MQ

Shifting my blog address to http://quayle/blogs.sauder.ubc.ca/.  Hope you can still find me!

Our city was hit with an amazing influx of ideas and energy last week – the Gaining Ground/Resilient Cities conference was in town.  Over 750 registrants (the biggest GG ever) and a resounding success in terms of ideas exchanged, emotions stirred and actions at the top of mind. Sad for me, I missed a great […]

Chapter 3 of the BC Business Council’s Outlook 2020 series happened last week in the midst of all the other numerous events scheduled.  As a result, I only caught one of the sessions, missing the panel discussion on Resourcing the Future:  BC’s Natural Advantage with Peter Woodbridge (who I am very impressed with – he […]

…is a book by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland (2008).  The UBC Sauder School of Business; Borden, Ladner, Gervais; RBC; and, WomenOnBoard pulled together to present the 2009 Women on Board Forum:  Transforming Corporate Culture. Everybody seemed to pick this week to host a Forum or Conference.  So I only managed to attend the first […]

Yesterday at the Gaining Ground/Resilient Cities conference Mayor Gregor Robertson welcomed over 750 participants and took the opportunity to give them a sneak peek at Vancouver 2020:  A Bright Green Future, the 10-year plan which is the result of almost a year’s work by the Mayor’s Greenest City Action Team (GCAT).  The report includes 10 […]

Sub-national governments can influence 50-80% of all climate mitigation strategies (according to UNDP).  The power of the subnational governments globally was one of the themes of the Summit. It was very useful to immerse myself in a global discussion on climate change – and to hear what various regions are and are not doing.  The […]

Stunning fact:  Oceans are not yet on the agenda for Copenhagen (at least they weren’t on Oct 1.09).  I notice quite a bit of web traffic on the need for ocean acidification to be front and centre during the Copenhagen discussions. This was a break-out session that ended the day on Thursday.  Was slightly disrupted […]

The cab driver test – you know how it goes.  You get in the cab and you ask them a burning question – like “what do you think about this whole climate change deal?”  And you get a response that is totally anecdotal but always interesting.  Terry Tamminen started this session with his own story […]

Speakers from all over the world – chaired by Gavin Jennings, Minister for Environment and Climate Change for Victoria, Australia and moderated by Don Paul, the ED of the University of Southern California Energy Institute. I’d like to highlight three speakers: Roberto Formigoni, President, Lombardy Regional Administration, Italy: Talked about the importance of sub-national/regional leadership […]

If global temperatures increase “only” 2 degrees, the World Bank estimates that the cost of adaptation with be $75B -$100B per year until 2050.  Whew.  Another speaker at the Global Climate Summit 2 “Adaptation Panel” was Michele de Nevers, the Senior Manager of the Environment Department at The World Bank.  She stated that for developing countries, […]