Kavita Watsa's blog

Winners of the Global Public Award given on December 14th 2009 in Copenhagen: Andreia Fanzeres and Cristiane Prizibisczki for “The Route of Smoke”. Photo courtesy: Earth Journalism Awards web site.

For anyone who’s been following the Earth Journalism Awards, the much-awaited Global Public Award was announced yesterday in Copenhagen. Thousands of people from across the world voted online for this award, helping to pick the best story.

And the winner of the Global Public Award is…"The Route of Smoke," a multimedia report put together by two Brazilian journalists, Andreia Fanzeres and Cristiane Prizibisczki. They tell the story of how customary farming practices—such as setting fire to land before planting—that contribute to the country's emissions are clashing with new methods for responsible agriculture. This entry also won the Latin America regional award. 

The Earth Journalism Awards, which I blogged about earlier with a call to cast your vote for thebest story for Copenhagen, are being given out tonight to honor the world’s best climate change reporting.

The awards ceremony (you can watch the live webcast) will take place at 7 p.m. Copenhagen time, today, December 14th (1 p.m. New York). The ceremony will feature Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC Chair and Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary, UNFCCC.
About 450 submissions were received from professional and citizen journalists from more than 100 countries. The list is now down to 15 finalists from 10 countries, so stay tuned for the ceremony!

Photo ©Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank

Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered a noteworthy speech this afternoon at the World Bank in Washington DC. Introduced by World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick as a “strong internationalist,” Kerry called upon the institution to use its funds to support what he called “21st century priorities.” These, according to the senator, include adapting to and mitigating climate change, enhancing food security, and empowering women.

Just eighteen days before Copenhagen, climate change was, not surprisingly, the central theme of Kerry’s remarks. While Kerry is a relatively recent advocate of climate action, his commitment to pushing climate change legislation in the U.S. was very evident, as was his grasp of the complexities of global action on the climate front.

“America needs to signal to the world that it is serious,” he said, in step with one of the main messages of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change, which calls upon rich countries to take the lead in reducing their carbon footprints and providing the funds for low-carbon technologies to be deployed in developing countries. Listing recent US achievements, he said that the country was committed to progress and that Copenhagen was vital. 

Kerry referred to “energy poverty”— the lack of access to electricity faced by millions in the developing world—as a challenge interlocked with climate change. “No citizen of the developing world should be held back by lack of access to electricity,” he said, acknowledging, however, that the world was hurtling toward what he described as catastrophic and irreversible climate change.

“Solving energy poverty using old paradigms is a short-term bargain and a dangerous one,” Kerry said, stressing the need to find solutions that address both goals. “With its funding and intellectual leadership, the Bank can play a profoundly important role in shifting the balance toward climate solutions,” he said, listing several actions as critical for the Bank. 

Of the 450 submissions from journalists in over 100 countries who registered for the opportunity to win one of the Earth Journalism Awards (EJAs) to be given at Copenhagen next month, 15 winners have now been announced in categories such as adaptation, human voices, forests, energy, and so on.

But that’s not all. Here’s where “everyone” comes in. You can now help choose a final winner by reading the winning entries online and voting for the best story—the one, in your opinion, that most deserves to get the attention of negotiators from the 192 countries that will be at Copenhagen.

The EJAs are being put together by Internews, a global media assistance organization, in partnership with sponsors such as the World Bank—including with explicit support from the authors of this year’s World Development Report (WDR) 2010: Development and Climate Change.

A friend sent me the link to “One Minute to Save the World”, an interesting campaign that is inviting one-minute films from people across the world who care about climate change. The organizers are offering £1,000 as first prize for the best film, and there’s a nice line-up of films already. The panel of judges is a qualified one, and includes a number of well-known names, from Shekhar Kapur, Oscar-winning director, to Franny Armstrong of The Age of Stupid fame.

Even in the frugal India of the 1970s, where the idea of waste bordered on the criminal, I thought my grandfather was being excessively old-fashioned when he refused to use our indoor water-heater to take a hot bath in the cooler months.

Photo © Cammeraydave | Dreamstime.com

Although we could quite easily afford our modest electricity bills, he would insist on staggering outside with a bucket of water and leaving it to grow warm in the afternoon sunshine for a few hours. Then he would struggle back indoors with it, and, presently, emerge from his bath to take his evening walk down to the railway station to watch the trains go by. My granddad was eighty years old at the time: a man of many interests, but very few needs.

Was it really just three decades ago that my granddad’s carbon footprint was barely visible? Today, as part of my job at the World Bank, I’ve been following climate issues closely, and am often struck by the difference between life in a big western city in the 21st century and in the small-town India in which I grew up. In my world today, many people are beginning to adopt “carbon fasts” during the Christian period of Lent, agreeing to a daily low-carbon action, say, unscrewing a light bulb and doing without it for 40 days. But in the small-town India of my childhood, my grandfather wouldn’t have installed—much less used—an electric light, unless he really needed it to begin with.