A project of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate Group with IDN as the Flagship Agency in partnership with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC
By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) – More than half of the UN members have issued a joint declaration in support of the 2030 Agenda, 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed by the international community in September 2015, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change adopted three months later.…
By J. Tuyet Nguyen
NEW YORK (IDN) – Governments from Africa, Caribbean, Pacific and the European Union issued on September 24 a joint declaration calling for “bold decisions” to implement the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate change agreements, saying that the two programs are closely linked.…
By Santo D. Banerjee
NEW YORK (IDN) – A landmark new report has underlined the glaring – and growing – gap between agreed targets to tackle global warming and the actual reality. The report, United in Science, includes details on the state of the climate and presents trends in the emissions and atmospheric concentrations of the main greenhouse gases. It highlights the urgency of fundamental socio-economic transformation in key sectors such as land use and energy in order to avert dangerous global temperature increase with potentially irreversible impacts. It also examines tools to support both mitigation and adaptation.…
Viewpoint by Luis Alfonso de Alba
The writer is the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Climate Action Summit.
NEW YORK (IDN) – Climate change is not a far-away problem – it is causing huge damage right now in Asia-Pacific and around the world. From air pollution choking many major cities, to more extreme heat and natural disasters, to one million species at risk, the urgent need for climate action is clear.…
Viewpoint by Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, President, Soka Gakkai International (SGI)
TOKYO (IDN) – “That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it,” observed Aristotle, highlighting an all-too-common human tendency. His warning is still relevant today, especially in our fight against climate change. CHINESE | JAPANESE | ITALIAN｜SPANISH…
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Since independence, natural resources in Kenya have been on a fast track to extinction. Today, nearly half of all its forests are gone, resulting in more droughts, floods and other dire consequences for communities, ecosystems, food security and infrastructure.
From 10% of the country covered in forest in 1963, noted Kaluki Paul Mutuku, Youth4Nature Regional Coordinator, Africa Group, only 6% was covered in 2009.…
By Josephine Latu-Sanft
The writer is Senior Communications Officer, Communications Division, Commonwealth Secretariat.
LONDON (IDN) – In the lead up to September 23 global climate summit in New York and barely two weeks after Hurricane Dorian battered The Bahamas, the Commonwealth’s top official is calling for urgent action to tackle climate change and its disastrous impacts.…
By Robert Johnson
PARIS (IDN) – A new report will call for attention when climate finance provided and mobilized by developed countries for climate action in developing countries is discussed at the Climate Action Summit at the UN in New York on September 23 and in the run-up to the COP25 climate talks in Santiago de Chile in December.
This report finds that while climate finance reached USD 71.2 billion in 2017 – marking an up from USD 58.6 billion in 2016 – it fell short of the goal to be reached by 2020.…
Viewpoint by Dr. Patrick I. Gomes
The writer is the Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). Following are extensive excerpts from his presentation at the United Nations Trade Forum from 9-13 September 2019 in the Session ‘Climate Action and Trade’ in Geneva.
GENEVA (IDN) – The ACP Group of States shares with the great majority of well-informed persons, globally, that climate change is the most significant challenge, this century, for the achievement of sustainable development on planet Earth.
By Sean Buchanan
NEW YORK | GENEVA (IDN) – Islands are often emblazoned across tourism pamphlets, glorified as the epitome of natural beauty and portrayed as idyllic places of escape. But this image is far from the dark reality they face.
Changes in sea level, temperature, precipitation, a growing number of extreme storms and floods, visible vulnerability of critical infrastructure such as ports and airports, growing unpredictability, and the fact that there is nowhere to go, is a daily threat for the 65 million people living in 57 small island developing states (SIDS) scattered throughout the world’s oceans.…
