By Damian Carrington and Sarah Boseley22 June 2015 (The Guardian) – Climate change threatens to undermine half a century of progress in global health, according to a major new report [Policy Responses to Protect Public Health; pdf]. But the analysis also concludes that the benefits to health resulting from slashing fossil fuel use are so […]
GENEVA, June 18 (UNHCR) – Wars, conflict, and persecution have forced more people than at any other time since records began to flee their homes and seek refuge and safety elsewhere, according to a new report from the UN refugee agency. UNHCR’s annual Global Trends Report: World at War [pdf], released on Thursday (June 18), […]
By Jon Queally11 June 2015 (Common Dreams) – As ten days of UN-sponsored climate talks came to end in Bonn, Germany on Thursday morning, global campaigners demanding far-reaching solutions to the crisis of a warming planet expressed dissatisfaction on multiple levels, charging that the continued foot-dragging of governments is sentencing future generations to unparalleled catastrophe […]
By Lucy Westcott 11 May 2015 (Newsweek) – Afghanistan has the equivalent of 400,000 football fields of opium fields, despite significant efforts and money spent by the United States on curbing the development of the country’s drug supply. The country’s enormous drug reserve is one of several issues holding back the U.S.’s Afghanistan reconstruction efforts, […]
By Carol Glatz29 April 2015 (Catholic Herald) – Dealing with climate change will take more than just global policies and agreements, it will also take a unified stance from the world’s religions, the secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) said at the Vatican. To have development without destruction and “to transform our economies, however, we […]
20 March 2015 (UNESCO) – Any consideration of the quality and quantity of available water supplies in the region must examine groundwater, which is critical to several economic sectors. Experts estimate that groundwater irrigation contributes US$10 to US$12 billion per year to the Asian economy. When also including earnings from groundwater sales for irrigation, that […]
7 May 2015 (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s top business advisor on Friday claimed climate change was a ruse encouraged by the United Nations to create a new authoritarian world order under its control. Maurice Newman, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, said the real agenda was “concentrated political authority. Global […]
By Chelsea Harvey4 May 2015 (Washington Post) – When it comes to combating climate change, many scientists and policy makers focus on one major goal: cut carbon emissions enough to keep the planet’s average surface temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above its pre-industrial level. But a new analysis [pdf], published on Monday […]
By Magdalena Mis; Editing by Tim Pearce 22 April 2015 LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – More than 100,000 people in Vanuatu have no clean drinking water, a month after a monster cyclone struck the tiny Pacific nation, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday. Two thirds of the archipelago’s water and sanitation infrastructure […]
25 March 2015 (Associated Press) – Despite mounting protests, Japan continues to finance the building of coal-fired power plants with money earmarked for fighting climate change, with two new projects underway in India and Bangladesh, The Associated Press has found. Japan had counted $1 billion in loans for coal plants in Indonesia as climate finance, […]
