-communities, and how energetic progress can be made on the critical issue of climate change outside the COP regime while of course supporting this process entirely.

If we can get traction in these areas and among the nations willing to take climate leadership, while continuing to focus on the over-all goal of significant reductions in CO2 by 2020, making as many partnerships as possible as we move toward our goals, we will be well served.

Unlike most conferences where there are numerous panels with too many speakers on a plethora of topics and concerns, the Salvador Climate Forum will focus on only five domains

1. Climate Change and the Global Commons
2. The Climate Economy and Innovative Technology
3. Climate Finance
4. Eco-Communities
5. Climate Education and Media

...and do so in a way that enables extended discussion and debate in each. We will have a simple format: we will dedicate three hours to each of the five topics, which will allow for comprehensive presentations, discussion, break out sessions, and conclusions. The major sessions will mutually inform and influence the other sessions building to a series of conclusions and recommendations that will be presented to the public and the media.

Ecocity Builders will be a facilitator of the eco-communities track. We will be showcasing the International Ecocity Standards Project and efforts and will conduct a series of workshops to further develop the Standards with participants of this event.

Eco-Communities

If the climate crisis is going to be solved, it will have to be solved at the level of our cities or probably not at all. Cities are the largest creation of our species and where most of humanity now resides. The complexities involved are staggering but there are cities worldwide that are taking up the challenge of becoming carbon neutral and energy efficient in a range of ways. The conference will convene leading municipal planners and specialists in urban design from around the world to discuss the breakthrough technologies of our urban future.

Conveners:

Richard Register - Founder, Ecocity Builders

Sergio Besserman - Chair, Council on Sustainability, Rio de Janeiro

Facilitated by Marco Vangelisti and Kirstin Miller

Initiative:

International Eco-City Standards with Ecocity Builders International

Working Group:

Nicky Gavron - Member, Greater London Assembly; former Deputy Mayor of London from 2001-2008; founder, London Climate Change Agency

Rob Hopkins - Founder, Transition Network

Kirstin Miller - Executive Director, Ecocity Builders

Zhengrong Shi - Founder of Suntech Power, China

Brent Toderian - City Planning Director, Vancouver, British Columbia

Cassio Taniguchi - Congressional Representative, Brazilian Congress; former Secretary of Urban Development, Federal District, Brasilia

Isabel Wade - Founder and President, Urban Resource Systems

Rusong Wang - Director, Urban Systems Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Dongying Wang - Energy and Climate Change Program Officer, The Global Environmental Institute, Chinese NGO, Beijing.


Additional initiatives to be showcased:

Sky Charter with the creation of a Global Commons Trust
Rights of Nature with Pachamama Alliance
Generating Climate Wealth with the Carbon War Room
Exemplar Zero Initiative with IREO/Humanitad
Global Innovation Commons with M-CAM
Climate Bonds with the Climate Bonds Initiative
STCO Bonds and Trade Credits Initiative with M-CAM
Fundo Brasil for New Technologies: Climate-Transforming Capital Solutions
Four Years Go Campaign with Pachamama Alliance
2020 Women's Leadership Caucus with State of the World Forum
Protocol for Brazilian electoral candidates with Brazil 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign
Power Shift: Education and Media for Sustainable Energy
Green My Parents: Youth Movement for Education and Action

For further information on the Forum themes and participants: http://2020climatecampaign.org'