Environment: What’s Up in GENeva | 24 – 30 August 2020

The Geneva Environment Network weekly newsletter includes updates on global environmental agenda, main events, job vacancies expiring soon, learning opportunities, as well as other useful news and updates. Stay tuned and follow us also on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or visit our website regularly for additional updates. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some live events organized by organizations around the world, contributing to the global environmental agenda, have also been included.

Our Secretariat will be proposing new “hybrid” events from 1st September, to strengthen synergies among its partners and brief the global actors of international Geneva on the latest trends, respecting the restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Strengthening Synergies in International Geneva

Our host country, Switzerland, supports various thematic platforms and tools promoting joint reflection and action by international organizations, permanent missions, the academic world, civil society and the private sector of the Geneva ecosystem. This week, don’t miss the launch events of two important newcomers that have already been very active in the past months.

Monday 24 August, the Geneva Solutions, a non-profit journalistic platform dedicated to International Geneva, launches its website and daily newsletter. The team will be live-streaming daily from 31 August to 4 September, to present themselves, share their vision, and discuss upcoming feature stories. A launch event, planned for October 2020, will focus on solutions journalism.
Tuesday 25 August at 17:30, the Geneva Cities Hub, a platform of urban actors, aiming at facilitating relations between urban actors from around the world and the Geneva-based international institutions, holds its launch event.

International Bat Night

The Bat Night has taken place every year since 1997 in more than 30 countries on the last full weekend of August. In Geneva, the 24^thInternational Bat Night will be held on the night of 28 August. Various visits are proposed by local authorities and local associations, consult the list of events of this newsletter.

Find here some useful resources on bats:

Far from being our enemies, bats need protection, now more than ever. Read op-ed from Amy Fraenkel, Executive Secretary of the United Nations’ Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, April 2020.
Bat Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (BSG)

COVID-19 and the Environment

The COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis that affects everyone. As the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said

The pandemic has exposed the fragility of our societies and economies to global shocks, such as disease or climate disruption. As we recover, we must build back better for people and for the planet.

The Secretary General keeps reminding us, that we have a framework for action – the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and has launched the UN Comprehensive Response to COVID-19.

Latest updates on COVID-19 and the environment

Our Update on COVID-19 and the environment lists relevant information, research, data and press releases on the environmental origins and impacts of the pandemic. Among the press releases and articles issued last week: