Category:

Disaster & Management

UN chief urges Japan, others to meet goals on climate change

Clean energy delivers more jobs, cleaner air, better health and stronger economic growth,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

It makes no sense economically to burn money on coal plants that will soon become stranded assets,” he added. There is simply no rational case for coal power in any investment plan.”

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Pandemic brings hard times for farmers, worsening hunger

The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization forecasts that the number of undernourished people will increase by up to 132 million in this year, while the number of acutely malnourished children will rise by 6.7 billion worldwide due to the pandemic.

“We are facing two pandemics. COVID-19, which beyond its health toll is crushing livelihoods, and hunger, a scourge the international community pledged to eradicate by the end of this decade,” Qu Dongyu, the FAO’s director-general said in a commentary ahead of the virtual meeting.

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78,357 new cases take India’s COVID-19 tally past 37 lakh, death toll rises to 66,333

The death toll climbed to 66,333 with 1,045 more fatalities reported in 24 hours. India has so far reported 37,69,523 cases of the viral disease, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The total number of COVID-19 recoveries in the country has surged to 29,01,908, while the fatality rate has further declined to 1.76 per cent. There are 8,01,282, active cases in the country which comprises 21.26 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

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COVID-19 antibodies present in patients four months after recovery – study

An editorial that accompanied the study cautioned that it is unclear if recovered patients’ antibodies will protect them from reinfection.

However, it suggested that antibody tests may be a cost-effective alternative to infection testing alone, and may work better in surveying populations as countries look to safely reopen their economies and schools.

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Germany’s Merkel says world needs to do more to combat climate change

The European Commission will next month propose a new 2030 climate target for a 50% or 55% emissions reduction against 1990 levels, compared with an existing goal for a 40%.
Germany is Europe’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, and the country’s environment ministry said last week that, while it can meet its climate target for 2020, it would have missed the goal if the economic havoc wrought by the coronavirus pandemic had not caused a large drop in emissions.

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Climate change bigger economic risk than Pandemic, ECB’s Schnabel says

With climate change posing an even bigger risk, the ECB must keep this issue high on its agenda as it reviews its policy framework, Schnabel told Reuters in an interview.

“Climate change is probably the biggest challenge we are facing, much bigger than the pandemic,” Schnabel said.

“Even though this health shock was entirely unrelated to monetary policy, it nevertheless has huge implications for monetary policy,” she said. “The same is true for climate change and this is why central banks cannot ignore it.”

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Global COVID-19 cases cross 25 million as India sets grim record

The official number of global coronavirus cases is now at least five times the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to World Health Organization data.

Around the world, there have been more than 840,000 deaths, considered a lagging indicator given the two-week incubation period of the virus. That has exceeded the upper range of 290,000 to 650,000 annual deaths linked to influenza.

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