$39.3M in expenses
Internationalmeaningful progress on biodiversity loss and environmental pollution cannot happen in isolation, which is why NRDC has continued to urge the global community to develop comprehensive plans to tackle the crises. NRDC's international work leverages our scientific, economic, and policy expertise to advance key environmental and climate programs with far-reaching impacts across the world. Our highlights from this past fiscal year are as follows:at the 28th un conference of parties in dubai, NRDC experts met with world leaders to advocate for a strong global agreement on emissions cuts. The conference yielded a historic result: more than 190 countries called for tripling renewable energy, doubling the pace of energy efficiency gains, and ending deforestation and forest degradation. NRDC also hosted an event focusing on the harmful impacts of liquified natural gas production on communities and health and participated in a number of panels on topics including sustainable cooling in emerging economies; women-led clean energy solutions; and on defining clean hydrogen. In progress of NRDC's work to protect ecosystems in the boreal forest in canada from the irreversible damages of industrial logging, the kimberly-clark corporation, maker of tissue products such as kleenex, cottonelle and scott, committed to go beyond its biggest competitors for more sustainable forest sourcing. Its new forests, land, and agriculture policy demonstrated its commitment to reducing forest degradation in all its products and declared that it aims to rid their entire product line from natural forest fiber. This is a huge step forward for the manufacturer to address longstanding loopholes in global supply chains that harm northern forests. NRDC's efforts in india also advanced its activities to protect populations from the dangers of extreme heat. With record-breaking temperatures taking a devastating toll on human health especially in india, the country's national disaster management authority took steps to coordinate on improving preparedness through workshops and discussions and identifying actionable heat solutions through state- and city-level heat action plans, early warning systems, and built environment enhancements. NRDC brought attention to the benefits of using statistics to link heatwave early warning system to health benchmarks, and the need for local governments to be actively involved in policy preparation. Similarly, the state of uttar pradesh prepared and presented a long-term heat resilience plan with NRDC and other key partners. It includes a new policy which aims to mitigate the impacts of heat stress by adaptive measures and resilience-building mandates, and includes measures such as cooling technologies in government, educational and healthcare buildings; incorporating passive and energy-efficient cooling solutions; ways to monitor for quality; and coordination among government, private sectors, research institutions and communities. In ongoing work to reduce coal and promote transition to cleaner sources of energy in china, NRDC shared information and knowledge with policymakers and industry experts in various localities. This included an event to explore pathways for shanxi province - the country's largest coal producer - to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels; the sharing of insights on pollution reductions in henan province; and the organizing of an expert dialogue in phasing out coal in shandong province. NRDC was also able to help organize and support a meeting of the economic community of west african states (ecowas) in nigeria, where the countries planned their regional approach to implementing the kunming-montreal global biodiversity framework. The framework contains action-oriented targets to address the ongoing loss of biodiversity and the restoration of natural ecosystems by 2030. During the meeting, the participating countries agreed to create and implement a plan to protect at least 30 percent of the region for biodiversity by 2030, and another plan to meet targets reducing threats to biodiversity.
