Warming
planet
is not
cozy news
The
situation on the climate front is not pleasant. The trend is actually
disturbing.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has cited consolidated data from five leading international
weather agencies to confirm that 2015, 2016 and 2017 have been the three
warmest years on record.
Last year was the second or third warmest on record
behind 2016, and the hottest without an extra dose of heat caused by an El Niño
event in the Pacific Ocean.
Climate
has a naturally occurring variability due to phenomena such as El Niño, which
has a warming influence, and La Niña, which has a cooling influence.
Average surface temperatures in 2017 were
1.1°Celsius above pre-industrial times, creeping towards 1.5°C, the most
ambitious limit for global warming set by almost 200 nations under the 2015
Paris climate agreement.
The agreement has been weakened by a plan by US
President Donald Trump, who doubts mainstream scientific findings that warming
is driven by man-made greenhouse gases, to pull out.
What Trump forgets is that in the United States
alone, weather and climate-related disasters cost a record 306 billion in 2017,
especially western wildfires and hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma.
Trump’s attempt to promote US fossil fuel
industries are unambiguously at odds with the Paris accord's goals of phasing
out emissions from coal, oil, and natural gas between 2050 and 2100.
The fresh global data essentially underscores the
dramatic warming of the planet and highlights the need for naysayers on climate
change to wake up and accept the scale and urgency of the risks that people
around the world face from climate change.
Climate
change, combined with poverty, eco-systems destruction and inappropriate land
use are pushing more and more people to leave home.
Since industrialisation gathered steam in the early
19th century, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by nearly
half, from 280 parts per million to 407 parts per million.
The best way forward is to initiate effective
collective action to slash CO2 and methane emissions, improve energy efficiency
and develop technologies to remove CO2 from the air.
The WMO
Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Robert
Glasser, emphasises that a three-year streak of record hot years, each above 1°
Celsius, combined with record-breaking economic losses from disasters in 2017
should tell us all that we are facing an existential threat to the planet which
requires a drastic response.
One can
only say that he has hit the nail on the head.
No end to
plight
of Syrian
civilians
Intensification
in hostilities across Syria is having a devastating impact on hapless civilians
and this is a dangerous trend.
What is
worrisome is also that the fighting is severely limiting life-saving
humanitarian operations.
According
to UN officials, increasing indiscriminate bombing, shelling and fighting in
the last few weeks have forced tens of thousands of people to be uprooted.
The
deadly violence has severely affected almost all life-saving and economic sectors.
Medical and healthcare facilities throughout the country are operating at a
fraction of the pre-crisis level.
The
reality on the ground is that hundreds of thousands of people have been killed
in seven years of bloody conflict, countless more are missing or detained, and
five million have fled to other countries.
Adding to
the worry is the fact that the little resources that internally displaced
persons and affected communities had have been exhausted.
In Idlib,
armed clashes between government forces, their allies and opposition armed
groups have further intensified, with insecurity also spreading to parts of
northeast Hama, western rural Aleppo and southern Idlib – forcing 100,000
people to abandon their homes near the frontline and move towards safer areas.
Conditions
especially in Idlib are terrible, with many displaced people forced to stay out
in the open during the winter period.
In the
besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta, nearly 400,000 people are said to be living
in dire conditions suffering severe food, fuel and drinking water shortages.
As per
Unicef officials, the first 14 days of the year alone witnessed more than 30
children killed in escalating violence in East Ghouta, where an estimated
200,000 children have been trapped under siege since 2013.
Distressingly,
millions of children across Syria and in neighbouring countries have suffered
the consequences of unabated levels of violence in the country.
The
fighting does not spare even hospitals. The maternity and paediatric hospital
in Ma'arrat An Nu'man was attacked three times taking it out of service.
The
seven-year conflict continues to push more and more people into the abyss of
hunger and despair.
The only
way forward is to prevent further violence and enable humanitarian
organisations to assist people in need. Every minute matters, as any delay in
reaching those in distress, especially those in besieged and hard-to-reach
areas, could prove disastrous.
Protecting
civilians and allowing delivery of food to families in need is a basic humanitarian
duty to which all parties involved in the conflict should adhere.
End
brutality
against
children
There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in
which it treats its children, once mentioned Nelson Mandela.
However, the brutality faced by many children in the modern world,
especially in the conflict zones, could rattle the heart of any good-hearted
individual.
Manuel
Fontaine, the Director of Emergency Programmes at Unicef, has highlighted the
fact that children are being targeted and exposed to attacks and brutal
violence in their homes, schools and playgrounds.
According
to Unicef, children have become frontline targets, used as human shields,
killed, maimed and recruited to fight in conflicts around the world.
Sexual
violence, forced marriage, abduction and enslavement have become standard
tactics in conflict areas like Syria, Nigeria, South Sudan and Myanmar.
In
addition to the physical trauma children have had to suffer, far too many
children have been subjected to the psychosocial trauma in having to witnesses
shocking and widespread violence.
Hundreds
of thousands have been displaced and many children have died as a result of
lack of health care, medicines or access to food and water, because these
services were damaged or destroyed in fighting.
