IPS News Special – Climate Change

The one-day UN High-level Summit meeting on Climate Change concluded this week with just Japan and China making concrete commitments to battle one of the world’s biggest environmental challenges.

Scientific consensus and the acceptance of the scientific findings is no longer an issue. The main snag to any comprehensive global plan appears to be the issue of financing – particularly the funding of climate initiatives in developing countries by public or private backers in industrialised countries.

The 15th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) is set to take place in Copenhagen from Dec. 7 to 18. World leaders are expected to try again to agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol which is set to expire in 2012.

SLIDESHOW:
Don?t miss an IPS photo essay on the Climate Change Summit by our photographers Hasan Sarbakhshian and Bomoon Lee at the United Nations.
www.ipsnews.net/slideshows/unclimatesummit/

ENVIRONMENT: Act Now or Lose Forever, Climate Summit Told
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The world’s small island developing nations, most of which are threatened with environmental devastation, put the international community on dire notice: either accept ambitious and binding emission reduction targets, or humanity is doomed.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48549

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ENVIRONMENT: Japan, China Pledge to Act on Climate Change
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – When the one-day summit meeting on climate change ended late Tuesday, only Japan and China were singled out for their concrete commitments to battle one of the world’s biggest environmental challenges.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48550

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CLIMATE CHANGE: Time Running Out on Vows to Act, Scientists Warn
By Stephen Leahy
COLUMBUS, Ohio (IPS) – Promises are easy to make. But promises by world leaders will not halt the heat-trapping carbon emissions that are dialing-up global temperatures and altering the climate, say critics and climate researchers meeting in this U.S. Midwestern city.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48577

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LATIN AMERICA: Food Crisis Must Be Regional Priority
By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS (IPS) – There are 52 million hungry people in Latin America and the Caribbean, six million more than in 2008 – an aspect of the global economic crisis that must be a top priority focus of national policies and development aid, according to a meeting of experts from 27 countries held in the Venezuelan capital.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48533

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Q&A: Plants Know No Frontiers, They Grow Everywhere
Nasseem Ackbarally interviews AMEENAH GURIB-FAKIM
PORT-LOUIS (IPS) – Ameenah Gurib-Fakim has spent the last two decades travelling among the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean studying plants.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48529

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ENERGY: Trees: Out of the Forest and Into the Oven
By Stephen Leahy*
UXBRIDGE, Canada (Tierramérica) – Millions of trees, especially from the developing countries of the South, are being shipped to Europe and burned in giant furnaces to meet “green energy” requirements that are supposed to combat climate change.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48574

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POLITICS: Obama to Prioritise Africa During U.N. Visit
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – When Barack Obama visits the United Nations on three consecutive days this week – a rare gesture by a U.S. president – he will be addressing delegates on subjects ranging from climate change and peacekeeping to nuclear non-proliferation and the global financial crisis.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48523

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SOUTH ASIA: Disunity Hovers over a Region Battling Climate Change
By Athar Parvaiz
KATHMANDU (IPS) – As the Copenhagen Conference on climate change draws nearer, South Asia, which appears poised for severe threats from the impacts of climate change, faces a stiff challenge on two fronts.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48513

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Q&A: ‘Stiglitz-Sen Moving in the Right Direction, but Slowly’
Miren Gutierrez* interviews HAZEL HENDERSON
ROME (IPS) – Hazel Henderson is a futurist, an economic iconoclast, founder of Ethical Markets Media, and author of the books Building A Win-Win World, Beyond Globalization, Planetary Citizenship, and Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy. Her main focus is exploring the “blind spots” in conventional economic theory.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48492

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POPULATION: Where?s Family Planning on Climate Change Radar?
Zofeen Ebrahim interviews noted social demographer KAREN HARDEE
KARACHI (IPS) – Are climate change and reproductive health two disparate subjects?
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48489

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ENVIRONMENT: China Backpedals on Emissions But Still Noncommittal
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING (IPS) – Although pledging to break away from its highly polluting economic path, China has managed to stick to its guns and not compromise on what it believes is its national agenda.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48570

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Read More IPS Coverage of the Climate Change from around the world:
EARTH ALERT: Confronting Climate Change
www.ipsnews.net/climate_change/index.asp

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IPS Coverage of Water issues: www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/water/index.asp

DON’T MISS IPS SPECIAL COVERAGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE. Through special coverage of issues like food security, extractive industries, biodiversity and climate change, IPS is giving a voice to people whose stories are seldom heard. IPS is also highlighting the various challenges they face in the globalised world: health and food insecurity, environment degradation and poverty.
www.ipsnews.net/environment.asp

Read IPS Special Coverage of Sanitation:
Despite improved sanitation worldwide last year, there are still about 2.6 billion people – or about 41 percent of the world population – lacking adequate toilet facilities.
www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/toilet/

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