Preliminary evidence shows a widespread and systematic attack on civilians in Myanmar in the wake of the coup in February, amounting to crimes against humanity, the head of a fact-finding body established by the UN Human Rights Council said on Friday.
Fittingly, the sun broke through the clouds over Glasgow on Thursday as delegations and participants prepared for ‘energy day’ at COP26, one of the key thematic sessions taking place during the UN climate summit.
Although policies and planning for climate change adaptation are increasing, financing and implementation lag behind, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new report launched on Thursday.
It’s ‘Finance Day’ at COP26, and the spotlight is on a big announcement: nearly 500 global financial services firms agreed on Wednesday to align $130 trillion – some 40 per cent of the world’s financial assets – with the climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement, including limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
A pivotal pledge to save and restore our planet’s forests was officially announced on the second day of the COP26 World Leaders Summit, and with that deal came a long list of commitments from public and private sector actors to combat climate change, curb biodiversity destruction and hunger, and to protect indigenous peoples’ rights.
In 2020 alone, according to UN cultural agency UNESCO, which works to protect media workers, 62 journalists were killed just for doing their jobs. Between 2006 and 2020, over 1,200 professionals lost their lives the same way. In nine out of ten cases the killers go unpunished.
As the World Leaders Summit opened on day two of COP26, UN chief António Guterres sent a stark message to the international community. “We are digging our own graves”, he said, referring to the addiction to fossil fuels which threatens to push humanity and the planet, to the brink, through unsustainable global heating.
Masami Ogata is a survivor of Minamata Disease, a debilitating illness caused by industrial mercury poisoning, which originated in the Japanese town of the same name in the 1950s. As a UN conference on preventing future poisoning outbreaks gets underway, we hear Mr. Ogata’s story.
There is a “serious risk” that the UN climate conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, “will not deliver”, the UN chief told journalists on Friday in Rome, just ahead of the G20 Summit of leading industrialized nations.
In a world shaken by a pandemic, and a fast-closing window of opportunity to avoid climate catastrophe, the pivotal COP26 UN climate conference kicks off this Sunday in the Scottish city of Glasgow - the stakes could not be higher.