At a time
when they are supposed to be busy studying in schools, an estimated 152 million
children around the world are busy working to earn for their families.
The
International Labour Organisation has indicated that more than half of all
children – some 73 million – work in jobs that directly endanger their health,
safety and moral development.
In
Eastern Ukraine, places where children could safely play less than four years
ago are now riddled with deadly explosives.
UN
officials say that landmines, unexploded ordnance and other explosive remnants
of war threaten the lives of over 220,000 children in eastern Ukraine.
A child
has become a conflict-related casualty every week, on average, between January
and November this year along eastern Ukraine's contact line, where fighting is
most severe.
Landmines,
explosive remnants of war and unexploded ordnance were stated as the leading
cause of these tragedies, accounting for approximately two-thirds of all
recorded injuries and deaths during the period. In most cases the casualties
occurred when children picked up explosives such as hand grenades and fuses.
Brutality
against children, wherever it happens, cannot be allowed to continue. All
parties in conflict zones need to abide by their obligations under
international law and end violations and attacks against children.
Treat
migrants
with
dignity
In less
than a fortnight into the New Year, close to 200 migrants or refugees have
reportedly died or gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea and this is certainly
is not a positive beginning for such hapless people.
While
January 2017 had witnessed some 254 deaths, this week's reports suggest that
the start of 2018 may be even deadlier.
The
International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has reported that 81
Mediterranean Sea deaths of migrants or refugees were recorded in the first
eight days of the year – five in Western Mediterranean waters off Spain and
Morocco, the rest between Italy and Libya.
In the
latest, and third deadliest, shipwreck in the Mediterranean, the Libyan Coast
Guard rescued three rubber boats with 279 migrants – 19 women, 243 men, 13 boys
and four girls – in an operation lasting at least 12 hours.
Small
dinghies and poor vessels used by the smugglers are often responsible for the
high death rate among the migrants.
The IOM
estimates that over 171,300 migrants entered Europe in 2017, compared to a
little over 363,500 in 2016.
Sadly,
hostility towards migrants is growing around the world. Adding to the endless
problems is also the bluntly vulgar language used against them by some of the
world leaders.
US
President Donald Trump on Thursday questioned why the US would accept more
immigrants from Haiti and "shithole countries" in Africa rather than
places like Norway in rejecting a bipartisan immigration deal.
Austria’s
new far-right interior minister Herbert Kickl had also sparked an outcry this
week by saying that his government wants to “concentrate” asylum-seekers,
employing a word widely associated with Nazi camps.
What is
totally forgotten is that migration is a positive global phenomenon.
As United
Nations Secretary-General António Guterres points out, it powers economic
growth, reduces inequalities, connects diverse societies and helps us ride the
demographic waves of population growth and decline.
Leaders
like Trump and Herbert Kickl tend to ignore the fact that globally, migrants
make a major contribution to international development – both by their work as
well as through remittances back to their home countries.
Last year
alone, migrants remitted nearly $600 billion, three times all development aid,
as per UN statistics.
The
importance of treating migrants with dignity and respect should never ever be
underestimated. Migration is not a crime. Fair migration laws will benefit all
and that’s precisely what the international community should strive for.
Afghan
violence
hits
civilians most
Security in Kabul has been ramped up since May 31
when a massive truck bomb killed some 150 people and wounded 400, mostly
civilians.
Unfortunately, even such heightened security has
not been able to deter multiple deadly attacks, as the latest 12-hour Taliban siege at a luxury hotel in Kabul that claimed several
lives has proved.
The
violence came at a time when the hotel was scheduled to hold a technology
conference organised by Afghanistan's Ministry of Communications and
Information Technology. Also at the hotel, guests had gathered for a wedding
ceremony.
The
situation was so scary that people trapped
at the top of the building tied bedsheets together and climbed over balconies
to escape the assault.
Kabul has become one of the deadliest places for
civilians, with the Taliban and the Daesh group both stepping up attacks.
The
attack on the hotel is just one of several bloody assaults.
In a
village in the northern province of Balkh, Taliban militants went from house to
house in the middle of the night, pulling police from their homes and shooting
them dead. At least 18 officers were killed.
In Heart,
at least eight civilians were killed when a car hit a Taliban-planted roadside
mine.
As per
the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the number of civilians killed in the
war in Afghanistan reached a new high during the first six months of 2017. A
total of 1,662 civilian deaths were reported between Jan.1 and June 30, marking
a two per cent increase since the previous year’s record high.
Afghan forces have struggled to combat terror since
the US and NATO formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014.
Morale has been further eroded by long-running
fears that the militants have insider help — everything from infiltrators in
the ranks to corrupt afghan forces selling equipment to the Taliban.
The continued violence resulting in a number of
deaths and casualties of civilians indicates that measures against terrorism in
the country need to be intensified.
The
long-suffering people of Afghanistan deserve peace and prosperity and the world
community needs to help them achieve that.
Terrorism
in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats
to international peace and security.
All
parties involved in the conflict in Afghanistan should uphold their obligations
under international humanitarian law. Such heinous attacks that target innocent
civilians may amount to a war crime.
