2019 – A Devastating Year in Review

The glaciers of the Andes Mountains are threatened by global warming. Credit: Julieta Sokolowicz/IPSBy Farhana Haque RahmanROME, Dec 16 2019 (IPS) By any measure this has been a devastating year: fires across the Amazon, the Arctic and beyond; floods and drought in Africa; rising temperatures, carbon emissions and sea levels; accelerating loss of species, and mass forced migrations of people. As seen through the eyes of IPS reporters and contributors around the world, 2019 will be remembered as the year the climate crisis shook us all, and hopefully also for the fight back manifested in the spread of mass protests and civic movements against governments and industries failing to respond. Calls to combat the climate emergency were ringing in the ears of delegations from nearly 200 countries at the annual UN climate summit that opened in Madrid on December 2. Yet despite warnings that the planet is reaching critical tipping points, fears remained that the two weeks of negotiations would end in that familiar sense of disappointment and an opportunity missed. “Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?” declared U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. But the heads of government of the world’s biggest emitters were notably absent, including Donald Trump of the US, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who refused to host the meeting, also s...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Active Citizens Biodiversity Civil Society Climate Change Combating Desertification and Drought Development & Aid Economy & Trade Environment Featured Gender Gender Violence Global Headlines Health Human Rights Migration & Re Source Type: news