Category Archives: Sustainable development

Italy to put sustainability and climate at heart of learning in schools

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Country will become first to make study of global heating and human influence on natural resources compulsory in state schools

Italy is to become the first country in the world to make sustainability and climate crisis compulsory subjects for schoolchildren.

State schools will begin incorporating the UN’s 2030 agenda for sustainable development into as many subjects as possible from September, with one hour a week dedicated to themes including global heating and humans’ influence on the planet.

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How do we feed the world without destroying it? | Bob Geldof

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An international summit next year will tackle the world’s most enduring crisis – hunger. Radical action is needed

Hunger is the most awful and profound expression of poverty. It exists in every country. It is something that most people can identify with on some perhaps primordial level. It is innate. The fear of hunger is etched into our DNA, passed down the generations from hungry, scared ancestors. It is in our bones. It is in my Irish bones.

First, the good news. For several decades global hunger has been decreasing. This is mostly thanks to the sweat and ingenuity of the 500 million smallholders who produce 80% of the food consumed in the developing world. It is also thanks to the work of exceptional NGOs, to economic growth and to the innovation of businesses all along the supply chain. It’s thanks, too, to the support of governments and international organisations. And it’s to increased political stability in some places.

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Higher temperatures driving ‘alarming’ levels of hunger – report

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Global hunger index finds countries affected by drought and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa have seen biggest increases in undernourished people

The climate crisis is driving alarming levels of hunger in the world, undermining food security in the world’s most vulnerable regions, according to this year’s global hunger index.

The annual report, a ranking of 117 countries measuring hunger rates and trends, shows progress since 2000 but warns that the world still has a long way to go to reach the zero hunger target agreed by world leaders by 2030.

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Escape to the country: India’s villagers open doors to city tourists | Anne Pinto-Rodrigues

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A scheme training people to host outsiders is creating alternative livelihoods that will help build resilience against climate crisis and stem migration for Indian families

Datta Kondar leads a group of tourists through his village in Maharashtra to view the firefly spectacle for which it is so famous. With the arrival of the monsoons in June, thousands of fireflies emerge at twilight and perform an elaborate courtship ritual, signalling to prospective mates with their glowing bodies in a mesmerising show.

Being a tour guide is not what Kondar, 36, had planned. In 2003, he took the typical route of many rural Indians, travelling to the city in search of work. But he found himself unable to cope with the gritty realities of life in Mumbai and returned to his village, Purushwadi, within a year.

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We’ve got a deadline to save people and planet – let’s start the charge

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The sustainable development goals, which promise to end extreme poverty and inequality by 2030, are alarmingly off track. It’s not too late to act

We might seem a strange group to be writing this together – a British film-maker, a Libyan doctor and women’s rights activist, and an indigenous leader from Chad – but what we have in common is that we are all appointed by the UN secretary general as advocates for the sustainable development goals.

Some won’t have heard of these global goals – 17 objectives to which every nation signed up in 2015 – but they form the basis of a masterplan to make us the first generation to end extreme poverty, the last to be threatened by climate change, and the most determined to end injustice and inequality.

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Leonardo DiCaprio urged to end support for Indian river project

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Charities warn actor that Cauvery tree-planting scheme could harm endangered waterway and its environs

Leonardo DiCaprio has been urged to withdraw support for a controversial tree-planting programme in India, which could result in catastrophic environmental damage.

An open letter, signed by more than 90 Indian environmental and rights groups, warned that the Hollywood actor and activist’s endorsement of the Cauvery Calling campaign was ill-advised. The signatories said the campaign could lead to the “drying up of streams and rivulets, and destruction of wildlife habitats”.

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Global renewable energy initiative aims to bring a billion people in from the dark

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Worldwide commission aims to end energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia by driving investment in new technology

Electricity could be delivered to more than a billion people currently living without it within a decade by linking up small-scale projects into a giant, environmentally-friendly network.

According to a new global commission, advances in micro energy grids and renewable energy technologies could “dramatically accelerate change” and transform lives in rural areas of sub-Saharan African and south Asia.

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Leak suggests UN agency self-censors on climate crisis after US pressure

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International Organization for Migration apparently amends programme documentation to avoid conflict with US ‘political sensitivities’

Leaked communications suggest that the UN’s migration agency is censoring itself on the climate crisis and the global compact on migration, following pressure from the US government.

