UN fails to reach agreement to protect marine life
27/8/2022: Negotiations to establish a UN Ocean Treaty to protect biodiversity in two-thirds of the world’s oceanic areas have closed without agreement. Environmental campaigners expressed disappointment and blamed wealthy countries, including the US, for being too slow to compromise.
Source: The Guardian
Countries must step up efforts to protect freshwater sources
25/8/2022: As events marking World Water Week continue in Stockholm, countries are urged to do more to adapt to the cascading impacts of the climate crisis on freshwater ecosystems, with increasingly frequent and intense dry periods interspersed with floods and extreme precipitation.
Source: UN Environment Programme
Rainforest politics of the DRC oil auction
23/8/2022: The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has two main goals in selling oil blocks that overlap with the world’s second largest rainforest. Neither involves developing oil.
Source: African Arguments
Bleak picture for marine life without emissions cuts
25/8/2022: New research has found that nearly 90% of marine life would be at high or critical risk by 2100 if the world continues upon a high-emissions pathway. Poorer countries at lower latitudes, least equipped to adapt, are the ones that face the highest risk.
Source: Mongabay
UN negotiations to decide the fate of the oceans begin
15/8/2022: The final negotiations for a Global Ocean Treaty are in progress. To be considered a success, the meeting must pave the way for 30% of the oceans to be protected from destructive activities lby 2030.
Source: Greenpeace International
To end illegal fishing, we need transparency now
18/8/2022: Insufficient monitoring, loopholes, and weaknesses in China’s regulatory framework makes possible illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and human rights abuses on an industrial scale. Ocean ecosystems are heading toward total collapse.
Source: Devex
Ethiopia expands Renaissance Dam production
11/8/2022: Ethiopia has activated the second turbine of the Grand Renaissance Dam, even as Egypt protested that dispute resolutions relating to the dam remain pending. The dam on the Blue Nile should improve access to electricity in Ethiopia which is currently just under 45 percent.
Source: The East African
Rich countries fall $17bn short of 2020 climate finance goal
29/7/2022: Rich nations mobilised $83.3 billion of climate finance in 2020, a 4% increase on the previous year but short of their $100bn target. The bulk of the funding was in the form of loans rather than grants and went to Asian and middle income countries.
Source: Climate Home News
Are we inured to weather crises?
16/7/2022: We are so distracted by politics and crime that extreme climate events are passing us by with barely a whimper in the media. With each successive disaster in India, people lose their ability to cope and have no alternative but to migrate.
Source: Down to Earth
50,000 wild species meet needs of billions worldwide
8/7/2022: Billions of people benefit daily from the use of wild species for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation and inspiration. A new UN report finds that the accelerating global biodiversity crisis, with a million species of plants and animals facing extinction, threatens these contributions to well-being.
Source: IPBES