COP19: 2013 lighthouse activities honoured at gala event

Seventeen projects that serve as glowing examples of the climate change action underway across the globe were honoured last night at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in an Oscar-like ceremony.

The projects were chosen as 2013 Lighthouse Activities under the Momentum for Change initiative of the United Nations Climate Change secretariat. The projects took place in various countries across the glob, spanning four continents, and showcased both small solutions as well as large initiatives. All of the activities were driven by people who have a passion for providing climate change solutions to their cities and communities.

Examples of some of the selected projects included a women-led project in Ghana that builds bamboo bicycles and a financing scheme in the Philippines that provides the resources needed to address climate change in the country.

Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary spoke at the event, asserting that these projects are “beacons of hope” and are not only tackling climate change but also producing health, financial and social benefits in the areas that they are taking place.

The 2013 Lighthouse Activities were selected from a pool of 252 applicants by an international advisory panel as part of the secretariat’s Momentum for Change initiative, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, and operates in partnership with the World Economic Forum.

The 17 honoured Lighthouse Activities were:

• 1 Million Women, Australia: building a movement to get one million women to take small steps in their everyday lives to cut greenhouse gas emissions
• Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction, Bangladesh:  a women-centered initiative to address extreme weather conditions in vulnerable communities
• The China CDM Fund, China: supporting low-carbon growth and climate resilience through levies on clean development mechanism projects
• Recycle not a Waste Initiative, Ghana: empowering street youth to turn recyclable waste into a low-carbon business opportunity
• Bamboo Bikes Initiative, Ghana:, women leading on climate change by building high-quality bamboo bicycles
• Redavia, Multi-regional: leasing affordable solar farms without up-front capital investment or long-term obligations
• The Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme, Multi-regional: spearheaded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) channelling climate finance to smallholder farmers to build their resilience to climate change
• Alliancefor International Reforestation, Guatemala: Women Farmers in Guatemala, planting trees to sequester carbon and improve farming techniques
• Pollinate Energy, India: bringing solar energy to Bangalore’s slums while creating green jobs
• Community Based Micro Climate Resilience, India: building flood-resilient and affordable homes
• The BOMA Project, Kenya: enabling vulnerable women to adapt to climate change by building small businesses
• Fostering Innovative Sanitation and Hygiene, Liberia: providing fecal sludge management services in poor areas, capturing biogas and reducing methane emissions.
• ECOCASA, Mexico: unlocking financing to build low-carbon housing and increase the number of “green” mortgages.
• Public Private People Partnerships for Climate Compatible Development, Mozambique:empowering the urban poor to design and implement activities to adapt to climate change
• Sustainable Energy Finance Program, Philippines: an innovative financing scheme to unlock resources needed to address climate change
• Food & Trees for Africa, South Africa: fostering women’s leadership through planting trees and raising awareness about climate change
• Low Smoke Stoves Project, Sudan: providing mico-financing opportunities to replace polluting cook stoves with energy-efficient cook stoves

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon concluded that the Momentum for Change initiative highlights the innovative local efforts to address the impact of climate change, which are delivering substantial economic, social and environmental benefits and showing “the potential for long term transformational change by women and urban poor,” adding that “they deserve to be scaled-up and replicated.”