18 December 2015, News Hour, More than 16 million babies born into conflict in 2015, says, UNICEF. More than 16 million babies were born in conflict zones in 2015 – 1 in 8 of all births worldwide this year – UNICEF said on 17th December 2015, a figure that underscores the vulnerability faced by increasing numbers of children. “Every two seconds, a newborn takes its first breath in the midst of conflict, often in terrifying circumstances and without access to medical care,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. “Too many children are now starting their lives in extreme circumstances – from conflict to natural disasters, poverty, disease or malnutrition. Can there be a worse start in life?” Read More here
Category Archives: Security & Conflict
15 December 2015, New Internationalist, COP21 agreed to a climate-changed world. ….. The scaffold on which the entire COP21 hung was the infamous intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs). While the COP itself notes that the figures submitted by countries do not on the aggregate point a way to cooling the planet, it nevertheless stayed the cause of this clearly wrong path. The INDCs, if implemented, will lead to a temperature increase of over 3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, wiping out communities of people and sparking unpredictable repercussions. The Agreement recognizes that INDCs will also be achieved through removal of greenhouse gases – through sinks and offsets, for example. Thus, the path of the INDCs taken by the COP is an irredeemable self-inflicted injury that subverts real efforts to tackle the climate menace. Applauding the COP for being a success because for the first time all nations have indicated commitment to tackle climate change on the basis of the INDCs indicates a total disregard of climate science and equity as epitomized by this pathway. Read more here
14 December 2015, The Guardian, Pentagon to lose emissions exemption under Paris climate deal. Armed forces around the world – including US military – will no longer be automatically excluded from including their carbon emissions under national reductions targets. The US military and armed forces of countries around the world will no longer be automatically exempted from emissions-cutting obligations under the UN Paris climate deal, the Guardian has learned. Although the US never ratified the Kyoto protocol, it won an opt-out from having to fully report or act on its armed forces’ greenhouse gas emissions, which was then double-locked by a House national defence authorisation bill in 1999. Under the Paris agreement, countries would not be obliged to cut their military emissions but, equally, there would be no automatic exemption for them either. US officials privately say that the deal adopted on Saturday has no provisions covering military compliance one way or another, leaving decisions up to nation states as to which national sectors should make emissions cuts before 2030. Read More here
7 December 2015, Huffington Post, Will Climate Change Break the Global Food System? Extreme weather events scuttling harvests. Skyrocketing food prices causing famine for millions and driving multitudes into poverty. Governments toppling – again – in Pakistan and Ukraine. Massive floods driving millions of refugees from their homes in Bangladesh and putting pressure on neighboring India. Droughts devastating harvests in traditional bread baskets like the U.S. and Brazil. The E.U., in a panicked move, suspending its environmental rules for agriculture and instituting a tax on meat. The world’s top greenhouse gas emitters ultimately banding together to raise a global carbon tax.The events described above are not the real world, but they could be. They were part of what transpired at Food Chain Reaction a few weeks ago, a high-level crisis simulation in Washington, DC that brought together 65 international leaders to explore how climate change may strain the world’s food system from 2020 to 2030. What the simulation taught us, is that policymakers attending this week’s U.N. climate summit in Paris cannot afford to neglect food security. The world’s population is on a path to 9.5 billion by mid-century. That means we will have to grow up to 70 percent more food. To make matters more complicated, we’ll have to do so in a changing climate that alters the very way we grow our crops. We must figure out how we can make that happen within the limits of the Earth’s natural resources. We’ve talked long enough. It is time to decide on a course of action that will actually improve the situation. Read more here