A rare Security Council debate on the threat posed to peace by climate change failed to spot the signficance of an equally rare declaration – of famine – in Somalia.
Todd Stern handbagged in Delhi
Todd Stern, US special envoy on climate change, has met the new Indian environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan, to discuss the looming UN conference in Durban.
The climate change blame game
How far can we go in blaming climate change for food insecurity? Kenya poses the difficult questions.
Vandana Shiva calls for end to Indian seed poker
The Indian scientist and environmental activist, Dr Vandana Shiva, has taunted the world’s major biotechnology companies for adopting crop seed research methods which require no more skills than betting in a lottery.
Prepare for personal carbon rations, says UN report
One of the UN’s most influential annual reports warns that personal energy rationing in richer countries is a necessary component of any coherent global strategy for sustainable development. American citizens might be capped at less than one sixth of their current carbon consumption by 2050.
Never let a good crisis go to waste, twice
Yesterday’s panic in the financial markets has conjured a repeat of that sense of things falling apart – with no answers ready from any quarter.
No value in global poverty guesswork
Publication of the progress report on the UN Millennium Development Goals is the time of year to ask whether momentum for the 2015 targets is really there.
Asian migrants are not for sale
There’s something uncomfortably de-humanizing about packaging economic migrants, as though they were destined for shipping containers.
Business leader loses patience with UN forest talks
Negotiations to save the world’s rainforests conducted within the UN climate change framework are failing and should be replaced with separate high level government dialogue, according to the group chief executive of Kingfisher plc, the UK’s largest home improvement retailer.
Kumi unable to scale the FSC platform
A no-show by the Executive Director of Greenpeace hints at a deepening crisis between the FSC and the big environmental groups over recognition of carbon offset schemes.