By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 5 December 2023 (IDN) — Diplomats from nearly 200 countries celebrated with cheers and applause at the opening of the UN Climate Conference in Dubai, where a disaster fund to help vulnerable nations cope with the impact of drought, floods and rising seawater was announced. The […]
Climate Crisis Fuels Child Marriages, FGM in East and Southern Africa
By Kizito Makoye DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania | 3 December 2023 (IDN) — At 15, Sarah* was entangled in an early marriage that would change her life forever. The drought spells in Kotulogh village in Kenya’s West Pokot country had pushed many pastoralist families to the brink of survival. Sarah’s mother, desperate for money to […]
African Countries Lagging on Climate Justice, Rights Groups Say
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 29 November 2023 (IDN) — Rising sea levels, droughts and floods have exposed some of the failures of African countries to prioritize human rights and climate justice, resulting in negative outcomes for vulnerable communities. That was the view of Amnesty International, one of several groups monitoring […]
Climate Change Is ‘The Wolf in The House’, US Weather Expert Warns
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 28 November 2023 (IDN) — The phrase “climate change” has slipped quietly but firmly into our popular vernacular. It pops up around the clock, in the news, in school and church, on the street, and in speeches by politicians running for office. According to scientists, climate […]
COP28: Global Faith Leaders Concerned About Grave Challenges
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | 26 November 2023 (IDN) — In the lead-up to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) that will take place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December, the Global Faith Leaders Summit has warned that we “stand at the precipice of history, considering the gravity of the challenges” ahead, and […]
Activists Confront Uganda Over Oil Pipeline Financed by China
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 6 November 2023 (IDN) — As the world tightens its belt to use less dirty oil and more solar and other clean energies, one country on the African continent is moving full speed ahead in the opposite direction. Uganda recently signed on to one of the […]
Climate Change Threatens to Reverse Health Gains
By Jaya Ramachandran GENEVA | 2 November 2023 (IDN) — A new multi-agency report coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned that as the world warms at a faster rate than at any point in recorded history, climate change is threatening to reverse decades of progress towards better health and well-being, particularly in […]
Look Again at That Dot—That is us
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 24 October 2023 (IDN) — “Suppose aliens existed and that some had been watching our planet for its entire forty-five million centuries; what would they have seen? Over most of that vast timespan, Earth’s appearance altered very gradually. Continents drifted; ice-cover waxed and waned; successive species emerged, evolved, and […]
Respect Laws of Nature by Moving to a Circular Economy
By Sameepa Rajapakse* COLOMBO. 19 September 2023 (IDN) — Against the backdrop of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 18-19 September, it would be an appropriate time for us to focus on moving to a circular economy that respects laws of nature. While poverty and hunger […]
UN Chief Wants $500 Billion Annual Development Fund, Financial Reforms
By Arul Louis* UNITED NATIONS. 18 September 2023 (IDN) — UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday renewed his call for the reform of the “outdated, dysfunctional and unfair” World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and for a $500 billion stimulus fund for the world organisation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Speaking at the opening […]