Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Introducing ALDO LEOPOLD
Thursday, May 8, 2014
It is we, the people, who have to move this issue.
NEWS: How to win the argument on climate change – a five-point plan
[Translate]
A new paper by Simon Maxwell, Executive
Chair of CDKN, offers a five-point plan on how to win the public and policy
argument on climate change.
Maxwell argues that a plan
is necessary because climate change policy is contested, and – like all policy
– has winners and losers. The five points are:
1. Find a simple way to tell the story. The key is to simplify high-level scientific analysis and find a way to make personal, emotional connections, using images and stories as well as facts and figures.
2. Create a positive message on the transformational benefits of taking action. Actions can be taken to: avoid disasters; find new sources of growth in the green economy; exploit the potential of climate-induced changes in the world economy; find synergies and co-benefits from climate action, for example in terms of pollution or urban congestion. Emphasising the positive impacts, especially on poor people’s livelihoods, can create positive messages from these actions.
3. Craft a policy package that aids transition and helps losers. This requires careful analysis of winners and losers, and of the sequencing of reform; packages should then be designed to protect the welfare of those affected by policy. Progress towards reform can be fragile, though, and needs to be sustained.
4. Build a leadership group that will deliver a long-term consensus. Often, this can be done from parliament, for example via all-party parliamentary groups. Think tanks have an important part to play in building national policy communities and in forging consensus. There is also experience of climate-specific multi-stakeholder processes involving governments, the private sector and civil society.
5. Focus relentlessly on implementation. Good planning but poor implementation is the bane of government action worldwide. But new lessons are emerging on how to set high-level objectives, monitor progress over time and set up processes that break bottlenecks. These are beginning to be applied in the field of climate policy.
It may be that irreversible ‘tipping points’ are reached and that the overt management of change becomes unnecessary. It is good to be optimistic on this but, at the same time, be like Madeline Albright: an optimist who nevertheless worries a lot.
1. Find a simple way to tell the story. The key is to simplify high-level scientific analysis and find a way to make personal, emotional connections, using images and stories as well as facts and figures.
2. Create a positive message on the transformational benefits of taking action. Actions can be taken to: avoid disasters; find new sources of growth in the green economy; exploit the potential of climate-induced changes in the world economy; find synergies and co-benefits from climate action, for example in terms of pollution or urban congestion. Emphasising the positive impacts, especially on poor people’s livelihoods, can create positive messages from these actions.
3. Craft a policy package that aids transition and helps losers. This requires careful analysis of winners and losers, and of the sequencing of reform; packages should then be designed to protect the welfare of those affected by policy. Progress towards reform can be fragile, though, and needs to be sustained.
4. Build a leadership group that will deliver a long-term consensus. Often, this can be done from parliament, for example via all-party parliamentary groups. Think tanks have an important part to play in building national policy communities and in forging consensus. There is also experience of climate-specific multi-stakeholder processes involving governments, the private sector and civil society.
5. Focus relentlessly on implementation. Good planning but poor implementation is the bane of government action worldwide. But new lessons are emerging on how to set high-level objectives, monitor progress over time and set up processes that break bottlenecks. These are beginning to be applied in the field of climate policy.
It may be that irreversible ‘tipping points’ are reached and that the overt management of change becomes unnecessary. It is good to be optimistic on this but, at the same time, be like Madeline Albright: an optimist who nevertheless worries a lot.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Monday, April 14, 2014
U.N. Has to Cut Syria Food Rations for Lack of Donor Funds
Mon
Apr 7, 2014 11:02am EDT
* WFP rations cut by 20 percent due to
funding shortfall
* Only $1.1 billion of $2.3 billion
pledged to U.N. received
* Nearly half of all Syrians now displaced by conflict
By Stephanie Nebehay
* Nearly half of all Syrians now displaced by conflict
GENEVA, April 7 (Reuters) - The United Nations has
been forced to cut the size of food parcels for those left hungry by Syria's
civil war by a fifth because of a shortage of funds from donors, a senior
official said on Monday.
Nevertheless, the United Nations' World Food Programme managed to get food to a record 4.1 million people inside Syria last month, WFP deputy executive director Amir Abdulla told a news conference, just short of its target of 4.2 million.
