LOS ALTOS, Calif., Oct. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Building on the momentum of the growing climate restoration community and the success of the Second Annual Global Climate Restoration Forum last September, the 2021 Forum, held on September 30 and October 1, showcased the significant progress being made towards restoring our climate to safe, pre-industrial levels of CO2.
The Forum featured a range of stakeholders, including entrepreneurs, scientists, faith leaders, NGOs, government representatives, and youth activists. They discussed the potential of land-based and ocean-based solutions; the opportunities and achievements in the carbon removal industry and the private sector at large; and the grassroots efforts and youth-led organizing that has made climate restoration a global movement.
"I’m impressed with the progress our movement has made in the last year," said Rick Wayman, CEO, F4CR. "The recent IPCC report made the Forum’s discussion of the climate restoration movement all the more inspiring. It was so heartening to see that advocates of all backgrounds have mobilized in the name of climate restoration. Whether experts, religious leaders, or just concerned citizens, we are all beginning to recognize that climate restoration is absolutely essential if we want a habitable planet for future generations."
Climate restoration seeks to remove the trillion tons of excess CO2 that has been accumulating in our atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. This "legacy CO2" has brought atmospheric carbon levels above 415 ppm, rapidly warming our climate and rising well beyond proven-safe, pre-industrial levels below 300 ppm. Removing this excess carbon, in addition to ambitious mitigation measures, will return us to a climate that allows both humanity and the natural world to flourish.
"Removing emissions…is like using a vacuum cleaner on your floor…and it is the vector of climate restoration," said Julio Friedmann, Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
"[Companies] can turn waste streams into carbon removal, so they can monetize their liability and it’s now becoming an asset. That’s the kind of transformation of the economy that we would like to encourage," said Antti Vihavainen, CEO. Puro.Earth
"Thanks to our advocacy efforts, Madagascar’s Ministry of Technical Education and Vocational Training will provide climate restoration training to 1,500,000 unemployed people. In doing so, we help our people, but we also invest in the green jobs that bring us closer to realizing the important goal of climate restoration," said Arno Ramarolahy, Chair of the F4CR Chapter for the Indian Ocean Islands.
"I think that working towards restoration is of the essence," said Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp, President and Founder, Institute for Human Values.
"With the growing crowd of young people around the world who are pushing conversations around climate activism forward, I feel it is so important to continue raising those voices by giving youth platforms to speak about what’s important to them," said Brooke Robertson, 17 year old and Program Manager, Youth Leaders for Climate Restoration.
"Once we become extinct as a species, the oceans will recover. The forest will grow back and so on…Understand that these climate negotiations are about protecting humanity’s capability to continue to live on this planet," said Kumi Naidoo, Global Ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity
To watch videos from the Forum, go to EarthX TV.
About the Foundation for Climate Restoration
The Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR) is a nonprofit whose mission is to mobilize and enact the policies that will restore the climate by 2050. It uses global dialogue and initiatives to unite policy-makers, technical and business experts, and the public behind the common goal of restoring our climate to healthy, pre-industrial levels of CO2. To that end, F4CR spotlights achievable solutions that will reverse global warming and ensure we have a habitable planet for future generations. For more information visit www.f4cr.org.
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SOURCE Foundation for Climate Restoration
