WASHINGTON, Sep 16 (IPS) - Later this month, government officials and climate stakeholders will once again converge on New York City (this time virtually) for Climate Week and the United Nations meetings. And while there will be much discussion about the important role that actors such as private businesses, civil society and cities will need to play in the climate change effort, there will once again be relatively little discussion about one key cohort: government-owned companies.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 15 (IPS) - We have known for a long time that biodiversity, and the services it provides, have been in decline. It is on this background that ten years ago, the international community adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020.

Sep 15 (IPS) - The EU is thinking about agreeing to a €4 billion trade deal with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay (known as the Mercosur bloc). In our new academic research, myself and 21 international co-authors looked at the details of this deal so you don't have to. What we found wasn't pretty.

KATHMANDU, Sep 14 (IPS) - A new report out this week warns that hundreds of glacial lakes in the Himalaya are in danger of bursting because global heating is melting the ice on the world's highest mountains. However, on only two of them have there been mitigation measures to reduce water levels.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Sep 08 (IPS) - As the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the length and breadth of Asia and the Pacific, finance ministries are continuing their relentless efforts to inject trillions of dollars for emergency health responses and fiscal packages. With continued lockdown measures and restricted borders, economic rebound seems uncertain.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 08 (IPS) - Agnes Kalibata, UN Special Envoy for 2021 Food Systems Summit and a former Rwandan Minister for Agriculture, has been tasked with leading the first-ever UN Food Systems Summit, on a date to be determined next year. In an interview with UN News, she outlined her vision for a transformed international system that is more resilient, fairer, and less harmful to the planet.

Monday, September 07, 2020

SINGAPORE, Sep 07 (IPS) - The US residential polls are akin to a drama that is staged every four years in which the American are actors on stage and the rest of the world is the audience. With one major difference, however. While in a usual theatrical performance the viewers are there mostly for amusement, though some may be enlightened and enriched by the experience, in the case of the US elections, unlike in others, their fates are inextricably linked to the outcome of the play.