UN Ocean Conference ends with promises
1/7/2022: The UN Oceans Conference has concluded discussions focused on achieving Sustainable Development Goal 14. While participants made hundreds of conservation commitments, experts say that there is still a lot of work to be done to provide a legal framework for protecting 30% of international waters.
Source: Mongabay
Greenpeace protest at failure of UN Ocean Conference
30/6/2022: Final negotiations for a Global Ocean Treaty to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 will take place in August 2022. Greenpeace activists have protested at the lack of progress at the preparatory Lisbon conference recently concluded.
Source: Greenpeace International
Campaigners call on Guterres to rescue biodiversity agenda
27/6/2022: The last preparatory meeting before the December UN biodiversity conference has ended with virtually no progress being made. Eight conservation groups have urged UN chief António Guterres to convene political leaders to intervene.
Source: Climate Home News
China’s population is about to shrink
29/5/2022: After four extraordinary decades in which China’s population has swelled from 660 million to 1.4 billion, its population is on track to turn down this year, for the first time since the great famine of 1959-1961.
Source: The Conversation
Satellite data brings new insights on Amazon forest loss
30/5/2022: Satellite data can now tell the difference between forest fires and other forms of forest loss. Nevertheless, 2021 was the fourth consecutive year of rising deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
Source: Mongabay
Weather-related hazards trigger record global displacement
19/5/2022: Disasters continued to trigger most internal displacements globally, with 23.7 million recorded in 2021. Weather-related hazards accounted for 94 per cent of this total, many of which were evacuations in the face of cyclones and floods that struck densely populated areas of Asia and the Pacific region.
Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
Philippines inquiry finds oil majors accountable for human rights
6/5/2022: The Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines has issued the final report of its multi-year investigation into 47 investor-owned corporations. It finds the carbon majors liable for obfuscation of climate science and continued oil explorations for speculative purposes.
Source: Greenpeace International
The Mekong delta’s transboundary water problems
30/4/2022: The fragmentation of the Mekong River due to the construction of large-scale hydropower dams illustrates the inability of downstream states to shape the Mekong Agreement of 1995 into regional aims, rather than centred around national interests. The Mekong River is the lifeblood of countries in the region .
Source: East Asia Forum
DR Congo ready to auction oil blocks in tropical peatland
3/5/2022: The planned tender for new oil blocks in the Democratic Republic of Congo comes amid serious concerns over the government’s commitment to climate-friendly development. At least three of 16 oil blocks overlap with the world’s largest tropical peatland complex.
Source: Climate Home News
Freshwater planetary boundary oversteps the line
27/4/2022: Humanity’s modification of the water cycle has pushed the world further beyond a safe operating space for continued life on Earth, say scientists. Water is the sixth boundary to be transgressed, out of the nine identified by the Planetary Boundaries Framework, first published in 2009.
Source: Mongabay