Death, devastation and climate discussions

Death and devastation in the Philippines Today’s two main topics are closely related, and this albeit they are taking place thousands of kilometers apart. The first one is of course the Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda that left death and devastation in its wake in the Philippines.

To CNN, the Guardian and many other sources, at least 10,000 people have perished. As I write these lines, hundreds of thousands people are now seeking food, water and refuge in the Philippines.

The UN World Food Programme states that at least 4.5 million people have been affected. Haiyan is reported to be likely the largest storm to ever hit land. Until the next…

We had Katrina, then last year we had Sandy, now Haiyan. Each passing year brings more and more violent phenomenon. Each time we fail to act as we must on climate change.

This brings us to today’s second topic as the 19th Conference of Parties is taking place in Warsaw, Poland. This is the latest installment of UN Climate Change Conferences.

If more and more countries and regions are making progress as I have outlined in a recent article – both the United States and the European Union see their emissions decrease and China seems to slow down its ballooning emissions – there is still much more to be done and done quickly.

As an editorial in the Guardian notes, helping affected populations is one thing, tackling climate change and global weirding is another. We have many tools at our disposal to curb emissions.

Typhoon Haiyan seen from spaceIt’s time to put them in place in a way that makes decreasing global greenhouse gases emissions a reality. Taxing carbon, ending fossil fuels subsidies, crowfunding renewables, there is so many possibilities…

This is essentially the plea given by Yeb Sano, the Philippine lead climate negotiator in Warswaw today. He called to ” stop this madness “ and I daresay I quite agree with him…

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