Environment and Climate Change
The true costs of conventional energy
“Renewable energy is expensive—we cannot afford it.” I have heard this argument many times over. But those who bring it up are wrong. The costs of renewable energy are not higher than those for conventional energy. Instead people confuse costs with prices and need to be better aware that the market price of conventional energy does not tell the truth.
Late-night radio: A window on intimacy
With a freer and more intimate tone than daytime broadcasts, night-time radio has long been the privileged place for confidences delivered in the anonymity of the night. At a time conducive to imagination and solitude, these broadcasts provide listeners with a reassuring voice that seems to speak only to them. But they are now giving way to less expensive programming.
Reflections
Just after World Wildlife Day this year, armed poachers broke into a French zoo undetected by staff and security, shot a white rhinoceros and stole the murdered animal’s precious horn.
Nuestros invitados: Samal yeslyamova y sergei dvortsevoi, el cine como espejo de la realidad
Siluetas familiares y sin embargo invisibles, casi 2,5 millones de migrantes de Asia Central vinieron a Moscú para probar suerte y se encuentran ahora trabajando en empleos precarios. En Ayka, el director ruso-kazajo Sergei Dvortsevoi y la actriz kazaja Samal Yeslyamova, ganadora del Premio de Interpretación Femenina del Festival de Cannes de 2018, muestran el destino de aquellos que están dispuestos a sacrificarlo todo ante la esperanza de una vida mejor.
China's Himalaya FM: Radio à la carte
Having worked as a professional host for the radio and television station of Jilin province, one traditional Chinese broadcaster experienced an interesting transformation into a new media host. Since 2014, Shi Zhan has been practising a new form of audio storytelling — vividly recreating the history of China's ancient dynasties on Shanghai-based Himalaya FM, the country's most successful audio network.
Women and radio: On the same wavelength
In a sound environment that has long been dominated by men, women have been slow to carve out a place for themselves. Yet, having been assiduous listeners from the start, they have played a central role in shaping the history and content of radio.
Will climate change impact the right to health & development?
On a dusty construction site in western China, Mr Tan is just another anonymous migrant labourer. But, the unassuming former farmer is also the face of a complex web of crises threatening global health.
Current affairs: The league of nations: A universal dream that has stood the test of time
A hundred years ago, on 10 January 1920, the League of Nations was born out of the rubble of the First World War. The International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC), UNESCO's predecessor, was created in its wake. The aim was to overcome the national egoisms that had led to the disaster, by focusing on multilateralism. This dream would not survive the inter-war period. But in an era facing challenges such as war, terrorism, economic crises and climate change, the credo of the founding fathers of the League for a more united world has not lost any of its relevance.
Climate change and our common future
I saw at one time a leaflet that asked people to come together in stopping climate change. It seems that many are not aware that the climate changes all the time and that the change is not stoppable. Climate changes, however, differ in their timing and magnitude and are a result of many factors, such as the distance between the sun and the equator, which contributes to the heat budget of the Earth, and the difference in the temperature of the equator from that of the cooler poles due to deviations in Earth’s orbit, or variations in solar radiation.
L’eau douce en Amérique latine et dans les Caraïbes
Bien que l’Amérique latine et les Caraïbes possèdent les plus grandes ressources en eau douce par habitant, un tiers de la population n’a pas accès durable à l’eau potable. Jusqu’à ces dernières années, on attribuait les problèmes liés à l’eau douce à la distribution inéquitable des ressources, à l’absence de financement adéquat pour les infrastructures hydriques, à la mauvaise gouvernance dans le secteur de l’eau douce ou à une conjugaison de ces trois facteurs. Aujourd’hui, alors que les nations essaient de préparer la voie qui mène à la conclusion d’un accord afin de mettre en place un régime multilatéral qui stabilisera le climat mondial, les pays d’Amérique latine et des Caraïbes ont réalisé que les changements climatiques ont eu des effets profonds sur les ressources en eau douce de la région, avec des conséquences importantes pour les écosystèmes et les sociétés.
Will there be climate migrants en masse?
While some countries are historically responsible for climate change, should the global community take up responsibility for climate migrants, even if they do not cross international borders? Should there be immigration concessions for climate migrants when they need to or have to cross borders? These are important questions that arise at a time of global climate change.
