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PlanetPlay

2024-07-23

Making More Green Tuesday Moves: What's Trending?

The Make Green Tuesday Moves initiative continues to build in momentum. Our latest activation starring David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff may be ending shortly, but our growing list of partner game studios are continuing to Make Green Tuesday Moves – and we’ll have some exciting news to share about our next activation very shortly. In the meantime, we’re taking another look at what’s trending in climate change outside of games…

First up, yesterday (July 22nd) marked the 2024 Climate Emergency Day, with organisers declaring: “On this day, we will officially have 4 YEARS to dramatically reduce fossil fuel emissions to stay below 1.5C degrees warming. Every minute, every second counts.” To coincide with the day, communities around the world are hosting campaigns to tie in with two key themes - #TimeToEndFossilFuels and #StopClimateCriminals. To find out more and to get involved, click here

Londoners should be charged for paving their gardens, according to a report by the city’s mayor Sadiq Khan. The Guardian notes that the London Climate Resilience Review has highlighted issues including four in 10 properties expected to be affected by subsidence by the end of the decade; a ‘heat plan’ being required to protect vulnerable individuals from the risk of heatwaves; the city needing a new reservoir, along with improved flood defences; and the threat of surface flooding. Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the review, said: “We are entering a new era. In 2024, even as El Niño fades, we are set for another record-breaking year of deadly heatwaves, wildfires and storms. In the last year, floods in the UK have upended lives and battered local economies. The health and security of Londoners and the health of the national economy are inseparable.” Read more on the Review here.

To the outskirts of London and the UNESCO World Heritage Site Kew Gardens has warned that half of its trees could be vulnerable to climate change by 2090. Following the extreme heat and drought of 2022’s summer in the UK, some 400 trees were lost at Kew Gardens. In an average year, that figure is 20-40, according to Euronews. For more and thoughts on how to save the UK’s trees, click here.

Meanwhile, ABC News reveals that ‘the impacts of human-caused climate change are so overwhelming they're actually messing with time’. It reports on a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that claims that the melting of the polar ice is changing the speed of Earth's rotation and increasing the length of each day. “The changes are small - a matter of milliseconds a day,” says ABC News, “but in our high-tech, hyperconnected world have an important impact on computing systems we have come to rely on, including GPS.” It’s a must read

… and so ‘the world needs a new global deal on climate and development finance’, says Moazzam Malik, Managing Director at the World Resources Institute and Honorary Professor at the UCL Policy Lab in an article for Climate Change News. He writes: “Tackling climate change and its consequences – and supporting wider human development – needs urgent investment. But the international financial system is struggling to respond. Is it time now to agree a new framework for international climate and development finance? Can the G20 under Brazil’s leadership, and international leaders meeting at the United Nations in New York in September, prepare the ground for COP29?” His full article is well worth a look

Finally this week, the brilliant Reasons To Be Cheerful website takes a look at something very close to our beliefs here at PlanetPlay – that ‘when it comes to climate change, everything we do matters’. It highlights what we, as individuals, can do including: Vote (for politicians who believe in tackling climate change); Take the Bicycle, Bus or Train; Eat Less Meat; and more. We’d add to that list: getting involved in our Make Green Tuesday Moves campaign – either as a player, or as a games studio. Reasons To Be Cheerful sounds a great note about individual actions on climate change: “… among all its other benefits, caring for the environment will make you happier. The more we care for our planet, the greater our wellbeing. And that of the earth.” As it points out, you really can’t argue with that. More here

We’ll be sharing more Green Tuesday insights next week – follow our social channels for more!