By CORAL DAVENPORT30 November 2014 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – After more than two decades trying but failing to forge a global pact to halt climate change, United Nations negotiators gathering in South America this week are expressing a new optimism that they may finally achieve the elusive deal. But underlying that optimism is […]
By Doyle Rice10 November 2014 (USA TODAY) – In the battle to combat global warming, the world isn’t moving fast enough to stay in the fight. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — which releases a new report every few years — again gave grim news last week as emissions rose 2.3% […]
By Joaquim Moreira Salles 10 November 2014 (Climate Progress) – The Eleventh Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) has extended protections to scores of migratory birds, fish and mammals. Over 100 countries came together in Quito, Ecuador for a week […]
By Reissa Su21 November 2014 (IBT) – Australia will be facing drought as soon as the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts a 70 percent chance of El Niño in the Pacific Ocean. By summer’s end, Australians will see less rainfall as temperatures rise due to warmer weather. The weather bureau has revised its El Niño forecast […]
(UNODC) – Trend in main indicators of drug supply and drug supply reduction, 2003-2013. Seizure data: annual report questionnaire supplemented by other official sources. Cultivation data: UNODC estimates based on national illicit crop monitoring systems supported by UNODC supplemented by other official data. a Including amphetamine, ecstasy-type substances, methamphetamine, non-specified ATS, other stimulants and prescription […]
By Joby Warrick and Steven Mufson 21 September 2014 (Washington Post) – For 140 years, the Rockefellers were the oil industry’s first family, scions of a business empire that spawned companies called Exxon, Mobil, Amoco, and Chevron. So it was no trivial matter when a group of Rockefeller heirs decided recently to begin severing financial […]
By Jeremy Schulman23 September 2014 (Mother Jones) – Presidents and diplomats aren’t the only ones calling for climate action at the United Nations. During the opening ceremony of today’s climate summit, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner—a 26-year-old poet from the Marshall Islands—spoke eloquently about the threat that rising seas pose to her country. Jetnil-Kijiner warned delegates of the […]
By Suzanne Goldenberg20 September 2014 (theguardian.com) – Barack Obama will not be pledging any cash to a near-empty fund for poor countries at a United Nations summit on climate change next week, the UN special climate change envoy said on Friday. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has challenged the 125 world leaders attending the […]
By Felicity Nelson 20 September 2014 (Science Alert) – For over a decade, experts worldwide have assumed that population growth would level off by 2050, reaching approximately 9 billion. Now, new projections have turned that analysis on its head. The population analysis, published in Science this week, was conducted by demographer Patrick Gerland from the […]
15 September 2014By Amy Remeikis (Brisbane Times) – It’s the 35-year plan designed to stave off UNESCO’s “in danger” rating and save the reef, but conservationists are already doubting it will work. Queensland Environment Minister Andrew Powell announced the Reef 2050 plan on Monday while the government was in Yeppoon for community cabinet. The plan, […]