'Unseen' News and Views
Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the cheapest and most efficient way to tackle the climate crisis. So states a July 4 article in The Guardian, citing a new analysis published in the journal Science. The author explains:
Cairo, 2 August 2019 (IOM)* – “Hijrah Talk”, a talk show using digital platforms to challenge misconceptions around migration, was launched on 29 July by IOM’s Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
From left: IOM Egypt Chief of Mission Laurent de Boeck, IOM Senior Regional Liaison and Policy Officer Kristina Mejo, and IOM Head Media and Communications Division and Spokesperson Leonard Doyle at the launch of “Hijrah Talk” last 29 July by IOM’s Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
2 August 2019 (UN Environment)* — In a record-breaking day this week, at the Gulele Botanical Garden in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia launched an historic tree planting campaign. Over 350 million trees were planted in an ambitious move to counter the effects of deforestation and climate change.
Photo from UN Environment
The event is part of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Green Legacy Initiative. It aimed at planting 200 million trees in a single day in 1,000 sites across the country. Prime Minister Ahmed congratulated the country for not only meeting its collective Green Legacy goal but also exceeding it.
Citing “an external context of greater uncertainty and growing complexity”, the head of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said on Wednesday [31 July 2019] that the region’s economic growth is expected to decline.
Launching the Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2019 at a press conference in Santiago, Chile, ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena pointed to “less momentum from world economic activity and global trade; greater volatility and financial fragility; questioning of the multilateral system; and an increase in geopolitical tensions” as the reasons driving the downward-looking forecast.
Throughout human history, migration and climate have always been connected, but in the modern era, the impacts of the man-made climate crisis are likely to extensively change the patterns of human settlement.*
Dina Ionesco is the head of the Migration, Environment and Climate Change Division at the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), which has been at the forefront of efforts to study the links between migration, the environment and climate.
Global warming and rising political tensions are dangerous and avoidable, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters on Thursday [1 August 2019], previewing the UN’s upcoming Climate Action Summit, and spotlighting geopolitical hotspots.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 