How circular cities protect biodiversity

The linear economic model relies on a continuous process of extraction and processing of natural resources, which is responsible for more than 90 percent of biodiversity loss. This take-make-waste model is contributing to all drivers of biodiversity loss, from land and sea use change, to ecosystem exploitation and to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing 

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Supporting food security through local, circular food systems

Cities are at the epicenter of food value chain vulnerabilities  Despite the zero hunger goal set in 2015 in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. An estimated 2 billion people in the world did not have regular access to 

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Youth from Turku, Yokohama and Nagano join forces to call for a 1.5-Degree Life

Consumption-based emissions—the so-called indirect emissions associated with food choices, travel habits, supply chains and many more activities that keep cities running but are not directly tied to local production—are proving to be the blind spot of current mitigation efforts. Cities eager to target consumption-based emissions should focus on the transition to sustainable lifestyles at the 

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Why we need circular food systems and what cities can do about it

Global food systems account for a third of total GHG emissions and drive environmental degradation and socio-economic inequalities all along the value chain. The resilience of current food systems is also increasingly challenged by environmental, climate and health crises.  Linear food systems are failing people and the planet Our current linear food systems rely heavily 

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Key learnings for cities to enable 1.5-Degree Lifestyles

“In Japan, acting on household consumption is key as it is estimated to drive up to 60 percent of national emissions” said Dr. Satoshi Kojima San of IGES at the Daring Cities session 1.5-Degree Living through Circular Development. Japan recently committed to become carbon neutral by 2050 and is putting the circular economy at the 

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How to cut consumption-based emissions? Try a 1.5-degree lifestyle

The IPCC report in 2018 provided the world with a rigorous timeline for climate action: staying within the Paris Agreement´s 1.5-degree target is still possible but demands radical transformation by 2030.  This transformation refers not only to the required energy transition but also demands a fundamental re-organization of the way societies produce and consume.  Research 

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Why climate neutrality needs circularity

“How we make and use products and how we produce food generates almost half of the emissions in our current economic system because the production of goods and infrastructure generates emissions all along value chains,” said Mayor Minna Arve of Turku, Finland, at ICLEI’s July Race-to-Zero dialogue, which brought together many levels of government to reflect on 

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