UN: failure to reduce environmental risks will set back human development

Submitted by ward on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 7:56pm

Author:

Damian Carrington

Children carry drinking water as they pass through a polluted pond in Allahabad,

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Droughts and rising sea levels could reverse efforts to improve living conditions of world's poorest people, report warns

Unchecked environmental destruction will halt – or even reverse – the huge improvements seen in the living conditions of the world's poorest people in recent decades, a major new UN report warned on Wednesday.

Link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/02/environment-human-un?newsfeed=true

Level:

Global

Year:

2011

Story category:

Why the world is burning more coal

Submitted by ward on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 7:46pm

Author:

Fred Pearce

A worker walks past freshly-mined, high quality coal awaiting transport on a tra

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The inconvenient truth is that coal remains a cheap and dirty fuel — and the idea of 'clean' coal remains a distant dream

Link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/31/why-world-burning-coal

Level:

Global

Year:

2011

Story category:

Q&A with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

Submitted by ward on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 7:38pm

Author:

BRYAN WALSH

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It's the hard-working demographers of the U.N. who have counted the global population and have selected Oct. 31 as the date of the 7 billionth person. That makes sense because population is a major part of international development — and that's the business of the U.N. Bryan Walsh of TIME spoke with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his office in New York City about global population, the challenges of development and the lingering threat of climate change.

Link:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2097720_2097779_2097780,00.html

Level:

Global

Year:

2011

Story category:

Countries must plan for climate refugees - report

Submitted by ward on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 7:27pm

Author:

Deborah Zabarenko

An internally displaced child sits in a mud oven outside his family tent at a ca

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WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The world's governments and relief agencies need to plan now to resettle millions of people expected to be displaced by climate change, an international panel of experts said on Thursday.

Resettlement related to large infrastructure development projects has been occurring for decades, with some estimates of up to 10 million people a year, said the report's lead author, Alex de Sherbinin.