The need to act on the climate crisis has never been clearer. In 2023, heat records have been shattered around the world. Seemingly every day brings news of extreme weather, imperilling lives. In July, UN Secretary-General António Guterres grimly
announced that ‘the era of global boiling has arrived’.
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure and service provision are both costly and risky. Worse, PPPs typically fail to ensure universal, let alone fair access to public amenities.
A senior manager of the world’s largest investment firm has ‘blown the whistle’ on ESG (environment, social and governance) ‘greenwashing’, especially on supposed climate finance.
Maribel Ochoa takes less time and spends less money commuting from her home to her work in eastern Mexico City thanks to the use of the electric Cablebus, a cable car that has improved her quality of life since the service began operating two years ago.
This year we pass the halfway mark both on our journey towards implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Finance has increased, not reduced, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Meanwhile, funding for mitigation, and especially adaptation, is grossly inadequate, with little for climate losses and damages.
Everyone knows that small island states are on the frontline of global warming. Rising sea levels, acidification destroying fisheries and coral reefs, and changing patterns of rainfall are just some of the challenges. Some low-lying islands have already been lost to the ocean.
Combining technologies and innovations to take advantage of solar, wind, hydro and biomass potential has made the Finca del Medio farm an example in Cuba in the use of clean energies, which are the basis of its agroecological and environmental sanitation practices.
With current efforts to boost Africa's carbon credit production by 2030, experts believe the commitments will require Governments to switch from a voluntary to a compliance market by generating renewable energy for a portion of national and regional electricity supplies.
At the entrance to the municipality of Paraíso, in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco, there is a traffic circle that displays three things that are emblematic of the area: crabs, pelicans and mangroves.
French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) are moving with pace in the development of oil and gas projects with a potential investment portfolio estimated at more than USD 15 billion. IPS looks at the project's human rights record for the compensation of affected communities.
The growing and changing material requirements for new technologies have triggered natural resource scrambles for strategic minerals, generating dangerous rivalries fought out in the global South.
The commodity boom early this century was mainly driven by mineral prices. Yet, mining’s contribution to developing countries’ revenue has been modest, largely due to massive tax evasion and avoidance.
While climate change is relentlessly progressing, threatening life on earth, world leaders continue to meet while planning for a future where this immense menace to human existence remains a minor item on the agenda.
The Role of the New Development Bank in Monitoring Project Impacts on Communities
The
15th BRICS Summit held in Johannesburg, South Africa this month has once again put the spotlight on the
Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) as a shining example of multilateralism and the
New Development Bank’s (NDB)commitment to financing sustainable development projects within BRICS countries and other developing countries. During the 2023 BRICS Summit, the New Development Bank and the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA) signed a 3.2 billion Rands loan agreement for the implementation of Phase Two of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) in Lesotho. This funding complements contributions by other financiers, notably the
African Development Bank (AfDB) and the
Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).
In the midst of a complex web of crises, spanning climate change, biodiversity depletion, constraints on civic space and mounting debt burdens, civil society organizations and human rights defenders from over 50 countries
have united their voices to call for immediate and impactful action from Public Development Banks (PDBs).
September 2023 marks the halfway point to the deadline for achieving the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet,
globally we are still far off-track, and Africa is
only halfway towards achieving the SDGs, with nearly
600 million Africans still lacking access to electricity and
431 million people living in extreme poverty.
Rich nations have contributed most to the current climate crisis. They are primarily responsible for the historical emissions and greenhouse gas (GHG) accumulation of the last two centuries.
Protests against the high cost of living in Kenya have been met with police violence. Talks are
currently underway between government and opposition – but whatever results will fall short unless it brings accountability for the catalogue of human rights violations committed in response to protests.
The primary commodity price boom early this century has often been attributed to a commodity ‘super-cycle’, i.e., a price upsurge greater than what might be expected in ‘normal’ booms. This was largely due to some minerals as most agricultural commodity price increases were more modest.
The Colorado river basin has recently been wracked by an extended drought which brought to the fore major concerns regarding hydroelectricity production. Up on the Colorado sits the iconic
Hoover Dam, which transforms water into enough electricity to power 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California.