Kyoto on the Horizon - Tracking Global Efforts to Curb Greenhouse Gases
Thursday, September 02, 2010   21:06 GMT    
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News in RSS "Abnormal" weather is becoming the norm in many parts of the world. Average temperatures, precipitation and wind patterns are changing, and non-climate factors -primarily the accumulation of greenhouse gases produced from human activities - are driving this change. Find out more about the forces behind climate change - but also about the growing citizen awareness and new climate policies towards sustainable development.

The 15th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) took place in Copenhagen in December 2009. World leaders were expected to discuss a legally-binding international climate treaty, however no deal was sealed. History was not made.

Scientific consensus and the acceptance of the scientific findings is no longer an issue. The main snag to any comprehensive global plan appears to be the issue of financing, particularly the funding of climate initiatives in developing countries by public or private backers in industrialised countries.

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LEBANON: Rich Feast Through Month of Fasting
MIDEAST: Pessimistic About Peace, Yet…
U.N. Lagging on Water and Sanitation Development Goals
Environmental Forensics for BP Gulf Spill
Uganda Could Become Regional Rice Exporter say Researchers
ARGENTINA-BRAZIL: Nuclear Safeguards System an Example for the World
RIGHTS-INDIA: Law to Restrict Foreign Funding Alarms NGOs
PHILIPPINES: Criminal Ban, Stigma Drive Unsafe Abortions
SRI LANKA: Anger Rises Over Torture Case, But Solution Unclear
Further Victims Identified in DRC Mass Rapes Case
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In The Eye of a Storm
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News in RSS
HUMAN EXISTENCE IS AT REAL AND IMMINENT RISK
by Maurice Strong
NOVEMBER 2009 (IPS) - The current economic and climate change crises are both rooted in the unsustainable nature of the existing economic system. The rapid and unexpected economic meltdown, which began in the United States and quickly spread throughout the world demonstrated dramatically that the phenomenon of globalization and interdependence has a dramatic downside of shared risks and vulnerability, writes Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, first Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and Secretary General of the 1992 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment.
more >>
BRAZIL: SHOWING THE WORLD HOW TO END HUNGER
by Andrew MacMillan
NOVEMBER 2009 (IPS) - It is scandalous that in a world of ample food supplies, over one billion people face constant hunger -and the number is still rising. What makes matters worse is that we know how to end hunger, and yet few governments are doing so, writes Andrew MacMillan, a rural economist and former Director of the Field Operations Divison of FAO.
more >>
PRIVATISATION IS THE ENEMY OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
by Vandana Shiva
AUGUST 2009 (IPS) - The privatisation of the earth's resources is a recipe for famine and desertification, violence against women, hunger, and, as happens in India, the suicide of farmers, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment.
more >>
WHAT WE NEED IS A CLIMATE BAILOUT
by Maurice Strong
GROWING A GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY
by Mark Sommer
MISGUIDED PHILANTHROPY CANNOT FEED AFRICA
by Anuradha Mittal
AFRICA COULD LOSE BIG IN ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS WITH EU
by Aileen Kwa
ECO-AGRICULTURE CAN FEED WORLD, WHILE HEALING EARTH
by Lim Li Ching
THE POSSIBLE AMAZON
by Marina Silva
BIOFUELS AND FOOD SECURITY: CONFLICT OR COMPLEMENTARITY?
by Ignacy Sachs
INDIA: AS THE ECONOMY GROWS, SO DOES HUNGER
by Anuradha Mittal
CLIMATE CHANGE: WE NEED A PROACTIVE MEDIA
by Mario Lubetkin
BIOFUELS AND CLIMATE CHANGE: A CURE THAT MAKES THE DISEASE WORSE
by Vandana Shiva
The contents of this news coverage, including any funded by the European Union, are the sole responsibility of IPS and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

U.N. Lagging on Water and Sanitation Development Goals
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations stands accused of marginalising water and sanitation in its much-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at improving the lives of billions of people in the developing world.
MORE >>
 

500,000 Pregnant Women at Risk in Pakistan Floods
By Aprille Muscara
UNITED NATIONS - Aid groups and U.N. agencies are raising the alarm over the vulnerability of pregnant women and babies in flood ravaged Pakistan.
MORE >>
 

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Portugal's Forests Losing Ability to Capture Carbon
By Mario de Queiroz
GERÊS, Portugal - Environmentalists are alarmed: fires have destroyed close to 100,000 hectares of forest in Portugal this summer, releasing one million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Worst of all, the forests are losing their ability to absorb carbon.
MORE >>
 

EUROPE-ENVIRONMENT
Hot Air Rises at Talks and in Towns
By Julio Godoy
PARIS - The European Union (EU) is failing to fulfil its environmental commitments in practically all areas, from protecting biodiversity to improving air quality in the cities, according to official studies released this month.
MORE >>
 

