Climate Action

A Resilient and Sustainable Future Needs Asia-Pacific Response to COVID-19 and Climate Emergency

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The writer is Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) – The unprecedented public health emergency triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and its multi-faceted impact on people's lives around the world is taking a heavy toll on Asia and the Pacific.

Countries in our region are striving to mitigate the massive socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, which is also expected to affect the region's economic health. In its annual Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2020 launched on May 8, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) expects growth in Asia-Pacific developing economies to slow down significantly this year.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 08 April 2020

Photo: A new hybrid car model. Credit: Volkswagen.

Hybrid Cars and the Myth of Zero-Emission Driving

By J W Jackie

RENO, Nevada, USA (IDN) – Emissions from the new generation of hybrid cars are 31 percent higher than those from the previous generation. While the demand for larger vehicles appears to be the driving force, this discrepancy is part of a larger problem that the most eco-conscious hybrid owners are acutely aware of: that hybrids aren't as eco-friendly as they thought. Hybrid carmakers are under fire for giving buyers a wrong impression of their cars' emission-reduction capabilities.

: Admin; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 26 March 2020

Photo: An unusually early and exceptionally intense heatwave has set new temperature records in Europe, posing a major threat to people's health, agriculture and the environment. Credit: WMO Video screen shot.

New UN Report Warns of Adverse Impacts of Climate Change

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – A new UN study has warned of accelerating climate change on land, sea and in the atmosphere. Compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), parented by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the report documents impacts of weather and climate events on socio-economic development, human health, migration and displacement, food security and land and marine ecosystems.

: Jaya Ramachandran; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 22 March 2020

Photo: A passenger walks through an emptied check-in area at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, Japan, March 19, 2020. Foreign visitors to Japan have plunged by 58% since the coronavirus outbreak. Credit: EPA-EFE/Franck Robichon

The World's Response to COVID-19 Has Slashed CO2 Emissions

Viewpoint by Simone Abram*

DURHAM, UK (IDN) – How do you respond to a crisis? It's obvious that the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been dramatically different to anything provoked by repeated scientific warnings about climate change. The many organisations that declared climate emergencies throughout 2019 and 2020 have so far enacted nothing like the scale and speed of action to limit the spread of coronavirus.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 21 March 2020

Photo: Yosemite National Park in California, one of the first protected areas in the United States. Trump's climate change denial, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and sponsorship of the fossil fuel industry pose the greatest threats to human society and the biosphere. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Our Addiction to Fossil Fuels Can Kill Us

Viewpoint by John Scales Avery*

COPENHAGEN (IDN) – The Industrial Revolution marked the start of a massive human use of fossil fuels. The stored energy from several hundred years of plant growth began to be used at roughly a million times the rate at which it had been formed. The effect on human society was like that of a narcotic. There was a euphotic (and totally unsustainable) surge of growth of both population and industrial production.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 14 March 2020

Photo: Jardim Constantino in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Credit: UN News/Ana Carmo.

From Coronavirus to Climate and Gender Equality

By J Nastranis with UN News in Brief

NEW YORK (IDN)— As the coronavirus continues to spread globally, the UN's top human rights official Michelle Bachelet appealed on March 6 to countries and businesses to put rights "front and centre" to protect their most vulnerable citizens. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that although the virus would likely have an impact on greenhouse gas emissions because of the expected global economic slowdown, it was too soon to say how great that impact might be.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 10 March 2020

COP26 Will Be the Litmus Test of The Paris Agreement

COP25 Ignored Demands for Climate Justice

Viewpoint by Mary Church*

EDINBURGH (IDN) – The outcomes of the longest ever meeting in the history of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – the COP25 negotiations in Madrid – have failed to reflect the urgency of the crisis or any grasp of the real solutions to the climate emergency.

Rather, governments around the world continued to ignore both the undeniable science and the rising tide of peoples’ movements demanding radical action on climate.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 11 February 2020

Photo: Australian bushfires: Source: East Asia Forum.

Australia’s Exceptional Vulnerability to Climate Change

Viewpoint by Andrew Walter*

MELBOURNE (IDN) -- The bushfires now ravaging Australia’s flora, fauna and rural communities on an unprecedented scale underline the country’s exceptional vulnerability to global heating and its strong interest in global climate change mitigation and adaptation. Decarbonisation should be taken as an economic opportunity and it could elevate Australia’s leading role in Asia for years to come.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 10 February 2020

Photo: People's Climate March 2017 in Washington DC. CC BY-SA 4.0

Climate Change Means Lifestyle Change

Viewpoint by John Scales Avery *

COPENHAGEN (IDN) – I would like to announce the publication of a book, which deals with the world's failure to adequately address the existential danger of catastrophic climate change. The book consists mainly of book chapters and articles that I have previously published, although a considerable amount of new material has been added. It can be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Climate-Change-Means-Lifestyle-Change-John-Scales-Avery.pdf

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 06 February 2020

Photo: The session on climate emergency at Jaipur Literature Festival. (L to R Ms. Renata Dessallien, resident coordinator of UN in India; Ms. Namita Waikar, managing editor of online journal PARI; Ms. Shubhangi Swarup, writer and filmmaker; Ms. Dia Mirza, Actress and UN Advocate for Sustainable Development. Credit: UN India/Yangerla Jamir.

UN Avails of Famed Literature Festival to Achieve Global Goals

By Devinder Kumar

JAPIPUR (IDN) – As part of a Decade of Action for accelerating sustainable solutions to all the world’s biggest challenges — ranging from poverty and gender to climate change, inequality and closing the finance gap – the United Nations availed of a new tool end of January: the world’s largest literature festival in India’s eminent ‘pink city’ of Jaipur, the capital of the scenic, almost magical Indian state of Rajasthan. It is known as the Pink City due to the colour of the stone used for many of its glorious palaces and historic monuments.