Thomson Reuters Foundation - OpEd

October 26, 2021
Last week, leaders from around the world came together at a global summit to negotiate a comprehensive plan to safeguard nature around the world. 

Whether the resulting global strategy, expected to be finalized in 2022, is sufficiently ambitious and successful will be influenced by one item: the degree to which countries put advancing human rights, in general, and the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, in particular, at the heart of their plans and real actions.

Science has recently shown what many of us have always known, that indigenous peoples and local communities have historically been and still are the best stewards of nature. Biodiversity is declining less on indigenous lands and traditional territories than elsewhere in the world, and an outsized proportion of the world’s remaining biodiversity is found in these areas. 

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CNBC

January 26, 2021
The richest of the rich are polluting the world and driving climate change, while the poorest of the poor suffer the greatest consequences, according to a new report published Monday by Oxfam International. 

The richest 1% of the global population have used two times as much carbon as the poorest 50% over the last 25 years, the nonprofit’s report says.

When fossil fuels (which are carbon-based) are burned in factories or jets, for example, carbon dioxide is produced. Carbon dioxide emissions trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in the warming of the planet. The burning of fossil fuels and processes that generate carbon dioxide emissions are major drivers of economic productivity and wealth. 

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