Month: November 2019

UN emissions report: World on course for more than 3 degree spike, even if climate commitments are met

UN Photo/Kibae Park Emissions at a manufacturing complex in Toronto, Canada. (file) Even if countries meet commitments made under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world is heading for a 3.2 degrees Celsius global temperature rise over pre-industrial levels, leading to even wider-ranging and more destructive climate impacts, warns a report from the UN Environment Programme, released on Tuesday. The annual Emissions Gap Report, which […]

Empowering people living with HIV ‘will end the epidemic’, says AIDS agency chief

© UNICEF/Frank Dejong In the center of Chad, 19-year-old Achta holds up condoms during an HIV awareness-raising session in her Moussoro community. (March 2019) When people living with HIV actively participate in their own care, new infections decline and more affected people access treatment, according to a new report launched on Tuesday by UNAIDS, the United Nations […]

Climate change: Another year of record gas emissions, warns UN meteorological agency

WMO/Monika Nováková A funnel cloud in Plechotice, Slovakia. Levels of the three main heat-trapping gases emitted into the atmosphere – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide – have reached yet another high, the UN meteorological agency, WMO, said on Monday. In an appeal to Governments to do more to reverse countries’ reliance on producing energy […]

Independent rights experts sound alarm at Iran protest crackdown, internet blackout

UN Photo/Milton Grant A view of Tehran, Iran, 11 December 1997 Reports of killed and maimed demonstrators, and a continuing nationwide internet shutdown in Iran’s now week-long protests are of “grave concern”, and the Government and authorities must ensure rights of expression and opinion are protected, a UN group of independent experts said on Friday. “We are […]

A staggering one-in-three women, experience physical, sexual abuse

UN Women International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women Violence against women and girls is among the most widespread, and devastating human rights violations in the world, but much it is often unreported due to impunity, shame and gender inequality, the UN highlighted ahead of Monday’s World Day to stamp out abuse of women and […]

‘Three-country crisis’ across central Sahel puts whole generation at risk, warns UN food agency

Violent attacks by extremists “almost every day” in the Sahel nations of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have displaced nearly one million people and caused emergency levels of malnutrition, UN humanitarians have said. Warning of an impending humanitarian crisis, the World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday said that if nothing is done to tackle hunger in the […]