Climate Action

Countries Around the World Are Still Ill-Prepared to Deal with Multiple Overlapping Crises

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) — Over the past two decades, the Asia-Pacific region has made remarkable progress in managing disaster risk. But countries can never let down their guard. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its epicentre now in Asia, and all its tragic consequences, has exposed the frailties of human societies in the face of powerful natural forces. As of mid-August 2021, Asian and Pacific countries had reported 65 million confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 1 million deaths.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 25 August 2021

Top Photo: San Jose, Batangas (22 January 2020) —An evacuation centre in San Jose, Batangas where over 700 families are staying due to the continued eruption of Taal Volcano. The Philippines is one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries. Photo credit: OCHA/P. Peron

The Human Race Against the Climate Crisis Clock

By Kirsten Mildren

The writer is Head of Campaigns & Advocacy, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

NEW YORK (IDN) — On 19 August 2003, a bomb attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, killed 22 humanitarian aid workers, including the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Five years later, the General Assembly adopted a resolution designating 19 August as World Humanitarian Day.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 21 August 2021

Image: Three of the major groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean: Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Australia and New Zealand React To IPCC Report Warning With Rhetoric Rather Than Action

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) — The most comprehensive report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a dire warning to countries in the Pacific region where rising sea levels and increasing temperatures could wipe out island nations and make dry habitats uninhabitable. But the two major powers in the region—Australia and New Zealand—have reacted to the report with defensive rhetoric rather than moving to implement immediate action to save the region.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 12 August 2021

Image credit: IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

Code Red for Humanity — Imminent Risk of Hitting 1.5 degrees C

By António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

NEW YORK (IDN) — Today’s IPCC Working Group 1 Report is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible.

The internationally agreed threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius is perilously close.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 09 August 2021

Photo: Ms. Shefali Ghosh from Savar, near Dhaka, teaches her daugher in the kitchen. Credit: The World Bank

Affordable Clean Cooking Technology Important To Achieving Sustainable Energy Access

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) — In the Asia-Pacific region which is home to about 60 percent of the global population, some 1.6 billion people primarily rely on open fires or simple stoves fueled by kerosene, coal, or biomass such as wood, dung and agricultural residues for their daily cooking needs, that impacts on climatic change and health hazards.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; SUSTAINABILITY; Affordable Clean Energy; 07 August 2021

Photo: Alfredo Ravelo's painting superimposed on a burning forest from The Conversation.

The Climate Crisis: Where our Capacity for Cognition, Collaboration, Creativity and Chronology Collide

Viewpoint by Bill Dahl*

This is the fourth in a series of four articles. Click here for the third in the series.

QUERETARO, Mexico (IDN) — In my last piece, we touched on the third critical challenge regarding the climate crisis; creativity. In the first piece in this series we addressed the first challenge; cognition. In the third article, we explored the third obstacle to mounting a successful strategy to address the climate crisis; creativity. In this, the final piece in this series, we explore the intersection where all three crises (cognition, collaboration and creativity) collide with chronology—C-5.

: Opinion Editor; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 07 August 2021

Photo: A farmer in Niger tends to his nursery. Researchers say such community-led efforts will be key to completing the Great Green Wall. David Rose/Panos Pictures

‘Green Wall’ in Senegal Aims to Slow Desertification and Feed People

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — Edible, circular gardens are part of a bigger project to bring a belt of green across the continent of Africa.

“Tolou Keur”—circular gardens resistant to drought—are part of Africa’s Great Green Wall project. The project calls for planting papaya and mango trees and a variety of plants across 5,000 miles, from Senegal to Djibouti.

: SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 02 August 2021

Photo: Petteri Taalas, the head of the World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations specialized agency based in Geneva, speaking at the Conference of State Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 10, 2019. WMO

Doubts Whether the World Meteorological Organization Will be Reformed

Viewpoint by Maurizio Guerrero* Passblue

NEW YORK (IDN) — Back in June 2019, the World Meteorological Organization embarked on an ambitious effort to streamline its internal operations, cut expenses by two percent and realign the organization with “21st-century realities, priorities and dynamics.”

: Opinion Editor; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 31 July 2021

Photo: Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) on the north flank of Mauna Loa Volcano, on the Big Island of Hawaii. The observatory is a premier atmospheric research facility that has been continuously monitoring and collecting data related to atmospheric change since the 1950's. Source: Global Monitoring Laboratory.

Transformational Change Alone Can Halt Impending Climate Catastrophe

Viewpoint by John Scales Avery*

COPENHAGEN (IDN) — Measurements of the carbon dioxide content of the earth's atmosphere as a function of time have been made ever since 1958 at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. The resulting graph is called the “Keeling Curve”, in honor of Charles David Keeling, who started the monitoring and continued it until his death in 2005.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 23 July 2021

Honduras Granted USD20 Million OPEC Fund Loan to Help Improve Climate Resilience of Rural Communities

By Reinhard Jacobsen

VIENNA (IDN) — The OPEC Fund for International Development has signed a US$20 million loan agreement with Honduras to co-finance the 'Northeastern Small Producers' Economic and Social Inclusion Project—PROINORTE'. The importance of the project lies in the fact that the Central American nation's economy is primarily agricultural, making it especially vulnerable to natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch in 1998.