Will's blog
...to everyone!
Yesterday's closing ceremony in Cancún, Mexico reaffirmed what the Great Power Race was all about -- standing together to promote clearn energy and climate solutions. Witnessing Chinese, Indian, and US youth all stand together to celebrate such work through both friendly competition and direct collaboration was deeply meaningful, particularly knowing that government representatives and press were looking on as well.
For anyone that missed the event live, the results are in. More video coverage of the event will be coming soon -- for now, a big thanks to our friends at the University of South Carolina who captured some of the footage from the webcast. Here are those clips...
USA:
UPDATE: Live webcast of the event can be viewed here: http://j.mp/GPRclosingLIVE
You all are an inspiration! Ever since the project submission deadline last month, our team has been mighty busy sorting through all the results, and let it be said that the work you all accomplished in just a few months time is truly extraordinary. From local foods to renewable energy, from administrative reports to Facebook pages -- you all worked incredibly hard these past weeks and months and created real and important change on your campuses. And it doesn’t stop there.
The points are tallied, and we're just about ready to hear from our judges. Congratulations to the top 5 scoring teams from each country (coicidentally the top 15 scoring teams overall also) for reaching the judging round of the Race. Here are the standings after all the points have been counted...
These 15 teams have submitted final reports summarizing all their efforts for the Race, which will be submitting to our judges panel this week. We will announce the judges' findings from an event that will be web-cast from the United Nations climate change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. The conference starts this week, but the GPR awards event will be broadcast during the second week, in early December (more details to come).
And thanks -- to all of you!
What an exciting finale to the race. Hundreds of projects reports poured in the past few days. We'll need a few more days to tally all the results, so you can anticipate some continued changes on the scoreboard. We'll try to have it all wrapped up as soon as possible, and we'll be in touch soon regarding next steps.
But for now, just a great thanks to all of you for helping lead the international race towards solutions we want to see the world over. More soon.
The UN climate talks are taking place in Tianjin, China right now. And the news we're getting from folks there—if you can really call it 'news'—is that things are going...sloooowwwwwllly.
So that is precisely what the Great Power Race is all about. We're trying to show governments and businesses that we have no time to waste in creating clean energy and climate solutions. In fact, we're not waiting a moment longer ourselves—we're racing ahead and implementing the solutions we can on our campuses and in our communities. And as we do, we're sending a message that our countries business and govenments need to join in.
To relay that message to the UN climate talk in China some of the Great Power Race team who are there decided to hold a little race of their own outside. How awesome is this!
Hooray! We're very excited to present the new website to you all, and hope it will serve you well.
For anyone new to the Race, it's not too late to join in, and you can follow steps for getting started here: www.greatpowerrace.org/joining.
Bijal V, 350.org's South Asia coordinator in Mumbai was interviewed on Public Radio International's environment program "Living on Earth." It's an amazing series of short interviews with 350 organizers around the world preparing for this Sunday's Global Work Party (join in the party: www.greatpowerrace.org/10-10-10), including folks in Indi
