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Climate Action
Pakistn recupera su verdor
La provincia pakistaní de Khyber Pakhtunkhwa situada a unos 50 kilómetros de la capital Islamabad se ha cubierto de árboles estos últimos años. El paisaje se ha transformado al mismo tiempo que cambiaba la sociedad. La lucha contra el recalentamiento del clima y el combate contra la pobreza forman parte de la misma estrategia.
Gran angular: Filosofía y ética del cambio climático
La humanidad está en deuda. Año tras año consume más recursos de los que la naturaleza puede proporcionar. Este consumo excesivo tiene un efecto directo sobre el clima. Para comprender mejor la problemática en juego el biólogo y filósofo Bernard Feltz esclarece las complejas relaciones entre el hombre y la naturaleza al tiempo que se centra en los aspectos éticos de la gestión del cambio climático.
Nuestro invitado: Bakú, ciudad multicultural
Con una antigüedad de varios milenios la ciudad amurallada de Bakú capital de Azerbaiyán guarda huellas de la presencia de mazdeístas sasánidas árabes persas sirvaníes otomanos y rusos. La ciudad moderna nacida del primer boom del petróleo a fines del siglo XIX y principios del XX conserva un patrimonio cultural igualmente ecléctico. Gracias a su bahía y a la proximidad de las rutas de las caravanas Bakú siempre ha estado surcada por diversas corrientes. Esa característica la ha dotado de una diversidad a la vez armoniosa y excepcional que se refleja tanto en su arquitectura como en su espíritu cosmopolita.
Arshak Makichyan, piquetero solitario
Todos los viernes desde marzo de 2019 Arshak Makichyan ha manifestado solo en la plaza Pushkin de Moscú la capital de Rusia. En sus pancartas se leen consignas como “El calentamiento global es igual al hambre las guerras y la muerte”. Este joven violinista libra una batalla solitaria y tenaz en nombre de todo el planeta.
Making gold greener?
Poorly regulated gold mining is spreading around the world. Every day millions of artisanal and small-scale gold miners work extremely hard in often poor conditions and without the protective framework of formal labour market standards. By evening the vast majority have harvested only miniscule amounts of gold if anything at all. But the economic incentives are still attractive. Since ancient times gold has continuously been used as a source of long-term investment and it has now found its way into modern technologies and industry including computers cell phones and medical equipment. Global financial turmoil has helped more than double the price of an ounce of gold from $500 to well over $1000 over the past decade. Many poor people in rural areas have shifted their attention from agriculture to mining as a source of livelihood.
Matters of judgement
An independent judiciary in a political and legal system that values integrity and transparency is vital in addressing environmental degradation and in upholding the environmental rule of law worldwide. In an urban planning case at the National High Court of Brazil the court stated a view that I believe to be true in all areas of environmental law.
Ethical business works best
Forty-four years ago my parents joined the Government of Malaysia's settler programme administered by the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) a decision that has had a big influence on my life right up to today.
Blood gold
Day or night? It makes no difference in the Amazon gold rush. The clatter of the hundreds of engines that pump water in search of the precious metal never stops. By day enormous trucks move the earth where forests once stood; by night the soil is washed with hundreds of cubic metres of water to extract the gold. Informal mining camps extend into Peru Colombia Bolivia and Brazil destroying the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world and poisoning the land inhabited by hundreds of indigenous peoples with mercury. Huge tracts of tropical rainforest have become graveyards for trees drenched in the toxic metal.
Delivering on the mission
“No matter how minuscule or how vast only protection will make them last. We need to help the ones that can't help themselves because they become extinct so fast.”
Good connections
In 2012 I was invited to join a safari at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya. Lion prides cheetah coalitions and herds of buffalo and giraffes walk freely there. Majestic African elephants also roam the conservancy’s terrain but in far smaller numbers than they once did.
Prosecute climate crimes
Criminal justice can help achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change as part of an integrated approach from governments private businesses finance science civil society and others.