As the humanitarian crisis within Syria intensifies, its neighbours are also groaning under the strain of an exodus of refugees that now totals around 3 million, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said.
"We know that this tragedy, together with the tragedy of the people displaced inside the country, 6.5 million, now shows that almost half of the Syrian population is displaced."
Donor countries pledged $2.3 billion for aid agencies helping Syria at a conference in Kuwait in January, but only $1.1 billion has been received so far, including $250 million handed over by Kuwait on Monday, U.N. officials said.
The delay meant that the standard family food basket for five people, which includes rice, bulgur wheat, pasta, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, and wheat flour, had to be cut by 20 percent in March to allow more people to be fed, WFP said.
Guterres's office needs more than $1.6 billion to fund fully its operations this year in response to the crisis, but has received only 22 percent to date, a UNHCR statement said.
Some 2.6 million Syrian refugees have registered in neighbouring countries, while hundreds of thousands more have crossed borders but not requested international assistance.
Guterres pointed to the huge burden this was imposing on Syria's neighbours. In Lebanon, the more than a million registered refugees are equal to almost a quarter of the resident population.
At least one Syrian refugee was killed in Jordan's sprawling Zaatari camp when hundreds of refugees clashed with security forces, residents said on Saturday.
"Let us not forget that in Jordan, in Lebanon and other countries, we have more and more people unemployed, we have more and more people with lower salaries because of the competition in the labour market, we have prices rising, rents rising - and that the Syria crisis is having a dramatic impact on the economies and the societies of the neighbouring countries," Guterres said.
"And so it is very easy to trigger tension, and it is very important to do everything we can to better support both the refugee community and the host communities that generously are receiving them."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Nevertheless, the United Nations' World Food Programme managed to get food to a record 4.1 million people inside Syria last month, WFP deputy executive director Amir Abdulla told a news conference, just short of its target of 4.2 million.
As the humanitarian crisis within Syria intensifies, its neighbours are also groaning under the strain of an exodus of refugees that now totals around 3 million, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said.
"We know that this tragedy, together with the tragedy of the people displaced inside the country, 6.5 million, now shows that almost half of the Syrian population is displaced."
Donor countries pledged $2.3 billion for aid agencies helping Syria at a conference in Kuwait in January, but only $1.1 billion has been received so far, including $250 million handed over by Kuwait on Monday, U.N. officials said.
The delay meant that the standard family food basket for five people, which includes rice, bulgur wheat, pasta, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, and wheat flour, had to be cut by 20 percent in March to allow more people to be fed, WFP said.
Guterres's office needs more than $1.6 billion to fund fully its operations this year in response to the crisis, but has received only 22 percent to date, a UNHCR statement said.
Some 2.6 million Syrian refugees have registered in neighbouring countries, while hundreds of thousands more have crossed borders but not requested international assistance.
Guterres pointed to the huge burden this was imposing on Syria's neighbours. In Lebanon, the more than a million registered refugees are equal to almost a quarter of the resident population.
At least one Syrian refugee was killed in Jordan's sprawling Zaatari camp when hundreds of refugees clashed with security forces, residents said on Saturday.
"Let us not forget that in Jordan, in Lebanon and other countries, we have more and more people unemployed, we have more and more people with lower salaries because of the competition in the labour market, we have prices rising, rents rising - and that the Syria crisis is having a dramatic impact on the economies and the societies of the neighbouring countries," Guterres said.
"And so it is very easy to trigger tension, and it is very important to do everything we can to better support both the refugee community and the host communities that generously are receiving them."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Monday, April 7, 2014
U.N. Aims to Protect Marine Biodiversity
Yellow fish swarm Australia's Ningaloo reef. Around 80 percent of the world's fisheries are fully exploited, over exploited or significantly depleted. Credit: Angelo DeSantis/cc by 2.0
Fisheries at the Tipping Point
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), cited by Greenpeace International, around 80 percent of the world's fisheries are fully exploited, over exploited or significantly depleted.
Some species have already been fished to commercial extinction; many more are on the verge.
