#99: Climate solutions for New Year’s resolutions
On big hairy audacious goals
Mōrena, and happy gregorian-calendar-new year!
Welcome to the many newcomers who joined us over the break, and thank you to the readers who shared us with your friends and fam over BBQs and picnics. I hope you all had an enjoyable break and got some time off to recharge and reflect on the past year. I, like many in the Climate Club team, am not feeling entirely rested and recharged! But maybe that’s a wakeup call to rethink our weekly routines and habits to give more time for rest during every week.
Speaking of rethinking routines, it’s still early enough in the year to set a new year’s resolution! BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals) are an awesome way to challenge us to think of a climate resolution you could commit to. And with a rapidly warming planet, what better goal to set this year than anything that will help contribute to keeping the planet below two degrees?
For example, since I focus on collective action a lot through Climate Club, this year I’m also looking at my individual emissions. My goal this year is to get under two tonnes of emissions (the average per-capita emissions in NZ is 15 tonnes). We’d love to know what you all are planning for the year - let us know your ideas in the comment section below!
Organisations are still ramping up on actions, so this week we’re changing up the format to focus on preparing ourselves and our communities for the year ahead. We’ll be back to normal programming soon! 📺
What can we achieve this year?
You could learn more about climate change, start having more conversations with friends and whānau, or join a climate organisation. Below is a list of resources for ideas on what might get you excited to start. Whatever you choose to take on, we recommend doing it alongside a friend.
Action: Make a climate new years’ resolution. You can use the resources below for ideas!
Bonus action: Do it with a friend 👯♀️
Project Drawdown has a list of ideas for actions you can take to halt the climate crisis.
✨The Climate Club Starter pack has actions that you can set & forget, but will continue to have impact. Great to share with the friends & fam you catch up with this summer!
🌱 Communities you can support: Our 5/15/30+ minute action items are our newsletter’s foundations. However, our bigger goal has always been to lower the barrier for newcomers to the climate movement as a whole, which means encouraging folks to take action regularly. This works best within communities. There are so many local, nationwide, and global climate organisations that need more hands on deck. Check them out, and pick one that piques your interest to support in whatever way you can!
List of NZ climate organisations: quick list compiled by us, divided into topics of interest
New Zealand Climate Action Network: almost 50 NZ orgs that are part of a global network
Climate Movement Aotearoa NZ: a very broad directory including NGOs, government bodies and council initiatives, and businesses
Project Moonshot: circular & regenerative initiatives in New Zealand.
Climate Job Board - a little spreadsheet we maintain (as much as we can 😅) on climate roles in NZ.
So You Want To Work In Climate - massive list of communities, job boards, not-profits, and resources from all over the world
📚 Read: New to this whole climate action thing? Check out this short pamphlet, “What Can I Do About The Climate Emergency?” by historian, writer, and activist Rebecca Solnit. We especially like the section on “Four Main Areas for Action”, which gives a great overview of what climate action really looks like in real life, and why we support the policies that we do
Wins!
During COP28 (Dec 2023), Colombia joined the growing bloc of nations advocating for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is despite Colombia being the world’s 5th largest exporter of coal, showing real integrity and a commitment to the science which says that fossil fuels must be phased out asap. “For about 40 years now, we have been living from exporting that coal and that oil. Yet I’ve wanted to say, first to Colombian society, and now to the world, that even under these circumstances the economy should transition to decarbonization.” - TIME magazine
That’s all for today, folks 👋🏽 Thanks for taking action. Enjoy this list of 117 ways the world got better in 2023!
See you next week,
Emily & the Climate Club team
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One thing we should all do is to learn about Resource Overshoot and a good start is here: https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/. Then tell everyone about it. Why? because our profligate use of resources, driven by the capitalist imperative to consume, is at the root of the climate catastrophe. Have you ever thought about how many resources (and how much energy) are used in producing green energy infrastructure, electric cars, the phone you are reading on? Our priority should not be producing more green energy: it should be about using much less energy. We really need to look at both the embedded carbon and the non-renewable resources that have been used, when we buy something, not whether it is simply energy-efficient in use.
Good luck with getting your carbon footprint down to 2 tonnes. I am a vegan, living on a small boat and don't own a car (in spite of living in a rural area, which makes travelling very difficult). My footprint IS under 2 tonnes, but I have to keep an eye on things to keep it that way.
Great stuff. I'm curious. How did you decide on two tonnes?