(UN News)* — National pledges to reduce harmful emissions offer little hope of avoiding climate disaster, UN climate experts said on Thursday [], in an urgent appeal for a radical transformation of the energy sector, before it’s too late.
Unsplash/Shane Stagner | Kelp, a type of seaweed, can be fed to animals and could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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There’s “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” today, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) insisted in a new report, despite legally binding promises made at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference to prevent average temperatures rising by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
WMO records biggest increase in methane concentrations since start of measurements.
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Geneva/New York, 26 October (WMO)* – In yet another ominous climate change warning, atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached new record highs in 2021, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
(UN News)* — Israel’s occupation is illegal and indistinguishable from a “settler-colonial” situation, which must end, as a pre-condition for Palestinians to exercise their right to self-determination, the UN’s independent expert on the occupied Palestinian territory said on Thursday [].
UN News/Shirin Yaseen | The separation wall in occupied Palestinian territory.
“For over 55 years, the Israeli military occupation has prevented the realisation of the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, violating each component of that right and wilfully pursuing the ‘de-Palestinianisation’ of the occupied territory,” said Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, in her report to the UN General Assembly.
MADRID, Oct 27 2022 (IPS)* – No. No lettuce, no matter how British it may be, could outlast such a steady depletion of the very foundation of life.
One third of all plastic waste ends up in soils or freshwater. Most of this plastic disintegrates into particles smaller than five millimetres, known as microplastics, and these break down further into nanoparticles. Credit: UN Environment
Now, new facts about such depletion come to add to the already reported ones regarding the unstopped, man-made dangers threatening the present and future of indispensable natural resources.
These are some of the biggest reasons explaining how the web of life is unrelentlessly agonising:
(UN News)* — Heatwaves have become an unavoidable health hazard for many nations, but new data indicates that they are set toaffect virtually every child on earth by 2050, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned on Tuesday [].
Today, at least half a billion youngsters are already exposed to a high number of heatwaves, placing them on the front lines of climate change, the UN agency noted.By the middle of this century, moreover, it estimates that more than two billion children will be exposed to “more frequent, longer lasting, and more severe” heatwaves.
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 2022 (IPS)* – Preoccupied with enhancing their own ‘credibility’ and reputations, central banks (CBs) are again driving the world economy into recession, financial turmoil and debt crises.
Anis Chowdhury
Wall Street ‘cred’
Most CB governors believe ‘credibility’ is desirable and must be achieved by fighting inflation at any cost. To justify their own more harmful policies, they warn inflation is ‘damaging’.
They argue CBs need ‘independence’ from governments to pursue ‘credible’ monetary policy. Inflation targeting to ‘anchor’ inflation expectations is supposed to generate desired ‘confidence’. But CBs have been responsible for many costly failures.
The US Fed deepened the 1930s’ Great Depression, the 1970s’ stagflation and the early 1980s’ contraction, besides contributing to the 2008-09 global financial crisis (GFC). Hence, CB notions of ‘credibility’ and ‘independence’ need to be reconsidered.
20 October 2022 (openDemocracy)* — Prime minister Rishi Sunak – reportedly the richest MP in Parliament – would be a boon for the financial lobby, tax justice campaigners have warned.
As talk turns to the next Conservative leader, the man trounced by Liz Truss just weeks ago is now the favourite to replace her.
Ever since the Ukraine War started on 24 Feb 2022, the NATO response, mainly articulated and materially implemented by the U.S., has been to pour vast quantities of oil on the flames of conflict, increasing the scale of violence, the magnitude of human suffering, and dangerously increasing the risk of a disastrous outcome.
Not only did Washington mobilize the world to denounce Russia’s ‘aggression,’ but supplied advanced weaponry in great quantities to the Ukrainians to resist the Russian attack, and did all it could at the UN and elsewhere to build a punitive coalition hostile to Russia but coupled this with a variety of sanctions and the demonization of Putin as a notorious war criminal unfit to govern.
This perspective of state propaganda was faithfully conveyed by a self-censoring Western media filter that graphically portrayed on a daily basis the horrors of the war experienced by the Ukrainian civilian population and a newly West-oriented enthusiasm for the ICC gathering as much evidence as possible of Russian war crimes.
MADRID, Oct 17 2022 (IPS)*– Make no mistake. Violence against women has been perpetuated, specially when it comes to those who have already been deprived of their basic human rights, as it is the case of rural women in over two-thirds of the world.
MADRID, Oct 13 2022 (IPS)* – A common feature to religions – including the monotheistic ones – is that groups of males have self-proclaimed themselves as the source for interpreting the “Word of God,” shaping them, and spreading them among the peoples of good faith.
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Girls are primarily victims of sexual exploitation (72% of detected girl victims), while boys are mainly subjected to forced labour (66% of detected boy victims).
Consequently, any given “god” has been historically presented as a man. And some say that God created the first woman (Eve) from the rib of a man (Adam). According to this, women are just a “sub-product.”
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 