UNITED NATIONS, November 21 (IPS) - The 193-member General Assembly (GA), the UN’s highest policy-making body, has long been the repository for scores of long-winded outdated resolutions accumulated over several decades– and lying in cold storage.
WASHINGTON, D.C & SRINAGAR, November 21 (IPS) - A new independent evaluation of the Global Environment Facility’s food systems programs says they are delivering strong environmental and livelihood gains in many countries but warns that a narrow focus on farm production, weak political analysis, and shrinking coordination budgets are holding back deeper transformation.
BELÉM, Brazil, November 21 (IPS) - Jyoti Kumari missed her online classes again today. Her father, a vegetable seller in West Delhi’s vegetable market, had to go to work, taking with him the only smartphone the family uses. Kumari has been taking online classes since November 11, when the state government declared a shutdown of all elementary schools due to air pollution hitting the “severe” category.
BELÉM, Brazil, November 20 (IPS) - The oceans are a fundamental part of Earth’s climate system, regulating it by absorbing and storing vast amounts of solar heat, redistributing that heat around the globe through currents, and absorbing a significant portion of human-caused carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions—yet scientific research into them remains underfunded.
Read the full story, “‘Future Shaped by Ocean-Based Innovations Within Reach’”, on globalissues.org →
SANTIAGO, November 20 (IPS) - Climate change is no longer a future threat; it is a reality that is reshaping agrifood systems and compromising global food security. Its impacts are evident in both the quantity and quality of food, affecting agricultural yields, water availability, pest emergence, disease spread, and fundamental processes such as pollination. Even changes in atmospheric CO₂ concentration are altering crop biomass and nutritional value.
Read the full story, “COP30: Urgent Financing to Transform Agrifood Systems”, on globalissues.org →
BELÉM, Brazil, November 20 (IPS) - Just 30 minutes from where the UN climate negotiations are unfolding in the port city of Belém, Afro-descendant communities are engaged in a fierce struggle for the full recognition and legal titling of their ancestral territories—critical as their security and livelihoods are compromised by businesses wanting to set up contaminating landfill sites and drug cartels.
BELÉM, Brazil, November 20 (IPS) - Around the world, the climate crisis is fast becoming the biggest public-health threat of the century. Extreme heat now kills more Europeans than any other natural disaster. Floods in Asia displace millions and contaminate water supplies. Mosquito-borne diseases once confined to the tropics are appearing in southern Europe and the United States.