Issue No. 354 (2023/1)

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COVER: Rising temperature, declining nature

Climate meet delivers landmark win on loss-and-damage fund
By Meena Raman
The grave challenge of climate change confronting humankind is being addressed in intergovernmental negotiations at the United Nations. The most recent UN climate conference set up an urgently needed fund for responding to loss and damage arising from climate change impacts, but produced little else of concrete significance.

New implementation framework for Biodiversity Convention adopted
By Lim Li Lin
Hot on the heels of the climate conference came another major intergovernmental environmental gathering, concerned with the related problem of the planet’s eroding biological diversity. While the Montreal meet adopted a blueprint to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, it failed to seriously tackle the resource extraction and overconsumption fuelling that loss.

The CBD must address debt as a driver of biodiversity loss
By Tova Gaster, Jessica Dempsey, Audrey Irvine-Broque, Patrick Bigger and Lim Li Ching
Tova Gaster, Jessica Dempsey, Audrey Irvine-Broque, Patrick Bigger and Lim Li Ching outline why moves to safeguard biodiversity have to take into account the question of sovereign debt.

Developing countries defend principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’
By Prerna Bomzan
The need to uphold the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ between developed and developing countries in global actions to address biodiversity and climate change was a major bone of contention at CBD COP 15. Prerna Bomzan provides an account of the arduous negotiations that revolved around this issue at Montreal.

What climate debt does the North owe the South?
By John Feffer
The gaping disparities in emissions and wealth between the developed and developing countries have given rise to the concept of ‘climate debt’ – a debt that has to be urgently settled if the world is to rein in the disastrous effects of global warming.

‘Nature-based solutions’ to climate change: Behind the hype
By Doreen Stabinsky
Current climate and biodiversity discourse is rife with references to ecosystem conservation and management measures that are said to keep carbon concentrations in check. Do these ‘nature-based solutions’ live up to the claims, or are they more an excuse for inaction on cutting fossil fuel emissions?

We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction
By Vijay Kolinjivadi
False solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss only exacerbate the problems they purport to resolve, while generating massive profits for their corporate peddlers.

Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition from the Peoples of the South
Organisations and individuals from across the Global South have issued the following call to reject the new colonialism enshrined in the rich world’s ‘clean energy transition’ in favour of a radical, systemic shift grounded in both social and environmental justice.

Third World Resurgence Page