Climate and Environment

Security Council Presidency: Two Old Friends, France and Germany, Now Share an Office

March 4, 2019

As a united front in the fight to preserve the European Union, France and Germany are about to gain a global audience. During March and April, their top United Nations ambassadors, François Delattre and Christoph Heusgen, will take turns — in alphabetical order — presiding over the Security Council, marking the first time for twin …

Climate and Environment, Gender-Based Violence, Security Council Presidency

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WORLDVIEWS

10 Ways to Push the Climate Change and Conflict Agenda, Despite the Deniers

February 19, 2019

by Adriana Erthal Abdenur

THE HAGUE — It is now well documented that global warming is a multiplier of insecurity and conflict, but holding debates on the topic presents ever-more complex challenges as multilateralism and climate change are increasingly questioned if not dismissed by some of the world’s top leaders and biggest polluting nations. In that light, here …

Climate and Environment, WORLDVIEWS

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Climate Talks Bypass the Poorest, Who Endure Polluted Homes

December 18, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

Today and every day around the world, in bleak rural villages and the poorest urban neighborhoods, millions of people are igniting small fires to cook their meager meals, brighten dark homes or scare away intruders at night. The number of people using small fires is not small. Climate scientists estimate that three billion people …

Africa, Asia, Climate and Environment

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The only talk show of its kind in the world

WORLDVIEWS

To Save the Earth, Deepen Incentives for a Carbon-Free World

October 6, 2018

by Franz Baumann

When United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres spoke passionately about the frightening prospect of a climate catastrophe recently, he called it “the defining issue of our time.” Everything in his powerful speech was backed by science. Yet, because secretaries-general cannot say everything, it was incomplete. What Guterres did not say is that global warming is the flip side …

Climate and Environment, WORLDVIEWS

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GEOPOLITICS

Europe and Others Help Fund the UN Palestinian Agency, Filling US Void

September 27, 2018

by Stéphanie Fillion

The European Union, Germany, Norway, Ireland and Kuwait stepped in this week to donate a total of $118 million in financing to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unrwa), after the United States cut $304 million of its annual support to the agency for this year. …

Climate and Environment, Geopolitics, Middle East, Refugees, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

Sweden’s Priorities in the Security Council: Being Prepared, Including for the World Cup

July 5, 2018

by Stéphanie Fillion

Welcome to our new column, Security Council Presidency, providing insight into the United Nations Security Council member sitting in the rotating seat of the president every month, starting in July with Sweden and its ambassador, Olof Skoog. The column is meant to be an informative capsule of not only the country’s ambassador but also …

Climate and Environment, Security Council, Security Council Presidency

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TAKE A LOOK

Europe’s Contraception Gaps: They May Be Wider Than You Think

April 29, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

It is a continent where almost half of the pregnancies are unplanned, where government agencies do not provide enough information on available contraception, where geography is destiny for those needing reliable family planning advice. This is not a developing region, but 21st-century Europe, according to the recently published 2018 Contraception Atlas. The atlas, presented …

Climate and Environment, Health and Population, Take a Look

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TAKE A LOOK

Zimbabwe Stuck With a Health Crisis Left by Mugabe Era

January 10, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

Robert Mugabe, the only head of state that Zimbabwe had known since independence in 1980, was forced out of office by an unexpected coup in November 2017, and citizens of the economically battered country are now forced to tally the costs of his dictatorship. One of them is a health system in collapse. A …

Africa, Asia, Climate and Environment, Take a Look

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TOPIC: WOMEN

‘Period Poverty’: Why No One Is Talking About Eco-Friendly Solutions

November 30, 2017

by Rhona Scullion

The United Nations has recognized menstrual hygiene as a global public health and human-rights issue, yet across the world, “period poverty,” as some call it, is the reality for millions of women and girls. In India, for example, it is estimated that only 12 percent of the country’s 355 million menstruating women can afford …

