By Deepak Nayyar, South Centre* | IDN-InDepth NewsEssay
GENEVA (IDN) – The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) began life a decade ago. There were three dimensions to the significance of the MDGs. It was an explicit recognition of the reality that a large proportion of people in the world were deprived and poor.
By Richard Johnson | IDN-InDepth NewsReport
LONDON (IDN) – The world is not on track to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, says the World Energy Outlook Special Report, Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map, urging governments to swiftly enact four energy policies that would keep climate goals alive without harming economic growth.
“Climate change has quite frankly slipped to the back burner of policy priorities. But the problem is not going away – quite the opposite,” said the International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven launching the report in London on June 10.
By R. Nastranis | IDN-InDepth NewsReport
BERLIN / MONTEVIDEO (IDN) – All that glitters is not gold would appear to be the core of critique the Social Watch, a network of civil society organizations in over 80 countries, has launched against the United Nations High Level Panel’s suggestions of new development goals to replace the MDGs.
In a document titled ‘A New Global Partnership’ the panel claims that, in preparing it, it “heard voices (…) from over 5000 civil society organizations working in about 120 countries” and “also consulted the chief executive officers of 250 companies in 30 countries, with annual revenues exceeding $8 trillion”.
By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
BERLIN (IDN) – A modern-day Damocles’ sword is hanging over 49 of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable courtiers spanning across Asia-Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. Unless the U.S. and the 27-nation European Union change their minds, the least developed countries (LDCs) will be forced to abide by the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) – much to their detriment.
By Stephen Leahy* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
UXBRIDGE (IDN) – Around the world scientists are not sleeping well. They toss and turn knowing humanity is destroying the Earth’s ability to support mankind. The science is crystal clear and all of us ‘ought to be shaking in our boots’, Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme told me last year.
But hardly any of us are shaking in our boots. Why is that?
The most extensive survey about the scientific consensus that humanity is causing global warming was published on May 16, 2013 in Environmental Research Letters (ERL). Researchers looked at 12,000 scientific articles published between 1991 and 2011 on the subject and found that 97.1% of these agreed global warming is primarily caused by human activities.
By R. Nastranis | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
BERLIN (IDN) – While scientists and environmentalists watch the Arctic as a bellwether of global climate change, and nations and corporations seek to exploit its oil, gas and mineral reserves as well as new shipping routes, rapid and even abrupt changes occurring on multiple fronts across the polar region are threatening to cause irreversible impact on ecosystems and societies, according to experts.
By Harold Hongju Koh* | IDN-InDepth NewsEssay
OXFORD (IDN | Yale Global) – From both the left and the right, three common misperceptions have emerged about US foreign policy: First, that the Global War on Terror has become a perpetual state of affairs; second, that no strategy is available to end this conflict in the near future; and third, that “the Obama approach to that conflict is just like the Bush approach.” I disagree with all three propositions.
First and most important, the overriding goal should be to end this Forever War, not engage in a perpetual “global war on terror,” without geographic or temporal limits.
By Jutta Wolf | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
BERLIN (IDN) – The growing intensity, frequency and duration of droughts worldwide is a source of acute anxiety to secretariat of UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which was agreed in the aftermath of the severe drought in the Sahel in the 1970s and 1980s and continues to be key to global efforts to combat desertification.
Together with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UNCCD therefore organised a High-level Meeting on National Drought Policy in Geneva, Switzerland, to impress on stakeholders that they urgently need to take action.
By Ernest Corea* | IDN-InDepth NewAnalysis
WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – “We don’t do dynasties,” a Canadian friend said quite huffily, when asked about the likelihood of Justin Trudeau, the son of the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and Margaret Trudeau, being voted into office as the country’s next prime minister.
By Jen Alic of Oilprice.com* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – The US intelligence community is in a state of disarray – most recently illustrated by the Boston Marathon Bombings – and the idea of a more structured cooperation with Russian intelligence as a direct result of this incident is a paper tiger.
The mainstream US media has latched on to the idea of a new era of US-Russian intelligence cooperation as a result of the Chechen connection to the Boston bombing because this is an attractive post-Cold War idea that makes for good headlines.
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