The world's wealthy countries need to pump more money into financing poorer nations' efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with climate change, environmentalists said yesterday ahead of a global warming conference.
Representatives of 20 countries -- including the US, European nations, Japan and China -- were to hold a weekend meeting outside Tokyo to focus on developing clean technology and financing the race to stave off possible environmental disaster caused by rising world temperatures.
Environmentalists were taking aim at the US-backed clean technology fund to which Washington announced a US$2 billion contribution in January.
The US government says the fund, which is seeking donations from other countries, would speed up the development of cleaner, more efficient technologies, in developing nations, especially up-and-coming polluters like India and China.
Japan, meanwhile, has pledged US$10 billion over five years for a similar fund, and Britain last year announced its own fund.
CONSULTATION
To be effective, funds such as the US one need more money, should be formed with full consultation with the countries receiving the funds and should continually generate additional money, said Jennifer Morgan, with the E3G environmentalist group.
"Unfortunately, none of these criteria have been met," she said.
Developing nations say they need access to cleaner fuels, alternative energy sources and cleaner burning power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, while at the same time building seawalls to battle rising oceans and taking other steps to counteract the effects of warming.
Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the UN has estimated it would take about US$200 billion a year in clean technologies to get greenhouse gas emissions back down to current levels by 2030 -- much more than what's on the table so far.
The money should come from new contributions from governments, investment redirected from the private sector and money generated through a vast expansion of the trading of carbon credits -- a system that is already being experimented with in Europe.
"A key part of negotiations over the next two years is to come up with resources that are predictable, dedicated and of the magnitude needed," he said.
The critics also said the funding efforts so far had been set up by the donors without sufficient consultation with poorer nations.
OBLIGATION
Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, of the ActionAid environmentalist group, said rich nations had an obligation to help developing nations.
"We want to see that this is not a matter of charity," he said, adding that pollution caused by wealthy nations has caused the crisis that poorer nations now have to grapple with.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS