We should be well on the way to solving the climate crisis by now.
According to the Paris Agreement, last year should have been the year that all countries presented their commitments to cut carbon emissions for limiting global climate heating to within 1.5oC of pre-industrial levels.
At least 85 poor countries will not have significant access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023. Unfortunately, a year’s delay will cause an estimated 2.5 million avoidable deaths in low and lower-middle income countries. As the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General has put it, the world is at the brink of a
catastrophic moral failure.
Global food systems have been failing most people for a long time, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made a critical situation even worse. 265 million people are threatened by famine, up 50% on last year; 700 million suffer from chronic hunger; and 2 billion more from malnutrition, with obesity and associated diet-related diseases increasing in all world regions.
This
World Water Day, we celebrate the value of water, which at first might be a given: after all, water is the basis of all life. Without water we have no health, wealth, equality, or education.
In the midst of a global pandemic, when the presence of water in our lives has never seemed more important, its future availability has also never been more uncertain.
The global community is celebrating
World Water Day 2021. In the COVID-19 pandemic era, the importance and value of water for all people has never been clearer. Access to safe water is essential for public health and thriving communities.
Water is integral to sustainable development, but we are well behind on the goals and targets that we have set ourselves.
“Email and social media access attempts, extremely aggressive comments, photo montages, massive defamation and intimidation campaigns on WhatsApp. This is what women journalists are facing for doing our job,” said Brazilian journalist Bianca Santana.
For many, the last year will be remembered as the time our day-to-day lives screeched to a halt. As Covid-19 spread mercilessly across the world, wreaking havoc on health and livelihoods, world leaders, health experts and scientists grappled with how to protect populations and stem the tide of the virus.
The horrendous killings of children in military conflicts and civil wars – both by national armed forces and militant groups – have triggered widespread condemnation by human rights organizations worldwide.
During the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, while many sought safety being at home, women in the healthcare, child care, aged care, teaching and services fields — who hold the majority of jobs in those occupations — went to work everyday.
I observed the Group of 77 (G77) shortly after the 1964 Geneva Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the 1968 UNCTAD 2 in New Delhi and the 1972 UNCTAD 3 in Santiago. The Group was influential at the time, benefiting from several factors helpful for its functioning which are no longer present, namely:
Over a month ago, the world celebrated the
International Day of Women and Girls in Science. But the celebrations ring hollow when there’s still been no meaningful progress in the representation of women in the research sciences field. At present,
less than 30 percent, of scientific researchers worldwide are women, a percentage that has been the same for almost a decade.
Women get freezing cold in trains and in big city offices because the air conditioning is set for men’s sensitivity to the cold. They spend the whole theatre interval (when visits to the theatre were still possible) in the queue because there are too few toilets.
Inequality characterizes the world we live in, predisposing how we act and think. We perceive our existence as composed of dichotomies – men and women, young and old, black or white, as well as a difference between those who have and those who do not have access to wealth, health, education and influence. Dichotomies are also born out of comparisons, about how things are now and how they could have been, how they were before and how they are now.
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues that the world is collectively facing at the moment. It is contended that strengthening the global response is pertinent to combat the threat of climate change.
Globalisation’s beginnings are symbolised by Ferdinand Magellan’s near circumnavigation of the world half a millennium ago. But its history is not simply of connection and trade, but also of intolerance, exploitation, slavery, violence, aggression and genocide.
The United Nations has continued to pursue a notoriously longstanding tradition of doling out some of the highest-ranking jobs either to the five big powers, who are permanent members of the Security Council—namely the US, UK, China, France and Russia – or to Western industrialized nations such as Spain, Italy, Canada, Sweden, Germany, plus Japan.
There is much expectation about US President Joe Biden's Afghanistan strategy to end the United States' longest war effectively. So far, he continues to rely on Ambassador Zalmai Khalilzad, the Special Envoy for Afghanistan, appointed by Mr. Trump.
In 1941, the people of Greece were facing a horrific winter. The Axis powers had plundered local supplies and introduced an extortionate tax on Greek citizens. Allied forces imposed a cruel blockade, cutting off imports. Prices skyrocketed. Hundreds of thousands of civilians perished.
The United Nations says the highest levels of political power remain the furthest from achieving gender parity in an increasingly male-dominated power structure worldwide.