This could be another turnaround for the fight against climate change as the G7 is willing to eliminate subsidies for oil, coal and natural gas within the decade.
United Nations
Income inequalities : Oxfam has solutions
Last week I wrote on how to both the United Nations and Oxfam, income inequalities are at an all time high and growing. If the UN shows that some trends are going in the right direction, this could end soon.
Too little people have too much money and vice versa. In the United States, the richest one percent owns 43 percent of the wealth of the country ( ! ). And this isn’t going to change unless we act.
Indeed, to the Seattle Times, ” The top 1 percent took more than one-fifth of the income earned by Americans, one of the highest levels since 1913, when the government instituted an income tax. “
Divestment reaches large investors
According to the New York Times and Reuters, more than a dozen large foundations representing more than $2 billion (around 1.48 billion euros) in assets will stop investing in fossil fuels, just as the World Bank and the United Nations advise.
To Reuters : ” The Divest-Invest Philanthropy coalition includes foundations, such as the Park Foundation, the John Merck Fund and the Schmidt Family Foundation – co-founded by Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt – in the United States “
These foundations believe that the carbon bubble presents both financial and ethical risks and urge others to follow their lead in divesting from unburnable carbon.
Air pollution kills more than HIV and Malaria combined
Here is another article I wrote for Cleantechies. It is on air pollution, a widespread phenomenon that is stricking both developed and developing nations all around the world. As one can see, it is also a most killing one : ” The combustion of fossil fuels are a huge health hazard as to a recent … Read more
UNEP and FAO urges us to Think, Eat, Save
The United Nations Environmental Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization have launched a new campaign to end wasting so much food as 1.3 BILLION tonnes of food are thrown away each year. The Think, Eat, Save Campaign will target all stakeholders : producers, retailers and consumers as worldwide, about one-third of all food produced … Read more
FAO : Agroforestry is crucial to ensure food security
Do you remember my series of posts on how agroforestry and urban forestry could help the world solve some of its most pressing problems ? Well, it seems that the United Nations’ FAO is sharing my opinion. To their website : ” The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today called on countries to … Read more
The Oath Project, CSR at work
For my 1,400th post on this blog, let’s talk about corporate social responsibility. If Medical Doctors have their Hippocratic Oath and lawyers have their equivalent, isn’t it high time for managers around the world to have their own ?
Corporate social responsibility – CSR for short – is more needed than ever as our planet is warming, our ecosystems are collapsing, our societies are suffering and our economies are crumbling.
Given both my management and business educational background and my passion for sustainability it was with interest that I read about The Oath Project.
Another year, another CO2 emissions record
This is getting really worrying. To the German renewable energy institute, global CO2 emissions rose by 2.5 percent in 2011. The IEA on its side saw a 3.2 percent increase. Global emissions are now 50 percent higher than in 1990.
This is taking place as respected organizations such as the World Bank, the IEA and the United Nations are calling for rapid and massive action. You can’t suspect these people to have an agenda or to have doubts about this.
So either country leaders around the world will finally heed the call or we are doomed to witness global collapse by 2030. It’s now or never.
Organized crime is also behind deforestation
If I tell you “organized crime” you will most likely think about drug and weapons trafficking, prostitution, money laundering, extortion and so on. But as the Huffington Post Green reports : ” The United Nations Environment Program recently released an alarming report indicating organized crime is responsible for 50 to 90% of illegal logging in … Read more