And according to the World Bank, the lost economic benefits due to overfishing are estimated to be in the order of 50 billion dollars annually.
The value of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) on the other hand is currently estimated to amount to 10-23.5 billion dollars per year.
The deep ocean seafloor has also become the new frontier for major corporations with mining technology, promising lucrative returns, but not counting the impacts of such a destructive activity on other sectors, ecosystem services and coastal communities.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace says, the impacts of climate change are causing dead zones in the ocean, increasing temperatures and causing acidification.
Monday, March 31, 2014
What is BIODIVERSITY?
1. The number and
variety of organisms found within a specified geographic region.
2. The variability among living organisms on the earth, including the variability within and between species and within and between ecosystems.
Why is biodiversity important?
Here's the problem with the loss of biodiversity: The Earth functions like an incredibly complex machine, and there don't appear to be any unnecessary parts. Each species -- from the lowliest microbe to humans -- plays a part in keeping the planet running smoothly. In this sense, each part is related. If a lot of those parts suddenly vanish, then the machine that is Earth can't function properly.
2. The variability among living organisms on the earth, including the variability within and between species and within and between ecosystems.
Why is biodiversity important?
Here's the problem with the loss of biodiversity: The Earth functions like an incredibly complex machine, and there don't appear to be any unnecessary parts. Each species -- from the lowliest microbe to humans -- plays a part in keeping the planet running smoothly. In this sense, each part is related. If a lot of those parts suddenly vanish, then the machine that is Earth can't function properly.
Friday, March 21, 2014
UN Commission on the Status of Women -- March 10 - 21, 2014
Who's key to gender equality? Hint: It's not women
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Tue, 18 March 2014 12:07 PM
When it comes to women’s rights, it turns out it’s really
all about men.
A recent World Bank report underscored that strong economies and greater education for women, once thought to be silver bullets against gender inequality in the world of work, are effectively trumped by persistent social norms.
Entrenched social attitudes and traditions remain among the greatest obstacles to realising women’s rights globally - and most of those attitudes and traditions are held or enforced by men, according to experts.
An emerging theme at this year’s United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW58), is an increasing acknowledgment of the importance of addressing and changing the attitudes of men and boys to achieve the stubbornly elusive goal of gender equality.
“We can empower women more and more, but if men remain the same, what’s the point?” Waruna Sri Dhanapala, minister counselor at Sri Lanka's permanent mission to the United Nations, told a panel discussion on Monday.
He was echoing comments by Babatunde Osotimehin, head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), who says equality can't happen without boys and men being on board.
"Why is it possible for men to have access to condoms without any question, but when it comes to providing contraception to women and girls, the whole world comes against you?” Osotimehin said at an earlier CSW58 session.
“It's about power. Men want to determine what women do and tell them what to do and how to do it. That must stop. Men must learn to accept gender equality."
Education programs for men and boys are key, according to Julie Pulerwitz, Director of Social Operations Research at the Population Council.
A recent World Bank report underscored that strong economies and greater education for women, once thought to be silver bullets against gender inequality in the world of work, are effectively trumped by persistent social norms.
Entrenched social attitudes and traditions remain among the greatest obstacles to realising women’s rights globally - and most of those attitudes and traditions are held or enforced by men, according to experts.
An emerging theme at this year’s United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW58), is an increasing acknowledgment of the importance of addressing and changing the attitudes of men and boys to achieve the stubbornly elusive goal of gender equality.
“We can empower women more and more, but if men remain the same, what’s the point?” Waruna Sri Dhanapala, minister counselor at Sri Lanka's permanent mission to the United Nations, told a panel discussion on Monday.
He was echoing comments by Babatunde Osotimehin, head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), who says equality can't happen without boys and men being on board.
"Why is it possible for men to have access to condoms without any question, but when it comes to providing contraception to women and girls, the whole world comes against you?” Osotimehin said at an earlier CSW58 session.
“It's about power. Men want to determine what women do and tell them what to do and how to do it. That must stop. Men must learn to accept gender equality."
Education programs for men and boys are key, according to Julie Pulerwitz, Director of Social Operations Research at the Population Council.
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