Climate and Environment, Human Rights, Poverty, Women

One Comment

TAKE A LOOK

Americans Want an Active Role in the World, Contrary to Trump’s Actions, a Poll Finds

November 14, 2017

by Barbara Crossette

In the first week of November, more than 200 Americans who had been the beneficiaries of Fulbright international exchanges over many years went to the United States Congress to lobby members from across the country. They were asking their state representatives and senators not to strip the iconic, but now endangered, program of …

Climate and Environment, Take a Look, US Foreign Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

As UN Climate Talks Convene, the Earth Veers Toward Catastrophe

November 2, 2017

by Franz Baumann

Two years ago, the governments of the world unanimously adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a remarkable blueprint of the world’s most pressing long-term predicaments that the United Nations is good at lifting into the global conscience. Cataloguing 17 goals and 169 targets, the agenda contains an inventory of the remedial activities that …

Climate and Environment, WORLDVIEWS

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Getting to Know Mediterranean Farmers: Agritourism Hits Sicily

October 17, 2017

by Dulcie Leimbach

BELPASSO, Italy — The Oasi di Francesca farm-stay hotel is situated in an unlikely spot here in Sicily, about a kilometer from an Italian naval air base and a half hour to the large port city of Catania in the east, facing the Ionian Sea. Among the acres of low-lying artichoke plants — as …

Climate and Environment, Development, Libya, Migration, Refugees, Unesco

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TAKE A LOOK

Paris Pact Staying Alive: Christiana Figueres’s New Role and More Data on Climate Change

July 9, 2017

by Barbara Crossette

Christiana Figueres, who piloted the Paris Agreement on Climate Change through years of negotiations to success in December 2015, will become chair of The Lancet Countdown’s high-level advisory board, the British medical publication announced recently. The Countdown project was established in November 2016 to monitor the effects of climate change on health and track …

Climate and Environment, Health and Population, Take a Look

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BOOKS

America’s Pledge to the Paris Agreement Doesn’t Hinge on Washington

June 26, 2017

by Barbara Crossette

When Donald Trump, defying science and public opinion, reversed American policy and announced in June that the United States would leave the universally endorsed 2015 Paris agreement on climate change, his decision may have given more impetus to a growing trend away from reliance on shortsighted national politicians. In country after country, the focus …

BOOKS, Cities, Climate and Environment

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WORLDVIEWS

Six Reasons We Will Always Have the Paris Agreement

June 3, 2017

by Shazia Z. Rafi

President Trump announced recently to a baffled world that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Or in his own inimitable words, “we are leaving, . . . we will renegotiate a better deal . . . #AmericaFirst.” The reactions from other world leaders were fast and furious, with the strongest words …

Climate and Environment, US Foreign Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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Climate and Environment

Security Council Presidency: Two Old Friends, France and Germany, Now Share an Office

10 Ways to Push the Climate Change and Conflict Agenda, Despite the Deniers

Climate Talks Bypass the Poorest, Who Endure Polluted Homes

To Save the Earth, Deepen Incentives for a Carbon-Free World

Europe and Others Help Fund the UN Palestinian Agency, Filling US Void

Sweden’s Priorities in the Security Council: Being Prepared, Including for the World Cup

Europe’s Contraception Gaps: They May Be Wider Than You Think

Zimbabwe Stuck With a Health Crisis Left by Mugabe Era

‘Period Poverty’: Why No One Is Talking About Eco-Friendly Solutions

Americans Want an Active Role in the World, Contrary to Trump’s Actions, a Poll Finds

As UN Climate Talks Convene, the Earth Veers Toward Catastrophe

Getting to Know Mediterranean Farmers: Agritourism Hits Sicily

Paris Pact Staying Alive: Christiana Figueres’s New Role and More Data on Climate Change

America’s Pledge to the Paris Agreement Doesn’t Hinge on Washington

Six Reasons We Will Always Have the Paris Agreement

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