'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
(UN News)* — The world is “a long way off” from meeting the goals of the landmark Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the President of the crucial upcoming UN climate conference, COP26, on 8 April 2021 said.
British politician Alok Sharma was speaking during a global discussion on the ‘green’ transition in sectors such as energy, transport and food systems, held as part of the 2021 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In Bill Gates’ vision, technology seems fated to fix every single damage that has been inflicted on our planet and climate change has recently been added to the list. But this is the same mentality that has taken us to the devastating stage we currently find ourselves in, while the only thing improving exponentially is the profits of the corporations taking advantage by selling these very technologies.
It is necessary to step out of this technofix hysteria in order to reclaim a holistic vision based on real farmers, healthy and nutritious food, and on an agroecological model that does not impact on climate but, instead, helps to mitigate it. No fake burger can do that.
New fund leverages nature to adapt to climate change
UNEP / Duncan Moore / 25 Mar 2021
(UNEP)* — Did you know nature is one of humanity’s best defences for adapting to climate change? A new funding opportunity is scaling up ecosystem-based adaptation across the world. The call for proposals is now open.
The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is launching in June this year. The goal is ambitious – to trigger a global movement for restoring the world’s ecosystems. This is not merely for nature’s sake, say experts. Mounting evidence shows that a global re-greening could help humanity adapt to climate change.
In 2020, the world’s attention turned to the COVID-19 pandemic. But even as we poured all of energy and resources into tackling it, many pointed to wider issues as contributing factors. Nature and biodiversity loss. Climate change. Pollution and waste. The three planetary crises. All of which are destroying the natural world and threatening our future.
The Green Gigaton Challenge backed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partners, catalyses public and private funds to combat deforestation, with the goal to cut annual emissions by 1 gigaton by 2025.
24 February 2021 (UNEP)* — As environmental leaders and change makers meet virtually for the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in February 2021, the issue of deforestation has been central to their discussions.
(UNEP)* — Implementation of nature-based solutions has been growing worldwide for the past two decades. Since 2006, multilateral funds serving the Paris Agreement have backed around 400 adaptation projects in developing countries, half of which started after 2015. The majority focus on agriculture and water, with drought, rainfall variability, flooding and coastal impacts.
UN Environment Assembly sets stage for green recovery
15 February 2021 (UNEP)* — In addition to the tragic loss of life, COVID-19 has rolled back decades of progress on poverty, gender and health. It has exposed social and economic inequalities and the inextricable link between human and planetary health.
The pandemic is just one symptom of the damage that human activity has caused. The extraction and consumption of nature’s resources have also resulted in crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and growing volumes of pollution and waste.
10 February 2021 (UN News)* — The challenge of tackling climate change is one that the UN needs to talk about “honestly, without scaremongering” and by focusing on scientific fact, according to Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The UN agency which Ms Andersen describes as the “environmental conscience of the United Nations”, is at the centre of the global debate about sustainability, the environment and climate change.
The UNEP chief was interviewed by the Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications at the UN, Melissa Fleming, as part of the podcast series Awake at Night.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 