Kelly M. McFarland

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Farmers check on coffee plants destroyed by frost during extremely low temperatures near Caconde, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, on Aug. 25. Extreme weather is slamming crops across the globe, bringing with it the threat of further food inflation at a time costs are already hovering near the highest in a decade and hunger is on the rise. (Jonne Roriz/Bloomberg)

ReflexionesSocial,

Is “zero hunger” in the world attainable? This week’s U.N. Food Systems Summit hopes to make progress on the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal #2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. The virtual summit, held on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York, will address urgent and perennial food security issues with participants from public, multilateral, private and nonprofit groups working on these challenges.

The last time the international community gathered for a summit of this magnitude was the 1995 World Food Summit in Rome, which pledged to “reduce by half the number of chronically undernourished people on Earth by the year 2015."…  Seguir leyendo »

A path remains after the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica traversed the Northwest Passage through the Franklin Strait in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in July 2017. (AP)

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Heat waves from Greece to Siberia — and fires north of the Arctic Circle — are the latest signs this summer that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. This once-inhospitable corner of the globe is becoming the next global commons as the polar ice cap melts.

This will have broad implications for the Arctic as well as non-Arctic nations, and for local and global ecosystems. But the changing environment, new sea lanes and potential new commercial opportunities also open up global security and diplomacy questions.

Here’s what’s happening. Scientists project that the Arctic Ocean will be largely open water during the summer months, a change that will occur within the next two decades.…  Seguir leyendo »

A visitor passes under LED light decorations ahead of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games in Gangwon Province, South Korea, on Thursday. (Bloomberg News)

MundoAsia

The opening of the Olympic Winter Games in South Korea comes at a time of increased regional tensions. North Korean nuclear and missile tests throughout 2017 — showcasing new capabilities — and harsh rhetoric from Pyongyang and Washington have put the region on edge.

The Games could play a calming role. North Korea will send athletes south, and the two Koreas will “march together in the opening ceremony and field a joint team in women’s ice hockey”. The official North Korean delegation includes Kim Jong Un’s sister and close adviser, Kim Yo Jong — a signal that the North may be taking this opportunity for meetings seriously.…  Seguir leyendo »

A rescuer of the Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station carries a migrant baby rescued from a wooden boat in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Sabratha in Libya this month. (Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters)

Internacional, ,

Climate change is more than melting ice caps and swamped islands. The environmental effects of climate change — droughts, floods and severe weather, for instance — have increasingly put more people on the move.

In 2015, the U.N. Refugee Agency counted 65.3 million people around the world as “forcibly displaced,” including about 40 million within their home countries. Wars, ethnic conflicts, economic stresses, famines and disasters are among the reasons people leave their homes.

Less understood, perhaps, is how climate-induced environmental changes — such as increased flooding, salinization, droughts or desertification — amplify these drivers of migration. What are the policy options to help people stay in place or minimize the security concerns related to migration?…  Seguir leyendo »