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ASLA Announces Support for U.N. Climate Action Summit


2019-09-23

ASLA 2009 Professional Award of Excellence in General Design, Buffalo Bayou Promenade, SWA Group/Bill Tatham.

Buffalo Bayou Promenade
Washington, D.C. (September 23, 2019) – Today, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) announced support for the goals of the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in New York City to stop the increase in emissions by 2020 and dramatically reduce emissions to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century.

"As the world's leaders gather in New York this week, ASLA calls for all governments convened to adopt national policies that incentivize investment in nature-based solutions to help communities adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis, with a greater focus on the disproportionate impacts faced by vulnerable and underserved communities," said Shawn T. Kelly, FASLA, President of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

"Members of ASLA agree to a code of environmental ethics, which states they will make 'every effort within our sphere of influence to enhance, respect, and restore the life-sustaining integrity of the landscape for all living things.' This, to me, is the Hippocratic Oath of a landscape architect – one that we live every single day, in every project we take, in everything we do. It is my earnest hope, and the hope of ASLA as an organization, that the leaders gathering in New York will heed the calls of climate strikers, scientists, and people around the globe to take bold action and protect our planet from the perils of the climate crisis."

ASLA is one of 63 cultural institutions that have signed the We Are Still In Declaration. Some 3,800 leaders representing 15 million Americans and $9 trillion of the U.S. economy have signed the declaration, committing to the goals outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement and America’s contribution to it. 
 

You can read President Shawn T. Kelly's extended remarks in his post on The DIRT. 

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The Dirt
Jared Green
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The Field
Ali Hay 
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