ONE year ago, 50 respected personali-ties from around the world met in Hamburg, Germany for the first time for the founding congress of the World Future Council. Now, the foundation presented its first annual report – and looking forward to its second annual general meeting. It will bring the WFC’s members back to Ham-burg between May 18th and 22nd, 2008 to cele-brate achievements – and to plan and agree on new activities, expert commiss-ions and projects.
“Considering that it has only been working with decision makers and parli-amentarians regarding the core issues threatening future generations for such a short period of time, the WFC has been remarkably effective,” says WFC Founder Jacob von Uexkull.
In its first 12 months, the WFC has achieved notable successes in inspiring changes in attitudes as well as legislation to pro-mote renewable energies in a number of countries ranging from the United States to the Philippines. In addition, the WFC’s international children’s campaign for climate change “KidsCall” already has participants in more than 30 countries while WFC online – toolkits, expert workshops and publications have trigge-red debates about the political changes required to protect our future.
Our goal is to identify and help implement successful policies that contribute to positive change in areas ranging from climate change to human rights to world peace,” says von Uexkull. “The positive feedback we have received indicates that we are on the right track."
Von Uexkull, who also founded the Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, is pleased about the impact the WFC has already made:
• Based on the initiative and advice of urban ecologist and WFC-Cofounder Prof. Herbert Girardet, South Australia passed so-called Feed-In-Tariffs earlier this year that will support increased production of renewable energies.
• The WFC’s children’s campaign for climate change, “KidsCall” was launched at the Live Earth concert in July 2007 in Hamburg, Germany by Bianca Jagger, WFC Executive Committee Chair. Since then, “KidsCall” has created a website in five languages and distributed information in 17 languages. The team has toured three continents and so far collected statements calling for action against environmental destruction from children in 33 countries. The aim is to present these statements to the heads-of-state at the G8-Summit in Japan in July.
• The WFC has increased awareness of the potential of renewable energies. At international conferences, the WFC has informed delegates about the best policies available to fight climate change. In addition, the WFC has co-organized expert workshops with the eParliament for legislators from 20 countries in the US, England, South Africa, Taiwan and the Philippines and sent information kits to thousands of policy makers, opinion leaders and journalists around the globe.
• The WFC launched the online project PACT (Policy Action on Climate Change). Via the internet, lawmakers and opinion leaders can now download a toolkit that provides them with information about the most effective existing climate policies and helps them formulate the appropriate laws (www.onlinepact.org). In England, this has turned parliamentary and public debate about climate legislation in a new and much more effective direction.
• The WFC opened offices in Brussels and New Delhi, where a conference on development alternatives was held with central government participation.
• WFC-members were honoured for their contribution: WFC-Founder Jakob von Uexkull was awarded the Erich-Fromm Prize 2008 for his commitment to reviving humanistic thought and WFC executive committee co-chair Beate Weber received the German Environment Prize 2007.
The World Future Council was founded last year after the City of Hamburg and Otto Group CEO Dr. Michael Otto has committed themselves to provide core financing for the World Future Council for three years. The council consists of 50 personalities from around the globe who are respected for their work in advocating human rights, sustaining the environment and supporting ethics in the sciences and culture, politics and economics.
Former President Mancham is a member of the Board of Advisors of the World Future Council.
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