Trident Geography students, Earth Ocean Space Science students, Youth Council, Enviro group and others with interest in Climate Change were lucky enough to have two of Whakatane's District Council staff members run a workshop on Climate Change for them on Monday. Glenn Cooper - Project Engineer - and Charlotte Haeusler - Strategic Policy Analyst - presented on The Paris Agreement and our Council’s Climate Change Project, introducing the draft Climate Change Principles (which they are seeking feedback on until 30 August). They then ran a workshop where they discussed the way forward with our students, asking for feedback and ideas.
"The Paris Agreement's central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise in this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate financial flows, a new technology framework and an enhanced capacity building framework will be put in place, thus supporting action by developing countries and the most vulnerable countries, in line with their own national objectives. The Agreement also provides for enhanced transparency of action and support through a more robust transparency framework. Further information on key aspects of the Agreement can be found here."
Some of the slides that Glenn Cooper discussed with our students. A very sobering presentation.
Charlotte Haeusler pictured during her presentation.
The workshop was particularly timely as the year 13 Geography students are researching the effects of climate change on sea level rise at a global scale and they will be completing an internal assessment looking at where sea level rise is occurring, what factors /processes have caused sea level rise and what are the consequences for people and economies. The main regions they will be looking at are Aotearoa and Pacific Islands, in light of the Pacific Islands Forum discussion last week. Social Science are collaborating with the Science department, sharing resources and discussions about how to teach students about the topic on a whole-school approach and the Council's input was a valuable resource.
We thank Glenn and Charlotte for their time and energy in working with our students on a very important topic that we know we all need to act on.