Clearing the air
Ninety-eight per cent of cities with more than 100000 inhabitants in low and middle income countries do not meet World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines concludes the WHO Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database 2016 update. In high-income countries however that percentage decreases to 56 per cent. In South Asia air pollution is especially acute in such countries as China Indonesia and India requiring State authorities to take immediate action to safeguard the health of their citizens. Long-term health effects include respiratory diseases like lung cancer and even damage to the brain and an increased risk of heart disease. A WHO study estimated that about 12.6 million deaths in the year 2012 could be linked to an unhealthy environment. India's Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981 defines air pollution as “the presence in the atmosphere of any air pollutant” and an air pollutant as “any solid liquid or gaseous substance including noise present in the atmosphere in such concentration as may be or tend to be injurious to human beings or other living creatures or plants or property or environment.”
Colonel: We must act quickly!
Apathetic and soporific. These words describe the state of public opinion and the media’s attitude to climate change according to French-Danish conceptual artist Thierry Geoffroy alias Colonel. Little by little his slogans – that wavered between “Before it’s too late” and “Tomorrow is too late” – were reduced to a simple “Too late”. Paradoxically it is in despair that he finds some consolation.
Defining moment
We stand at a defining moment for the future of the planet and human well-being. Our global commons – the land seas and atmosphere we share and the ecosystems they host – are under severe threat from ever more powerful human activities.
Current Affairs: Mandela’s South Africa: Reality or distant dream?
Twenty-five years after attaining democracy South Africa has taken giant strides towards forging a united nation. But overcoming racism and realizing Nelson Mandela’s vision of a nation that belongs to all who live in it remains a wonderful ideal – which still requires a lot of work according to Justice Jody Kollapen. Both an arbitrator and a victim of racist cases (he was refused a haircut as recently as in October 2003!) this human rights defender maintains that there is enough goodwill to build on Mandela’s vision.
Climate change: A new subject for the law
More and more citizens and nongovernmental organizations around the world are going to court to seek climate change justice. The unprecedented extent of these disputes deserves to be highlighted. This relatively recent type of litigation is forging public opinion and constitutes a form of pressure on states and industries that is forcing them out of their inertia.
Pakistan: Green again
A billion trees have been planted in recent years in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa about fifty kilometres from Islamabad the country’s capital. The landscape has been transformed and so has society. The fight against global warming and the fight against poverty are one and the same.
Climate and social justice
There is a tendency in the public debate on climate change to present the use and development of green technologies as a miracle solution or panacea. We often forget one aspect: it is crucial to ensure that their development goes hand in hand with social justice. “The realization that it is not just global warming that we are dealing with but global warming in an unequal and unjust world has yet to sink in” according to Thiagarajan Jayaraman. Without equality and equity – in other words without peace and security – we cannot effectively fight climate change the Indian climate policy expert insists.
Managing the global commons
Here’s a prediction: planetary intelligence could emerge on Earth by 2050. “Hold on” you might say “that has emerged already right? Homo Sapiens.” No. What we have is a technologically advanced civilization. There is a subtle difference.
Hope from the hills
Kenya's Chyulu Hills host not just rich wildlife and beautiful landscapes but a groundbreaking partnership to conserve biodiversity and combat climate change between its people and the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust.
Greening cities
Climate change is the greatest threat facing our planet. The leaders of the world’s great cities recognize that fact and are taking urgent action. But mayors need strong allies to deliver the transformations needed to create sustainable green cities of the future. There is no greater partner for our campaign to save the planet than the Global Environment Facility.
The Global Environment Facility Partnership
Climate change and education
Educating on climate change and sustainable development issues is a necessity. In Latin America there are some promising experiments being carried out that deserve to be replicated both in the entire region and on other continents. There are some aspects however that are being neglected.
时事: 曼徳拉的南非: 是现实,还是遥远的梦想?
The Global Environment Facility at work. Oyster openings
Life can be hard in The Gambia – and even harder for the women who harvest oysters a local delicacy and key source of protein in the West African country’s swamps and wetlands.
