Climate Change
Global Issues
Alex Pashley

Pope Francis urged “sustainable and integral development” to protect the world’s most vulnerable at the outset of a landmark visit to the United States on Wednesday.

The Latin American pontiff, who issued an unprecedented pastoral message to Catholics to conserve the planet in June, repeated the call on a sunlit morning in Washington DC aside President Barack Obama.

His first visit to the US, Pope Francis said climate change was a “problem that can no longer be left to a future generation” and welcomed Obama’s leadership to cut greenhouse gas emissions in August’s clean power plan.

For the complete article, please see Climate Home.

Read the speech Pope Francis gave at the White House here.

Source:
Climate Home

Climate Diplomacy
Global Issues
Dennis Tänzler, adelphi

We are entering the last days of the BCSC 2020, with insightful discussions on a number of climate security challenges still to come, as well as the launch of our “21st Century Diplomacy: Foreign Policy Is Climate Policy” essay series. Building on the high-level political Part I of BCSC 2020 back in July, this second part aims to bring together the field’s various actors in the realm of climate, development and security policy in one digital space to meet the strategic goals of sharing good practice on what works on the ground and help inform policy processes.

Climate Diplomacy
Global Issues
Katarina Schulz, adelphi

The novel corona virus has had the world in its grip for months. Most countries’ immediate response was to focus on internal issues: they resorted to nationalistic approaches, closing borders and even competing for equipment, even though a multilateral approach was necessary. In the longer term, will this crisis strengthen the ties between nations? Or exacerbate the flaws of today’s multilateralism?

Paul Joffe

The pandemic and racial justice protests call for justice and crisis preparedness – an opportunity also to act on climate change. Successfully taking advantage of this momentum, however, requires a climate strategy that ensures everyone has a voice and a stake. Here, Paul Joffe builds on a previous correspondence about how to begin that effort in this time of crisis.

Natasha Vizcarra, Global Landscapes Forum

Now in its second decade, the ambitious African Union–led restoration initiative known as the Great Green Wall has brought close to 18 million hectares of land under restoration since 2007, according to a status report unveiled by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) at a virtual meeting on Monday, 7 September.