Archives par mot-clé : U.N.

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UN should change course on climate

by D. Woljick, March 15, 2020 in CFACT

The UN’s climate action machinery is on the verge to collapse, beginning this November in Glasgow, Scotland. This time the annual climate summit, called COP 26, is most likely to end in complete disarray, even more than COP 25 did last year in Madrid, Spain.

The failure of COP 25 was widely noted with sadness, but Madrid was a minor COP, with little of substance on the table. In contrast COP 26 is hugely important. When it fails, the UN has to rethink its entire approach to climate action.

One of the six principles stated in CLINTEL’s World Climate Declaration captures the situation very succinctly. It says “Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities.” If it does not, such a policy must fail. See https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/.

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The UN’s Planet Saving Delusion

by Donna Laframboise, February 19, 2020 in BigPictureNews

The UN couldn’t help Haiti recover from an earthquake. But it imagines we’d all perish without it.

UNESCO is supposed to be about cultural preservation. Toward the end of last year, its in-house magazine nevertheless published a special issue on climate change. The official editorial employs the usual cliches. Catastrophic consequences. The “greatest global challenge of our times.” Blah, blah.

Hilariously, this editorial implies that, without a UN plan, the planet simply won’t survive. Earth to UNESCO: could we spend five minutes talking about how the UN has failed – tragically and comprehensively – to save Haiti?

That nation has less than 12 million people. It’s slightly smaller than the US state of Maryland. Because it comprises half of an island, its borders are well-defined. The UN has had a significant presence there since 2004, yet Haiti remains a basket case.

After a devastating earthquake struck in 2010, rebuilding was a huge job at which the UN was spectacularly inept. But that isn’t the half of it. UN peacekeepers then infected the already traumatized local population with cholera.

The peacekeepers were from Nepal, which had just experienced a cholera outbreak. The UN took no steps to ensure its personnel weren’t carrying the disease. Nor did it establish proper sanitation at their encampment. Untreated sewage got dumped into the country’s most important river, contaminating water that was used for drinking, cooking, and bathing.

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UN Targets the Sand People

by Donna Laframboise,  May 8, 2019 in BigPictureNews

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Apparently, those who currently trade in sand and gravel sometimes do so in an unsustainable manner. “[R]ules, practices and ethics” apparently differ worldwide. Imagine that. Moreover, “irresponsible and illegal extraction” needs to be curbed. In other words: the UN has now set its sights on this industry.

In the foreword to the 56-page Sand and Sustainability: Finding new solutions for environmental governance of global sand resources, Joyce Msuya, UNEP’s executive director, declares that humanity is “spending our sand ‘budget’ faster than we can produce it responsibly.”

While this report says it merely wants to spark a conversation, that it doesn’t intend to be “prescriptive,” Msuya’s remarks belie that. She advocates “improved governance of global sand resources,” talks about implementing global standards, and looks forward to the creation of brand new “institutions that sustainably and equitably manage extraction.” What’s another level of red tape, after all?

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climate-debate

U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked

by P.J. Spielman, June 30, 1989 in APNews

UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.

He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.

As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday.

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