Being accountable
The Global Environment Facility is a knowledge-based organization in which evaluation is central to accountability results and learning. For it to be truly useful it must respond to changes both in the external landscape in which the Facility operates and in internal modus operandi. During the Facility’s 7th Replenishment process the Independent Evaluation Office is completing its sixth Comprehensive Evaluation under the theme ‘the Global Environment Facility in the Changing Landscape of Environmental Finance’. All such replenishments have been accompanied by an overall performance study and as previously the purpose of the Comprehensive Evaluation is to provide solid evaluative evidence to inform the negotiations gauging the results and impact of the Facility’s work through a wide mix of methodologies. The Office is pioneering state-of-the-art geospatial methods that allow us to measure environmental change over longer periods of time both before and after project implementation and to compare project sites with matched control locations.
Rescuing rainforests
Maps of the Brazilian Amazon in 2000 and 2010 show unmistakable signs of dramatic change. Indigenous lands and several categories of protected areas now occupy millions of hectares forming a consolidated landscape of conservation. But it might not have been so.
Zoom: Arab youth: Architects of their future
French photographer Yan Bighetti de Flogny was in Pakistan when in the course of a conversation with a hotel owner he learned of the existence of Ibn Battuta the fourteenth-century Moroccan explorer. Unfairly little-known Ibn Battuta is “perhaps the greatest traveller who has ever lived” as an article in the Courier of August- September 1981 tells us.
AI innovations to counter social challenges
Artificial intelligence (AI) is being harnessed to tackle two of the most challenging problems today – the flagrant proliferation of fake news and the increasing invasion of individual privacy. Factmata which uses AI to fight disinformation and D-ID which protects identities from facial recognition systems using AI were two of the ten winners of the 2019 Netexplo awards presented at UNESCO Headquarters in April.
The Global Environment Facility at work. Grandma’s secret
The textile industry has long been an important employer in Mauritius. It is hard work with many women combining domestic responsibilities with long days in the factories just to feed their families. So when factories began to close in the 1990s many found themselves struggling to survive.
Ideas: A tale of two futures
Is artificial intelligence (AI) on the verge of becoming completely autonomous? The answer will depend on us alone. It is up to us to define the future of humanity in harmony with this technological tool that we sometimes perceive as a terrifying monster.
Global action is needed
There is no doubt that science is increasingly expanding our knowledge of the problem of environmental degradation (including our role in it) and the extent to which it affects our ability to continually improve our living conditions.
Wide angle: The philosophical and ethical issues of climate change
Humanity is in a state of debit. Year after year it consumes more resources than nature can provide. This over-consumption has a direct effect on the climate. To better understand the issues at stake the Belgian philosopher and biologist Bernard Feltz sheds light on the complex relationships between humans and nature and then focuses on the ethical aspects of climate change management.
Only connect
Sustainable development is thirty years old. It was born in 1987 with the release of the “Our Common Future” report which declared: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Reflections
More than just a financial mechanism or a partnership agreement the Global Environment Facility sits at the very heart of global action to protect and restore our environment. This edition of Our Planet looks at the work of the Facility which for more than a quarter century has driven catalytic change enabling progress on the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.
Zero carbon, starting with cities!
Non-state actors with cities at the forefront must be the first to sow the seeds of a carbon-free society. To avoid the nightmare of climate change we must reduce our carbon emissions further than called for by the Paris Agreement of 2015. This requires coordinated actions at the international level and concrete initiatives such as electric transport the decarbonization of housing and a large-scale transition of energy.
Environmental champion
Inna Modja is promoting the building of a wall across a continent one that is designed to provide hope and bring people together. The Malian singer is starring in a documentary on the 8000-kilometre Great Green Wall of trees and vegetation now being established across the width of Africa to combat desertification and restore land. She calls it a “world wonder” and says it has “great symbolism” that “extends far beyond the African continent”.
Elements of change
The Global Environment Facility was created to protect the global commons and funds projects to address climate change biodiversity loss land degradation sustainable forestry international waters and chemicals in more than 170 countries. Since 1991 it has provided $17.6 billion in grants and mobilized an additional $88.6 billion in financing for more than 4453 projects.