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A UN Environment Feature
NAIROBI (IDN) – The small Scottish seaside town of St Andrews is replete with a rich history which includes a castle and Scotland’s oldest university, founded in 1413.
In 1754, the town witnessed another first when The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews was established. Today, St Andrews is also the home of The R&A which governs the sport worldwide (apart from the United States and Mexico) and organizes The Open, golf’s oldest major championship.
By Delia Paul, IISD
FUNAFUTI, Tuvalu (IDN) – Pacific leaders sounded an urgent call to world leaders to maintain security in the Pacific region by seeking to limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels and meeting their global climate finance commitment of USD 100 billion per year by 2020.
The ‘Kainaki II Declaration,’ a document accompanying the formal communiqué from the meeting, puts forward a range of actions whereby the international community can step up actions to mitigate climate change and increase support for Pacific-led initiatives on resilience.
79-Nation ACP and UN's Food and Agriculture Organization Collaborate
By Jaya Ramachandran
NEW YORK (IDN) – Wrapping up the ministerial segment of the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on July 19, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) President Inga Rhonda King said the session had contributed significantly to advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. But she urged governments to "reinvent themselves” and be more agile in finding "ways to engage the poorest and most vulnerable in the decisions that impact on their lives”.
By Santo D. Banerjee
NEW YORK (IDN) – A new report finds that while the global community talks a lot about sustainability goals, it does not invest enough in implementing them. The industrialized countries play an ambivalent role in their implementation. On the one hand, they come closest to fulfilling the goals, but on the other, they obstruct by incurring environmental and economic costs for third countries due to high living standards and consumer preferences.
By Reinhard Jacobsen
BRUSSELS (IDN) – Ahead of the G20 Summit in Japan’s Osaka on June 28-29, the Brussels-based organisation of 79 developing countries, the ACP Group of States, called upon Heads of Government to take strong measures to end Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing – an issue at the core of marine ecosytems and ensuring food security.
This has a pride of place in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their entirety and SDG14 in particular, the international community pledged in September 2015 to achieve by 2030.
By Reinhard Jacobsen
BRUSSELS (IDN) – To bring "Asia and the Americas into closer bonds of friendship" with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and "strengthen South-South solidarity", Secretary-General Dr. P. I. Gomes is keen to "build bridges with India on technical cooperation" and initiate a "new partnership" with Peru. He was speaking at the 'ACP Day' celebrations.
Viewpoint by Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens
GENEVA (IDN) – June 8 has been designated by the United Nations General Assembly as the World Oceans Day to highlight the important role that the United Nations has played in creating the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Nevertheless there are maritime delimitation disputes that are currently dangerous and require good-faith negotiations to prevent increased tensions. World Citizens have played an important role in the Law of the Sea Conference (UNCLOS) negotiations and in the creation of the International Seabed Authority and its Tribunal on maritime deliberation issues.
Viewpoint by Michael Fishbach and Dr Palitha Kohona
"Like elephants on land, whales in their watery domain, have claimed our attention now for roughly the same reasons. Ancient, large and driven to the edge of extinction by human greed, we must double our efforts to conserve them," say the authors of this article. Michael Fishbach is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Great Whale Conservancy. Dr Palitha Kohona spent time in Antarctica in the last Antarctic summer.
Viewpoint by Michael W. Lodge and Vladimir Ryabinin
The following is a joint op-ed by Michael W. Lodge, Secretary-General of International Seabed Authority, and Vladimir Ryabinin, Executive Secretary of IOC-UNESCO.
KINGSTON, Jamaica (IDN) – There has never been a time of greater promise or greater challenge for the future of our oceans. This is the topic on everyone’s minds as the international community gathers in Copenhagen (May 13-15) for the first Global Planning Meeting for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030).
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK | PARIS (IDN) – UN biodiversity experts have warned in a hard-hitting report into the impact of humans on nature that "the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide" are being eroded. Current efforts to conserve the earth’s resources will likely fail without radical action, said Sir Robert Watson, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
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