CIPA President Ted Trzyna serves on the steering committee of a new organization called InterClimate, and CIPA will be providing consulting services to the organization. Based in the United Kingdom and launched in May 2008 with a major three-year grant from Barclays Bank, InterClimate is chaired by John Davidson (brief biography). It focuses on involving 16-to-19-year-olds in finding solutions to climate change, starting with causes and effects of global warming in their local areas. InterClimate will work through secondary schools. The expectation is that student participants will engage their families and, though them, local and national leaders.

The first stage will involve 50 schools each in southwestern England and parts of Kenya. The second stage will do the same in the Indian state of Maharashtra (Mumbai and Pune) and the Cape region of South Africa. In the third stage, CIPA will do a feasibility study for including California in InterClimate.

CIPA has followed climate change issues since the late1980s, both in California and at the international level. Several CIPA board members and senior associates are involved in policy research and development on climate change and closely related problems.

In California, CIPA has advised the Public Health Institute on increasing awareness of projected impacts of global climate change on public health in the state.

At the international level, CIPA is accredited to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and participates as an observer at meetings of the Convention's Conference of Parties. Most recently, Ted Trzyna and John Davidson attended the 2007 annual meeting (COP 13) in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia.

CIPA is organizing a workshop to be held at the 4th IUCN World Conservation Congress (Barcelona, October 2008) on "Climate change as an opportunity for conservationists to build new alliances." This event will be conducted in cooperation with the World Academy of Art and Science, the IUCN Cities Task Force, and InterClimate.         

In Brazil, working in partnership with the Brazilian Foundation for Conservation of Nature, CIPA has explored using innovative approaches to carbon sequestration through forest protection and restoration.

See About us for background on InterEnvironment, CIPA's international program.         

Revised 5/2008