The COVID-19 pandemic and climate emergency have both revealed the fragility of our societies and our planet. These dual crises are disproportionately affecting the world’s most vulnerable countries and people, and deepening many social and economic rifts. They also make clear the need to strengthen global cooperation and solidarity.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres
Let’s cooperate and invite everyone to fight for climate action
No country is immune from it. Greenhouse gas emissions are more than 50 percent higher than it was in 1990, and global warming is causing long-lasting changes to our climate system which threatens irreversible consequences if we do not act.
Cooperatives for Climate Action was chosen as this year’s theme to address this, and to support Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on Climate Action. Climate change severely impacts people’s livelihoods around the world, especially the most disadvantaged groups such as small-scale farmers, women, youth, indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, who have to cope with extreme natural disasters and degradation of natural resources. This year we will focus on the contribution of cooperatives to combating climate change.
The International Day of Cooperatives is an annual celebration of the cooperative movement that takes place on the first Saturday of July since 1923. Since 1995, the United Nations and the International Cooperative Alliance have been setting the theme for the celebration of the Day.
The aim of this celebration is to increase awareness of cooperatives. The event underscores the contributions of the cooperative movement to resolving the major problems addressed by the United Nations and to strengthening and extending the partnerships between the international cooperative movement and other actors.
#Coops4ClimateAction.