This week, the panel of climate experts convened by the United Nations delivered a clear message: To stand a chance of curbing dangerous climate change, we can’t afford to build more fossil fuel infrastructure. We must also rapidly phase out the fossil fuels we’re using.
In moments like this, the media rarely focuses on African countries like mine, Uganda. When it does, it covers the impacts — the devastation we are already experiencing and the catastrophes that loom. They are right to: Mozambique has been battered in recent years by cyclones intensified by climate change. Drought in Kenya linked to climate change has left millions hungry.… Seguir leyendo »
La Reserva de la Biosfera de Calakmul, en México, tiene la segunda mayor extensión de bosques tropicales en América, solo superado por la del Amazonas. La Secretaría de Medio Ambiente mexicana la alaba como la mejor conservada de la región y es hogar de 80% de la flora de toda la península de Yucatán, de 350 especies de aves y un centenar de mamíferos, incluyendo animales en peligro de extinción como el pecarí labios blancos, el pavo ocelado o el jaguar.
Pero si los planes del gobierno de México de construir el Tren Maya —uno de los megaproyectos que impulsa el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador— siguen adelante, llegarán miles de turistas a una selva conservada y habrá una franja vallada de más de 40 metros de ancho que creará una frontera humana a lo largo del tramo Selva 2 del tren.… Seguir leyendo »
The rivers of Chilean Patagonia cascade from snow-capped mountains through sheer rock facades and rolling hills, radiating bright turquoise, deep blues and vivid greens. The Puelo. The Pascua. The Futaleufú. Each is as breathtaking and unique as the landscape it quenches.
But these rivers, like many worldwide, have been threatened by dam projects that aim to provide power for distant cities and mining operations. Only one-third of the world’s 177 longest rivers remain free flowing, and just 21 rivers longer than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) retain a direct connection to the sea.
If we are to arrest global climate change, prevent the toxifying of freshwater sources and do right by all those who depend on rivers for survival, we must return more rivers to their natural state.… Seguir leyendo »
Hyperbole is the currency of the desperate — and the lead-up to the Canadian government’s decision on the Trans Mountain expansion project has been witness to a brisk trade among those who suggest that approving the pipeline’s twinning is essential to the economy and national unity.
The project’s supporters have suggested that it is non-negotiable. Opponents counter that the whatever the promised return, the price is too high — for the climate, the western coastline and for Canada’s indigenous peoples. David Anderson, a former Liberal cabinet minister who was the country’s longest-serving minister of the environment, went as far as to say there’s no business case for the expansion.… Seguir leyendo »
Walhi, la organización ambiental más grande de Indonesia, recientemente llevó al gobierno a los tribunales por emitir permisos de construcción a una compañía china en base a lo que, sostienen, fue una evaluación de impacto ambiental “profundamente defectuosa”. En verdad, dice Wahli, el proyecto de la represa Batang Toru de 1.500 millones de dólares tendrá severas consecuencias ecológicas, incluida la posible extinción del gran simio más raro del mundo, el orangután Tapanuli.
Batang Toru es sólo uno de los muchos proyectos de infraestructura planeados a nivel mundial que oficialmente son considerados responsables con el medio ambiente, a pesar de que plantean riesgos ambientales serios.… Seguir leyendo »
En septiembre de 2011, cientos de indígenas marchistas de tierras bajas que descansaban en la localidad amazónica de Chaparina y que se oponían a la construcción de una carretera a través del Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure, o Tipnis, fueron repentinamente reprimidos por policías, que usaron gases lacrimógenos y laques para forzarlos a abordar a buses. Las escenas de televisión, que mostraban a niños aterrorizados corriendo hacia la selva, dirigentes esposados y amordazados y mujeres heridas, en el marco de una nube de gases y del fuego cruzado de balines, indignó a la opinión pública boliviana. Una parte de la ciudadanía no podía entender cómo un presidente indígena, supuestamente defensor de la pachamama, podía ordenar reprimir a sus antiguos aliados, primero, y hacerlo además para ejecutar una obra que afecta al medioambiente.… Seguir leyendo »
While President Trump rolls back environmental protections and announces the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate accord, China is trying to position itself as the world’s climate leader, pledging to cooperate with other countries to build an “eco-civilization”. China has established the largest solar panel farm in the world, plans to close over 100 coal-fired power plants, and is committed to spending at least $361 billion on renewable energy by 2020.
All of this is laudable and sorely needed. But if China truly wants to be a climate leader it needs to address its global climate footprint, not just pollution within its borders.… Seguir leyendo »
As a planet, we have some serious climate targets to meet in the coming years. The Paris Agreement, signed by 192 countries, set an aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5ᵒC. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, set to be achieved by 2030, commit the world to “take urgent action” on climate change.
All this will require ridding our economies of carbon. If we’re to do so, we need to completely rethink our cities.
The UN’s peak climate body showed in its most recent report that cities are crucial to preventing drastic climate change. Already, cities contribute 71% to 76% to energy-related carbon emissions.… Seguir leyendo »
Among the unfortunate headlines about Boko Haram and email scams, it is easy to overlook that Nigeria boasts seven national parks and some of the richest biodiversity in West Africa. Nearly all of that flora and fauna is concentrated in Cross River State in the country’s southeast corner, abutting Cameroon. There, the Nigerian government hopes to have the magnificent Cross River National Park listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site.
To spend time in this landscape is to understand why it deserves such a distinguished designation. Jagged mountains, made soft by knee-high grass, rise out of jungle thick with fog and bird songs.… Seguir leyendo »
If you want to see how differently economists and ecologists view the world, just ask them about roads. Many economists love roads; they see them as one of the most cost-effective ways to encourage economic growth and provide social benefits. But roads truly scare ecologists — especially roads that penetrate into wilderness areas, nature reserves, and the remnants of rare ecosystems. Why? In such circumstances, roads often open a Pandora’s box of environmental evils.
In the Amazon, 95 percent of all forest destruction occurs within five kilometers of a road. The BR-163 highway that cuts deep into the heart of the Amazon is visible at night — even from the Moon — as a thousand-kilometer-long slash of forest fires.… Seguir leyendo »
From early on in the fight over Keystone XL, environmental activists have argued that mining Canadian tar sands (and moving that oil to market through a massive transcontinental pipeline) would be “game over” for the climate. As a result, part of the discussion about the pipeline’s impact has been about whether and how much approving this one single project would add – or not – to the entirety of planet-heating emissions being blown into the atmosphere.
But despite the time and lobbying money and words that have been spent on it, Keystone XL isn’t all that special, necessarily. It’s not just this one construction project that could doom us to a much hotter and more uncomfortable future: we’ve already discovered more oil than we can possibly use and still keep the climate in any sort of humanly tolerable shape.… Seguir leyendo »
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