UNITED NATIONS, Oct 17 2019 (IPS)* – When the six much-ballyhooed high-level UN meetings concluded late September, there were mixed feelings about the final outcomes.
And civil society organizations (CSOs), who were mostly disappointed with the results, are now gearing themselves for two upcoming key climate summit meetings: COP25 in Santiago, Chile in December and COP26 in Glasgow, UK in late 2020, along with the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Women’s Conference scheduled to take place in September 2020 in New York.
15 October 2019 (openDemocracy)* — Donald Trump is a master of distraction, but he is also an illusionist and there are few illusions bigger than his favourite obsession – the US border wall. On 1 October the New York Times reported that Trump told aides he would like to electrify his proposed wall and add to it a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators.
US border patrol stands watch as barbed wire is added to a border wall, 2018. | US Customs and Border Protection
GENEVA / LAGOS, Oct 16 2019 (IPS)* – In Geneva this week, a treaty process is underway that promises to usher in a new era for human rights around the globe.
The process—the intergovernmental working group on the binding treaty on transnational corporations and human rights—could mean that for the first time, human rights would be prioritized above corporate profits.
But the future of the agreement and human rights writ large will depend on whether governments can agree on a strong text this week.
Communities and governments have long struggled to hold abusive corporations and industries accountable.
16 October 2019 (UN News)* — On a Friday afternoon, in a small restaurant kitchen in the New York borough of Brooklyn, head chef Alexander Harris is giving instructions to his attentive team, preparing them for the busy evening ahead. So far, the tables are empty, but the small, popular space, with just a handful of tables – and some stools around the bar – will soon be bustling with the evening crowd.
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Conor Lennon/ UN News | Trainee chef Roberta Mbiua (2nd right) receives his instructions from culinary director Alexander Harris at Emma’s Torch Restaurant, Brooklyn.
16 October 2019 — Eating food high in starch, sugar, fats and salt; combined with a sedentary lifestyle, is a recipe for soaring global obesity rates, even in countries where many still suffer from hunger. On World Food Day, which falls on Wednesday 16 October 2019], the UN’s food agency, FAO, is calling for action to make healthy, sustainable diets affordable and accessible for all.*
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Public Domain | Hamburger with Fries. WHO has released the REPLACE guidelines, to eliminate industrially-produced trans-fatty acids from food suplly.
(Wall Street International)* — The climate crisis was made vivid by the October 2018 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In the words of 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg: “According to the IPCC, we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes. In that time, unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have taken place, including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%…”
15 August 2019 (IGWIA)* — While much of the world has focused on the fires raging in the Amazon, the world’s largest forest–the Siberian Taiga in Russia–has been on fire for most of 2019.
Demonstration held in Krasnoyarsk on 22 Aug 2019. Signs read (left to right): Sign 1: “Summer 2019 – Evenkia is covered in smoke and on fire. Photos from Tura, Baikit, Vanavara settlements taken 9 August 2019, Indigenous Day”; Sign 2: “Investment projects are the destruction of the traditional environment of Evenkia — Ecocide. Photos from forest plots and the results of industrial logging by company Kraslessinvest”; Sign 3: “Baikit forest, 50km from Baikit, forest fires 2019 — Ecocide”. Photo: Nikita Kaplin
15 October 2019 (UN News)* — Across the globe, at least one-in-three children under-five are malnourished and not developing properly, UNICEF revealed on Tuesday [15 October 2019], in its most comprehensive report on children, food and nutrition in 20 years.
“An alarmingly high number of children are suffering the consequences of poor diets and a food system that is failing them,” the UN children’s agency (UNICEF) warned.
In this Voices from the Global South podcast, Dr James Kairo, one of the lead authors of the ‘Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate,’ a special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) speaks to IPS from the Africa Climate Risk Conference that was held in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
ADDIS ABABA, Oct 15 2019 (IPS)* – “Special reports come to address issues that need deeper understanding and deeper research,” Dr James Kairo, one of the lead authors of the ‘Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate,’ a special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told IPS.
The report focused on what would happen to oceans and cryosphere (frozen parts of our world) which include the polar and high mountains if temperatures increase beyond 1°C above pre-industrial levels to 1.5°C, and beyond.
Campaign highlights gross paradox of hunger and food waste
11 October (World Food Programme)* — World Food Day is marked on 16 October 2019 to shine a spotlight on the issue of global hunger. The figures are eye-watering: enough food to feed the world’s 7 billion people while one in nine people goes to bed hungry every night. Equally if not more damning, one-third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted — amounting to about 1.3 billion tons per year.
A smallholder farmer in Masaka, in the south of Malawi. Photo: WFP/Badre Bahaji
The process—the intergovernmental working group on the binding treaty on transnational corporations and human rights—could mean that for the first time, human rights would be prioritized above corporate profits.