An email sent by a US-based official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 28 August to colleagues around the world relayed that the US state department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) told the agency documents related to programme activities it funds “must not be in conflict with current [US government] political sensitivities”.

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Pakistan expands ban on plastic bags as inspectors are caught in shop spat

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Punjab joins regions where polythene bags are illegal and stiff fines take effect in Islamabad amid demands for alternatives

Punjab has become the latest region in Pakistan to ban plastic bags, as the country battles to reduce single-use plastics that are damaging the environment.

So far there is no date for implementation in Pakistan’s most populous state. The south-eastern province of Sindh has announced it will ban polythene bags from October, and last week a ban took effect in Islamabad.

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Malawi reinstates ban on plastic bags as campaigners hail ‘fantastic victory’

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Judges overturn injunction won by plastic manufacturers after thin plastic bags were outlawed

Malawi’s highest court has imposed a ban on plastic bags, a huge milestone for the government and environmental charities who beat off challenges from some of the country’s big manufacturers.

The government imposed the ban on thin plastic bags in 2015, but the move was overturned by the high court after a number of plastic manufacturers who operate in the southern-east African nation obtained an injunction, citing an “infringement of business rights”.

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India’s strongman PM: Modi to appear on Bear Grylls’ Man vs Wild

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Narendra Modi claims the programme will showcase India’s ‘beautiful mountains and mighty rivers’, in the latest in a string of choreographed media appearances

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, will appear with Bear Grylls in a wilderness survival television programme, the latest in a series of Putin-style media appearances in which the 68-year-old leader projects himself as a man of action and a champion of the environment.

A trailer for the programme, Man vs Wild, which will air in India on 12 August, shows the two men cutting through forests, sniffing animal dung and floating down a river on a makeshift raft. In one scene, Modi holds an improvised spear and tells Grylls: “I’ll hold this for you.”

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EU moves to tackle deforestation caused by chocolate and other products

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Campaigners hail scheme to protect and restore forests around the world as ‘pivotal step’ towards ensuring goods remain untainted

The EU has taken a “pivotal step” towards addressing the deforestation caused by its consumption of soy, chocolate, meat and other products, environmental campaigners have said.

The EU said this week it had set out a new plan to protect and restore the world’s forests, which involves working with governments to promote better use of land and resources, managing supply chains, and carrying out research. A possible new regulation to “minimise the impact of EU consumption on deforestation and forest degradation” will also be assessed under the plan.

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World leaders have ‘a lot to answer for’ over damning figures on education

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Former prime minister of New Zealand Helen Clark condemns complacency as Unesco data shows one in six children won’t be in school by 2030

World leaders have “a lot to answer for” as new figures reveal that governments are failing to give all children an education, and that by 2030 one in six children won’t be in school.

The former prime minister of New Zealand and advocate for education Helen Clark said the figures showed “worrisome complacency on the part of countries which, just a few years ago, were so keen to hammer out an ambitious global agenda and make it a success”.

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Marine plastic pollution costs the world up to $2.5bn a year, researchers find

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Scientists warn that social and economic price of plastic waste to global society has been underestimated

Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans costs society billions of dollars every year in damaged and lost resources, research has found.

Fisheries, aquaculture, recreational activities and global wellbeing are all negatively affected by plastic pollution, with an estimated 1-5% decline in the benefit humans derive from oceans. The resulting cost in such benefits, known as marine ecosystem value, is up to $2.5bn (£1.9bn) a year, according to a study published this week in Marine Pollution Bulletin.

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Restaurants could make £7 for every £1 invested in cutting waste, report reveals

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Global study sets out how industry could make waste reduction pay, using data taken from across 12 countries

Restaurants can make a profit of £7 for every £1 they invest in cutting food waste, a global report reveals today, in findings that are hailed as proving the business case for stopping edible food from being binned.

The study is based on research for Champions 12.3, a group of political, business, NGO and farmers’ leaders from across the world who have united to tackle waste, using data taken from 114 restaurant sites across 12 countries.

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The miracle method for sustainable rice that scientists dismissed | John Vidal

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A technique developed by a Jesuit priest is producing bigger harvests – and reducing emissions of a crop responsible for 1.5% of greenhouse gases

The fragrant jasmine rice growing on the left side of Kreaougkra Junpeng’s five-acre field stands nearly five feet tall.

Each plant has 15 or more tillers, or stalks, and the grains hang heavy from them. The Thai farmer says this will be his best-ever harvest in 30 years and he will reap it four weeks earlier than usual.

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