Making Impacts for a Greener Future

We’ve reached day 4 of COP26. Let’s jump in.

Along with representatives from our member organisations, the Alliance has two ambassadors representing us at COP26 to speak first hand about their experiences with nature based solutions across Africa and the impact it has on communities, land, and health.

Irene Ojuok holds advanced degrees in environmental studies and project management, and is currently working on her PhD in Land Restoration and FMNR at the University of Bonn. She has worked for over a decade with communities across Kenya, supporting the grassroots model of community development and restoration.

Our other ambassador is Kaluki Paul Mutuku, who has a background in Environmental Conservation and Natural Resource Management and runs an environmental initiative, Green Treasures Farms, in Kenya. He is a bit of a jack of all trades, but is passionate about environmental education, community organising, ecological farming, and empowering youths to participate in climate action.

Nature based solutions have been used for decades, and their benefits are widely known and backed up with plenty of research and evidence. If you have questions about it, or just want to learn more, leave us a comment or ask our wonderful ambassadors! You can connect with them on twitter: Irene and Kaluki.

Meanwhile, our members are having a great time. CIFOR-ICRAF have a full roster of events over the next few days (view there schedule). SOS Sahel has an event this Saturday at 9:45 GMT on their experiences with Agroforestry, and Conservation International have launched their new campaign ‘Hear me while you can’ that brings the sounds of nature straight to the street.

In other great announcements, over 40 countries committed to moving away from coal power. Coal is responsible for a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing accessibility and use of sustainable energy is vital to decreasing emissions quickly. With the combination of reduced emissions and large-scale land restoration to store what carbon we aren’t able to move away from quickly, the Earth has a much better chance of staying habitable for us and the thousands of other creatures that live in our ecosystems.

According to a study conducted by the University of Melbourne, the pledges made in just 3 days of COP26 will limit temperature rise to below 2 degrees. This is the first time our projected trajectory is this low and just goes to show that when we work together with dedication, vision, and ambition, reshaping the world into something safe and secure is not just plausible, but actively possible.

As more pledges roll in over the next few weeks and months, the focus needs to move to turning those words into tangible action and change. The massive infusion of funding into mitigating climate change ($170 trillion!) makes this transition more possible than it has ever been. Keep your eyes glued to this space – exciting updates will be rolling through as our people on the ground around the world create change. We have members on every continent, so if you want to get involved and help make a Green world a reality, have a look through our members’ page and see which groups have projects close by. They’d love to hear from you!

Check in tomorrow for more news from the front lines, and follow our socials for updates throughout the day from COP26.