Recently a UN climate panel of the world’s top atmospheric scientists warned about global warming with deadly heat waves, hurricanes and the like of events
Almost all the world’s 2.2 billion children are exposed to at least one climate or environmental risk, from floods to toxic air, according to a UNICEF report.
In fact as Greta Thunberg, put it, world leaders are now out of excuses on climate change. After a UN report found virtually no child will escape the impact of global warming, Ms Thunberg, 18, further said, “The world’s children cannot afford more empty promises at this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26).
When world leaders meet in Glasgow in November for COP26 they need to act rather than just talk. I don’t expect them to do that, but I would be more than happy if they could prove me wrong,” she told journalists ahead of the index’s publication on the third anniversary of Fridays For Future, a now-global youth movement that started with her solo protest outside her Swedish school.
Recently a UN climate panel of the world’s top atmospheric scientists warned about global warming with deadly heat waves, hurricanes and the like of events.
Mitzi Jonelle Tan, 23, from the Philippines, joined Thunberg and spoke of doing homework by candlelight as typhoons raged outside or fearing drowning in her bed as floodwaters filled her room. She termed warnings from scientists, world leaders as “empty promises and vague plans.”
Henrietta Fore, UNICEF executive director said, “children were more at risk than adults. They were more susceptible to toxic chemicals, temperature changes and disease. The UNICEF index showed around 1 billion children in 33 mostly African low-emission countries faced a “deadly combination” of extreme weather and existing issues like poverty, making them extremely vulnerable.
Three million square kilometres of global wilderness has been lost since the 1990s, according to a new study.
The shrinking wilderness is due, in part, to human activity such as mining, logging, agriculture, and oil and gas exploration; the study from the University of Queensland in Australia stated and cautioned that only less than 20 per cent of the world’s current area can still be called wilderness.
“This research provides the evidence for how essential it is for the global conservation community to specifically target protecting Earth’s remaining wilderness.”
— James Watson
“Wilderness areas clearly act as a buffer against extinction risk, the risk of species loss is over twice as high for biological communities found outside wilderness areas,” said Moreno Di Marco of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and lead author of the study.
“This research provides the evidence for how essential it is for the global conservation community to specifically target protecting Earth’s remaining wilderness,” said James Watson, senior author of the study. The researchers advised that business standards should be strictly enforced for stopping industrial footprints within intact ecosystems.
