HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

By Kat Skeie* and Tarjei Haaland* – 16 September, 2014, Greenpeace — Climate change is back on the global political agenda. On September 23rd, world leaders from government, finance, business and civil society will convene for the New York Climate Summit hosted by United Nations’ Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. They are there to ‘catalyse global action on climate change’.

Greenpeace/Lars Bertelsen

Catalysing is certainly needed. With governments’ and businesses’ current level of inaction, we are heading for a climate catastrophe.

As the world’s leaders prepare for another round of eloquent speeches, our question to them is simple: Exactly how and when is your country going to phase out fossil fuels? Please, may we see your plan?

The reality is that very few countries have such a plan. Which is incredible, given the current state of climate affairs. Denmark is one rare exception. The country has a plan, which outlines a transition to 100% renewable energy within a relatively short period of time. Ambitious? Yes. Unrealistic? Not at all. Here is how:

Human Wrongs Watch

More than 800 million people – or one in every nine on the planet – suffer from hunger, but a new joint UN agency report released on 16 September 2014stated that the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of undernourished people by 2015 is still within reach.

A worker weeding in a nursery in Back Kan, Viet Nam. Photo: FAO/Joan Manuel Baliellas

The State of Food Insecurity in the World report released in Rome by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP), confirmed a positive trend, which has seen the number of hungry people decline globally by more than 100 million over the last decade and by more than 200 million since 1990-92.*