United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson today emphasized the impact that climate change has on food security, peace and stability, and called on countries to cooperate to address this phenomenon.
“We usually say there is always a 'Plan B’, but there is no 'Planet B’. There is enough human-introduced carbon in the atmosphere to drive climate change for decades to come,” Mr. Eliasson told participants at the ministerial side event on climate change and its impact on foreign and security policy.
“We have to mitigate our emissions and we have to adapt. And we have to act now to stop things getting worse,” he said at the meeting, held on the margins of the high-level debate of the General Assembly’s 67th session.
Mr. Eliasson stressed that the only way to ensure energy, food and water security is to have a long-term strategy in place which allows countries to transition to sustainable, low-emission economies. He underlined the importance of establishing sustainable development goals as was agreed by countries during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) earlier this year.
For the complete article, please see UN News Centre.
For the the speech of the German Foreign Minister, Dr. Guido Westerwelle at the German-Moroccan Side Event, please follow this link.
Ten years after committing to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, G20 countries still subsidise coal, oil and gas to the tune of around USD 150 billion annually. Peer review of fossil fuel subsidies help push the G20 forward on this issue, but these reviews need to be followed by action. Subsidy reforms could free up resources that could be channeled back into government programmes and on accelerating a clean energy transition.
Adapting to climate change and strengthening resilience are becoming priorities for the international community – however, they require greater ambition in climate policy. 107 governments and numerous international organisations have endorsed a call for action on raising ambition at the United Nations Climate Change Summit on 23rd September 2019. Following the summit, the Global Commission on Adaptation will begin its Year of Action to meet the climate challenges ahead. The Year of Action is here to accelerate climate adaptation around the world, to improve human well-being and to drive more sustainable economic development and security.
A new form of organized crime has recently been emerging in the Amazon: illegal mining. Miners fell trees, use high-grade explosives for blasting soils and dredge riverbeds. But the impacts go beyond environmental damage, bringing with it a slew of other social problems. Peace researcher Adriana Abdenur urges policymakers to improve coordination and argues that diplomacy may help prevent further conflicts, corruption and crime.
The severity of desertification and its mutual relationship with climate change cannot be overstated. In light of the recent launch of the Special Report on Climate Change and Land by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Robert McSweeney from Carbon Brief explains what desertification is, what role climate change plays, and what impact it has across the world.