“Julie named her Congregation the Sisters of Notre Dame as an expression of her love for Mary, woman of faith who rejoiced in the glorious mystery of salvation and in God’s mercy to the poor.” (Constitutions #8)
“We strive to grow ‘in the spirit of Mary, the virtue of Mary, the strength and power of Mary’.”(Constitutions #50)
Affordable and Clean Energy
Notre Dame Virtual School will focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #7 for April 2017: AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY.
Key Points:
- Energy is crucial for achieving almost all of the Sustainable Development Goals, from its role in the eradication of poverty through advancements in health, education, water supply and industrialization, to combating climate change.
- The proportion of the global population with access to electricity has increased steadily, from 79 per cent in 2000 to 85 per cent in 2012. Still, 1.1 billion people are without this valuable service. Recent global progress in this area has been driven largely by Asia, where access is expanding at more than twice the pace of demographic growth. Of those gaining access to electricity worldwide since 2010, 80 per cent are urban dwellers.
- The proportion of the world’s population with access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking increased from 51 per cent in 2000 to 58 per cent in 2014, although there has been limited progress since 2010. The absolute number of people relying on polluting fuels and technologies for cooking, such as solid fuels and kerosene, however, has actually increased, reaching an estimated three billion people. Limited progress since 2010 falls substantially short of global population growth and is almost exclusively confined to urban areas.
- The share of renewable energy (derived from hydropower, solid and liquid biofuels, wind, the sun, biogas, geothermal and marine sources, and waste) in the world’s total final energy consumption has increased slowly, from 17.4 per cent in 2000 to 18.1 per cent in 2012. More telling is the fact that modern renewable energy consumption, which excludes solid biofuels used for traditional purposes, grew rapidly, at a rate of 4 per cent a year between 2010 and 2012, and accounted for 60 per cent of all new power-generating capacity in 2014. In absolute terms, about 72 per cent of the increase in energy consumption from modern renewable sources between 2010 and 2012 came from developing regions, mostly from Eastern Asia. The technologies making the largest contribution have been hydropower, wind and solar energy; together they account for 73 per cent of the total increase in modern renewable energy between 2010 and 2012.
Available PDFs: Featured Topics
from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/energy
Electricity and education: The benefits, barriers, and recommendations for achieving the electrification of primary and secondary schools
by: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), 2014
Why mountains matter for energy: A Call for Action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
by: Mountain Partnership, 2014
Harmony with Nature
from: http://www.harmonywithnatureun.org/
In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 22 April as International Mother Earth Day. In so doing, Member States acknowledged that the Earth and its ecosystems are our common home, and expressed their conviction that it is necessary to promote Harmony with Nature in order to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations. The same year, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution on Harmony with Nature.