CHILE
Coal Plants Under Fire
By Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO - Controversial plans to build the Barrancones thermoelectric plant near a protected area in the northern Chilean region of Coquimbo were cancelled Friday, but not before reviving the debate on other projects for polluting coal-fired power stations.
MORE >>
 

ENERGY
Is Fracking Even Worse Than Drilling?
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - With cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico barely underway, energy companies are already assuming a crouching stance in anticipation of a no-holds-barred attack by environmentalists on what the industry says is the next major breakthrough in natural resource extraction.
MORE >>
 

Climate-related Security Predictions Coming True in Pakistan
By Matthew O. Berger
WASHINGTON - Analysts have been warning for several years that the impacts of climate change directly relate to the national security of the U.S. and other countries, but the link has never been so clear as it is today in northwest Pakistan.
MORE >>
 

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ENVIRONMENT-RUSSIA
Threat To Polar Bears Worries Russian Experts
By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW - - Environmental experts in Russia have warned that unless urgent steps are taken internationally, climatic changes combined with man-made factors could reduce the world's population of polar bears by as much as 70 percent by 2060.
MORE >>
 

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ECONOMY
"Sub-Saharan Africa Is Speeding Towards Affluence"
By Julio Godoy
PARIS - Africa is heading towards a bright economic future, according to a new book co-authored by the former director of the French state agency for economic cooperation and released recently in Paris.
MORE >>
 

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SOUTH AFRICA
Climate Change Policy Ignores Women Farmers
By Kristin Palitza
CAPE TOWN - When asked if they have already felt the effects of climate change, Mary-Anne Zimri and Katrina Scheepers eagerly nod their heads. The two small-scale farmers say lack of rain this winter has foiled their planting season, ruined their harvest – and drastically slashed their income.
MORE >>
 

Civil Society Watchdogs Crucial in New Global Order
By Beatrice Paez
MONTREAL, Canada - Six hundred delegates from more than 80 countries flocked to Montreal Aug. 20-23 for the CIVICUS World Assembly in search of innovative ways to approach global challenges like poverty and climate change.
MORE >>
 

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ENERGY
Brazilian Biofuels Run into EU Obstacles
By Yans Felippe Geckler*
RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil has begun a counterattack on the European Union's measures for certifying crop-based fuels, which could lead to import barriers for this energy source coming from the South American giant.
MORE >>
 

U.N. Steps Up Pressure to Raise Funds for Pakistan
By Megan Iacobini de Fazio and Matthew Berger*
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. General Assembly met Thursday to express the world community's solidarity with the people of Pakistan and to urge member states to step up their aid commitment to the flood stricken country.
MORE >>
 

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U.N. Decade Hopes to Push Back Encroaching Deserts
By Megan Iacobini de Fazio
UNITED NATIONS - Desertification has long been recognised as a major environmental, economic and social problem for countries the world over. But despite major efforts, which started with the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNOCD) in 1977, the process of land degradation is intensifying.
MORE >>
 

MEXICO
Road Construction Runs Counter to Climate Efforts
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY - Every morning, Mexican biologist Luis Zambrano walks with his daughter to her school, less than a kilometre from his house, in the Magdalena Contreras district, located in the southwest of the Mexican capital.
MORE >>
 

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CLIMATE CHANGE
Cancún Conference Holds Out Little Hope in Face of Extreme Weather
By Julio Godoy*
BONN - Unusually warm temperatures and more frequent and intense droughts and hurricanes... you have seen the headlines. As options dwindle for negotiating a global pact to fight climate change, the United Nations is pointing to today's "extreme conditions."
MORE >>
 

460 Million Dollars Sought for Pakistan Flood Relief
By Aprille Muscara
UNITED NATIONS - With an estimated 14 to 16 million people affected by what the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) calls "the worst monsoon-related floods in living memory", the U.N. launched a humanitarian flash appeal Wednesday seeking 459.7 million dollars for relief efforts in Pakistan.
MORE >>
 

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Russia's Agony a "Wake-Up Call" to the World
By Stephen Leahy
VIENNA - A wind turbine on an acre of northern Iowa farmland could generate 300,000 dollars worth of greenhouse-gas-free electricity a year. Instead, the U.S. government pays out billions of dollars to subsidise grain for ethanol fuel that has little if any impact on global warming, according to Lester Brown.
MORE >>
 

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EAST AFRICA
Deadly Cactus Good for Animal Feed
By Isaiah Esipisu
LAIKIPIA and NAIROBI, Kenya - Joseph Ole Morijo is baffled by research findings that cactus plants can be used as animal fodder during drought. Not after he lost his entire herd of 152 goats and sheep to the said plant.
MORE >>
 

 

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