Geneva/Gland/Paris/São Paulo, 15 October 2019—The first guide for the insurance industry to protect our world’s priceless and irreplaceable assets was launched today at a major event by UN Environment’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) in São Paulo, Brazil, convening leading insurers, investors and banks.The pioneering guide, Protecting our World Heritage, insuring a sustainable future, builds on last year’s launch of the first insurance industry statement of commitment to protect World Heritage Sites. The statement is supported by leading insurers—writing about USD 170 billion in gross premiums and managing USD 2.7 trillion in assets—as well as by insurance associations and key stakeholders around the world.

Guest blog by Andrew Simms is an author, analyst, and campaigner. the original article can be found here on the New Weather Institute.

His several books include The New Economics, Ecological Debt: Global Warming & the Wealth of Nations, Tescopoly: How One Shop Came Out on Top and Why it Matters, Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? and most recently Cancel the Apocalypse: The New Path to prosperity.

Andrew contributes to the Guardian and BBC, and co-founded the New Weather Institute
Extinction Rebellion held a People’s Assembly in Parliament to identify new priorities for each government department, this is an adapted from Andrew Simms’ short speech on the challenge to the Treasury

When he led the Treasury as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown used a standard joke to warm up the audience at the start of his speeches. He’d say, there are two types of Chancellor – those who fail and those who get out in time. It usually got an indulgent laugh, but the best entertainment was watching his aides who had to be amused while pretending that they hadn’t already heard it countless times.

Guest blog from Gabriele Köhler, independent researcher, UNRISD senior research associate and board member, Women Engage for a Common Future.The HLPF process has come under critique for being an insiders’ airbrushing exercise. So the question is: what is the normative role and impact of the 2030 Agenda? Is there any real pressure from a UN document which after all is now a few years old now, was elaborated by more progressive governments, does not get ratified in parliaments, and is not binding? Is it all just fancy but futile song and dance? Well, a number of countries have actually used the 2030 Agenda and its more narrow set of SDGs to influence their domestic policy frameworks.

Guest blog by Dominic Wilhelm: Dominic works with leaders to shape better futures. He has worked with the largest business networks in the world and is currently working on an intuitive to “scale trust, accelerate impact toward 2030” globally.Recent conversations I had with changemakers including UN Ambassador Marc-Andre Blanchard, Minh-Thu Pham, Simon Preston and Brian Brault drove home the point that trust is essential for progress toward impact.And by 'impact', we mean those actions that take us closer to better social, environmental and economic futures as captivatingly outlined by the UN's 2030 Agenda;"We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind." Agenda 2030.

Guest blog by Jill Van den Brule who is a humanitarian and social entrepreneur named 40 over 40 by Forbes. She co-founded a B Corps that makes solar lanterns and helped launch the UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocates. Originally published in the Solutions Journal here.

We have a climate emergency. Regardless of where one stands on this issue – this is our ‘inconvenient truth’. Yet the power to reach people has never been greater. Close to 3.2 Billion people today are online, about 2 Billion are from developing countries and over 89 million from least developed countries.1 Our currency today lies is in our culture, our capacity for mass mobilization and in the immense untapped power of our global neural network. We can literally put our heads and hearts together on this one! Yet, why do the majority seem paralyzed by the daunting challenge of tackling climate change? How do we move humanity beyond the denial and doom? How do we begin making changes in our daily lives to help us all not only thrive but literally survive? We are on the verge of extinction. Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, and the world’s experts warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens our very civilisation