News headlines in 2023, page 21

The situation for Gazans is “getting worse by the hour”, the UN health agency WHO said on Tuesday, after some the heaviest Israeli shelling in the enclave since Hamas militants massacred some 1,200 people in southern Israel and took around 240 hostages on 7 October.

With rising temperatures leading to demand for more air conditioners and other cooling equipment, a new UN report launched Tuesday at COP28 climate talks in Dubai lays out a pathway to cut emissions across the cooling sector worldwide.

The UN climate conference will continue its work on Tuesday focusing on issues that include scaling up financing for the Paris Agreement, slashing emissions in the cooling sector, ensuring a climate resilient energy sector and a dialogue with indigenous peoples.

The past decade has been confirmed the warmest ever recorded, continuing an alarming 30-year trend that the UN weather chief said on Tuesday is “unequivocally driven by greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.”

WASHINGTON DC, Dec 04 (IPS) - The International Energy Agency now projects oil, gas, and coal use will all peak this decade. This constitutes a dramatic shift from the last 150 years when the thirst for fossil fuels persistently rose. But now this growth is nearing its end sooner than many expected, driven in part by a surge in renewables.

DUBAI, Dec 04 (IPS) - Pacific people live at the nexus of oceans, climate, and food systems, and the interaction of climate and ocean is raising sea temperatures and threatening habitats and resources vital to the region’s sustenance, Palau’s President Surangel Whipps, Jr., said at the launch of an effort to protect and rejuvenate the region's ecosystems and empower communities through to the year 2050—in what is considered to be the biggest single conservation effort in history—Unlocking Blue Pacific Prosperity.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec 04 (IPS) - This year’s UN Climate Change Conference is taking place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December. The so-called COP summits are organised every year and constitute a means for the global community to agree on ways to address the climate crisis, such as limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, supporting vulnerable communities to adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Dec 04 (IPS) - If there is an agency or program within the UN that I really admire and wish the best for, this is the United Nation Volunteers or UNV. Its overarching mission, mandate and key objectives are paramount for humanity.

LONDON, Dec 04 (IPS) - The Netherlands is the latest country to lurch to the right amid the global cost of living crisis. Its November election saw maverick far-right populist Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) come first. A hardline Islamophobe who’s called for the Quran to be banned could be the next prime minister.

JOHANNESBURG & TASHKENT, Dec 04 (IPS) - Lawmakers were reminded of the benefits of long-term planning and the benefits of evidence-based decision-making in policymaking while grappling with demographic trends, be they an aging population or one with significant growth in youth, like that of Uzbekistan.