No Carbon November!

Throughout the month of November, Dulwich International High School Suzhou celebrated and observed “No Carbon November”. “No Carbon November” is a group wide initiative, designed to make us all more mindful of the damage we are causing to the environment (with our over reliance on carbon), while taking positive steps to mitigate our impact on the world. “No Carbon November” provides one actionable step each day in November. These take the form of small, achievable changes we can make to our lives, that, when taken collectively, have the potential to make a real and positive difference to our environment.

Every day in November, the daily actions on the calendar were published in the school bulletin and discussed during tutor time. The calendar actions were designed to provoke discussion. For example, “Choose better forms of transport” begs the question what constitutes a better form of transport? Electric vehicles are less damaging to the environment than vehicles that run on fossil fuels, but neither of these forms of transport are as green as walking, riding a bike or taking public transport. 

This is what d'Arcy Lunn, Group Head of Sustainability and Global Citizenship had to say about “No Carbon November”:

Sustainability is an increasingly important part of the curriculum at our school. The vision we have for our students is for them to embrace sustainability as they become true global citizens. We encourage all of our school community to make informed choices and take inspired and inspiring choices, that have an impact on the world. We have the unique opportunity to educate our students to care for the planet on which all of us depend. We believe that if we equip our students with a connection to the environment, give them access to scientific evidence and critical thinking skills, they will be able to make their own informed decisions and be empowered to truly Live Worldwise.

Of course, November 2021 is especially significant for the environment, as it was during this month that the COP26 conference took place in Glasgow, in the UK.  COP26 stands for “Conference of Parties” and this is the 26th time that they have met to discuss climate change. The meeting was originally supposed to have taken place in 2020 but was delayed by the global Corona Virus Pandemic. Which arguably, due to grounding so many planes, has done more for the environment than all the previous 25 COP meetings combined.

In September the world’s most famous climate activist, Greta Thunberg took a rather cynically realistic approach to COP26: “Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah, blah, blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah, words that sound great but so far have not led to action.”

However, this year there was a tangible sense that finally, the contributing nations agreed that this was now a time for action rather than words. The was a sense of acceptance that while we cannot prevent climate change, we can control it and at least make its impact less devastating for our children and grandchildren.