The march on Saturday. Photo: Oxfam InternationalCross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.
As the first week of climate negotiations drew to a close, Saturday saw people from across Africa and beyond march through the streets of Durban to demand progress on a fair, ambitious, and legally binding global climate deal.
Caritas Internationalis President Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga said failure at U.N. climate talks in Durban is a “moral apartheid” that cannot be allowed to happen.
Several animal species including gorillas in Rwanda and tigers in Bangladesh could risk extinction if the impact of climate change and extreme weather on their habitats is not addressed, a U.N. report showed on Sunday.
The livelihoods of rural women in Africa are being destroyed as global warming shifts rain and droughts.
Planning for predicted large-scale migration as a result of climate impacts remains preliminary, particularly regarding the politically perilous issue of migration across national borders.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Alden Meyer, the Alliance of Small Island States’ proposal to get a mandate for a new agreement within 12 months has been excluded from negotiating texts due to U.S. objections.
“Those who are not interested in saving lives, economies, and environments, like the U.S., must now stand aside and let those with the political will move forward,” Greenpeace International’s Kumi Naidoo said.
“We believe that the ideas about how a country chooses to raise money and how it puts it forward are a matter for determination by each country,” U.S. negotiator Jonathan Pershing said on Friday, opposing formal agreements for long-term financing of the Green Climate Fund.
Over 90 percent of South Africa’s electricity, produced by power utility Eskom, is generated from coal.
It took 30 hours of flying, but Inuit hunter Jordan Konek has arrived in the land of surfers and palm trees with a message for the world’s politicians: Climate change is real, and it could devastate Canada’s Arctic people.