Freshwater in latin america and the caribbean
Despite the fact that Latin America and the Caribbean have the largest freshwater resources per capita, a third of the region’s population is cut off from sustained access to drinking water. Up until a few years ago, freshwater problems had been generally characterized as a result of inequitable natural distribution, lack of adequate financing for water infrastructure, poor freshwater governance, or a combination of the three. Nowadays, as nations try pave the way towards sealing a deal to put in place a multilateral regime that will stabilize the global climate, Latin America and the Caribbean countries have realized that global climate change has affected freshwater resources of the region with significant consequences to ecosystems and societies.
In the shadow of climate change
Climate change is one of the greatest global challenges of the twenty-first century. Its impacts vary among regions, generations, age, classes, income groups, and gender. Based on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ipcc), it is evident that people who are already most vulnerable and marginalized will also experience the greatest impacts. The poor, primarily in developing countries, are expected to be disproportionately affected and consequently in the greatest need of adaptation strategies in the face of climate variability and change. Both women and men working in natural resource sectors, such as agriculture, are likely to be affected. However, the impact of climate change on gender is not the same. Women are increasingly being seen as more vulnerable than men to the impacts of climate change, mainly because they represent the majority of the world’s poor and are proportionally more dependent on threatened natural resources. The difference between men and women can also be seen in their differential roles, responsibilities, decision making, access to land and natural resources, opportunities and needs, which are held by both sexes. Worldwide, women have less access than men to resources such as land, credit, agricultural inputs, decision-making structures, technology, training and extension services that would enhance their capacity to adapt to climate change.
Unlayering of the ozone
The formation of the Antarctic ozone hole is a graphic demonstration of how rapidly we can change the atmosphere of our planet. There are many other environmental issues facing us today and we must link them together to understand and debate the under lying causes, rather than treat each issue in isolation. Antarctica is a wonderful continent. Glaciers carve their way to the sea where the waters teem with penguins and whales. Although 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water resides in the polar ice cap, the continent is a veritable desert, with liquid water in short supply. The frozen ice takes on many shades, from the brilliant white of freshly fallen snow to the deep indigo at the bottom of a gaping crevasse. This land of contrasts is where the Antarctic ozone hole was discovered.
The link between disarmament and sustainable development
Twenty years after the 1992 landmark Earth Summit, the world is getting prepared for another conference of the same magnitude, hopefully with increased positive results. Building on commitments adopted by the international community over the last two decades, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development— Rio+20— should pave the way for the launch of a reinvigorated sustainable development agenda—one that takes into account the complex nature of the root causes of poverty which lie at the core of the devastating effects of environmental degradation, as well as the cross-cutting nature of this issue that it is embedded in almost every economic and social activity of mankind. The conference, to be held in Rio de Janeiro from 20 to 22 June this year, must also consider the so-called “new and emerging challenges” that are affecting the world today, and frame its outcome under four basic key objectives: implementation, coherence, integration, and accountability.
A future for itself
In a small village in western Zambia, the Lozi king—the Litunga— will call on his people to leave the lowlands and join him in a spectacular ceremony, celebrating the seasonal flooding that will fertilize their farmlands. But in the past two years there have been no celebrations. Rains arrived earlier than usual, leading to devastating floods. The Lozi blame climate change. “The seasons have changed. This is a very big disaster”, says Bennet Imutongo Sondo, the seventy-four-year-old induna or chief advisor of Liyoyelo village in Zambia’s Mongu district.
The ecology of recycling
While not on the front line of climate solutions, recycling of waste materials, wastewater, and wasted energy is a locally available and highly desirable means of reducing greenhouse gases. One potent greenhouse gas, the methane emitted from landfills and wastewater, accounts for about 90 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from the entire waste sector. That amount is 18 per cent of human-caused methane emissions globally and about three per cent of total greenhouse gases, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Diverting waste bound for landfills and putting it to good use, then, is an obvious and proven means for conserving land and resources, as we have known for a long time; we can now add the knowledge from numerous studies that these practices also bolster climate protection.
Financial innovations and carbon markets
For the first time in recorded history, humans are altering the planet in ways that can endanger its basic life-support systems. We are rapidly transforming the planet’s atmosphere, its bodies of water and the complex web of species that makes up life on Earth. Human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have changed the Earth’s atmosphere, unleashing a potentially catastrophic climate change that can threaten the survival of human civilization. This is real, and it is happening now. As the polar caps and Greenland’s permafrost start to melt, the sea level rises. Entire towns in Alaska are sinking into the warming seas. Species such as the polar bear are on the verge of extinction. Island nations like the Seychelles and low-lying countries such as Bangladesh risk sinking into the ocean. And hundreds of millions of people could follow suit. Indeed, 50 million “climate change refugees” are expected by 2010 and more than 200 million, by 2050—one out of every 45 people who will be alive at the time.