Archive for ‘Climate Crisis’

08/02/2021

Heartbreaking Refugee Film Opens Human Rights Weekend 2021

Amsterdam,  8 February 2021 – Online only, free of charge, and streaming across the Netherlands. These are the unique features of the 9th edition of the Human Rights Weekend(February 12 to 14), 2021. All three documentaries are European or Dutch premieres and available on all days of the event, accompanied by various bonus content.

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© Pieter Scheltema for Human Rights Watch

The opening night, co-presented by De Balie, features a live event about refugee rights on Zoom and the Netherlands premiere of Mira Jargil’s documentary film Reunited, available from February 11  through February 14.

Reunited is the heartbreaking story of a family torn apart by the Syrian war and their attempts to navigate frustrating bureaucracies, living separately in Denmark, Canada, and Turkey.

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07/02/2021

Oceans and Climate Change: It’s Time to Talk

FAO hosts a discussion on the state of our oceans and the threat posed by climate change

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About 25 percent of the greenhouse gases that we emit actually gets absorbed by the oceans, as does almost all of the globe’s excess heat… 93 percent of it, to be exact! ©Kimberly Jefferies/Coral Reef Image Bank

5 February 021 (FAO)* — Oceans are an essential part of our planet. They provide us with food to eat and keep our atmosphere healthy. Without the oceans, we simply wouldn’t exist.

But climate change means that ocean temperatures are increasing, icebergs are melting, and sea levels are rising. We need action to reverse these trends, and raising awareness is the first step.

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07/02/2021

United Arab Emirates’ Double-Standard on Citizenship Rights

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UAE flag with Dubai skyline © 2019 Getty Images

5 February 2021 — The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently announced a plan to extend citizenship opportunities to highly-educated, skilled, or wealthy foreign nationals and their families.

Unfortunately, the country’s citizenship law still leaves out other groups, including children born to Emirati women and foreign fathers, and stateless people.

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07/02/2021

Migrants Play Key Role in Disaster Response

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) Explores Diaspora’s Engagement in Humanitarian Assistance

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Stronger diaspora coordination has the potential for better and more effective humanitarian assistance in countries affected by disasters. Photo: IOM/Muse Mohammed

Washington, DC, 6 February 2021 (IOM)* – Many people, when they consider the contributions of migrants to their countries of origin, think first of remittance flows —the billions of dollars travelling annually between high income, “developed” destination countries to lower income regions in the Global South.

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07/02/2021

Water Graves: Nightmare for Mexican Fishermen

 

MEXICO CITY, Feb 4 2021 (IPS)* – All of Erizo’s nightmares are the same. Since his return from the ocean – almost unrecognizable – every bad dream is identical. A wave punches his little boat and throws him into the deep sea where everything is so dark that he can’t even see his own hands. | En español

Rosi Orozco

Even when he swam with all his energy, this 31 year old fisherman was never able to set foot on the mainland and to him, the Mexican Pacific ocean slowly became a grave formed only of water.

When Erizo dies in his nightmare, he wakes up in real life, opening his mouth like a dying fish that desperately tries to gasp some air. Then, he and his wife are on a midnight routine.

Erizo stays in bed while Sandra walks over the sand floor of their home to reach for a glass of water for him. She can do that in total darkness without stumbling because there is barely anything; the furniture in this young couple’s home consists only of a bed, a small TV, a plastic table, two chairs, two hammocks, and a few plastic bags with clothes and shoes.

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05/02/2021

Alarming Rise in Global Temperatures

5 February 2021 (UNEP)* — The past six years have been the warmest on record since 1880, with 2016, 2019 and 2020 being the top three, according to a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) press release on 15 January. The year 2020 was 1.2°C above pre-industrial era (1880) temperatures.

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Photo: REUTERS/Adrees Latif / 04 Feb 2021

WMO predicts a 20 per cent probability that temperatures will temporarily exceed 1.5°C as early as 2024. “The speed at which temperatures are increasing is alarming,” says Pascal Peduzzi, Director, GRID-Geneva, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “At this rate, we may reach +1.5°C in the next 15 years.”

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04/02/2021

UN Calls for an ‘Ocean Science Revolution’

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The 2021-2030 initiative hopes to raise funding for ocean science and focus on the sustainable use of marine resources

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4 2021 (IPS)* – The United Nations Secretary-General has urged nations to rise to the ‘defining challenge’ of restoring the ocean’s power to support humanity and regulate the climate.

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04/02/2021

‘Make Peace with Nature’, UN Chief Urges at Ocean Decade Launch

(UN News)*January marked the beginning of what many within the UN and beyond view as “the most critical decade of our lives”, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on Wednesday [3 February 2021], launching a major initiative to protect the world’s oceans through the next ten years.

Coral Reef Image Bank/Philip Ham | A school of fish in Quintana Roo, on the Yucatán Peninsula’s Caribbean coast of Mexico.

 UNESCO marked the start of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, with a global online event headlined: ‘A Brave New Ocean’.

It aims to raise awareness of the immense challenges and opportunities the world seas provide to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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04/02/2021

Global Fisheries and Aquaculture Hard Hit by COVID-19 Pandemic; More Disruption Expected as Supply and Consumption Affected by Lockdowns

ROME, 2 February 2021 (FAO)* — Global fisheries and aquaculture have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and could face further disruption in 2021 as lockdowns affect supply and demand across the sector, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Photo: ©FAO/B.Geers

Fisheries and aquaculture have been hard hit by the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.
04/02/2021

Food Prices Rose in January to Highest Level Since 2014, While Worldwide Cereal Stocks Are Set to Drop Sharply

ROME, 4 February 2021 (FAO)*  — Global food prices rose in January for the eighth consecutive month, led by cereals, vegetable oils and sugar, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Photo: ©FAO/Karen Minasyan

A cow feeds in Armenia.

FAO’s Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities and was released today [4 February 2021], averaged 113.3 points in January, marking a 4.3 percent increase from December 2020 and reaching its highest level since July 2014.

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