What We’re Reading 11/3/09

Nov 3rd, 2009 11:03 AM UTC
By Robyn Mitchell

Reuters: US urged to set 2020 target to save climate deal
The United States came under pressure on Monday to follow other rich countries and set a 2020 goal for cutting greenhouse gases to rescue chances for a climate deal due next month in Copenhagen. At a final preparatory meeting in Barcelona before the UN summit in December, some African countries threatened to walk out, saying rich countries had to deepen their emissions-cutting targets. The head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said a U.S. number was essential and that the country could not come “empty-handed to Copenhagen.”

The New York Times: AIDS: Panel Warns That Without New Direction, Epidemic Will Remain Out of Control at 50
In an analysis being published today, a panel of AIDS experts predicted that unless there is a drastic change in approach, the AIDS epidemic will still be out of control on its 50th anniversary in 2031. According to the report, the fight against AIDS in developing countries is facing a drastic funding shortfall amid rapidly rising treatment and prevention costs during the global financial crisis. However, the authors of the study emphasized that the funding contraction also presents an opportunity to do better with less and save more lives by eliminating waste, while improving the efficiency of medical care.

The Guardian: Global warming could create 150 million ‘climate refugees’ by 2050
A new report from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) warns that Global warming will force up to 150 million “climate refugees” to move to other countries in the next 40 years. The EJF claimed 500 million to 600 million people – nearly 10% of the world’s population – are at risk from displacement by climate change and around 26 million have already had to move. “The majority of these people are likely to be internally displaced, migrating only within a short radius from their homes. Relatively few will migrate internationally to permanently resettle in other countries,” said the report’s authors.

Business Day: Why Aid Never Reaches Poor People (Op-Ed)
Advocacy organization Oxfam emphasized recently that “it is time for G20 leaders to stand up and deliver the money needed to protect poor people,” as heads of the world’s biggest economies met in Pittsburgh in September. However, according to Business Day, the real problem is that aid is actually rising but much of it never reaches poor countries. In fact, “most of it is given away in unrestricted grants to hand-picked activist groups, with little accountability and transparency – and, worse, little evidence that the programs are helping the poor.”

AllAfrica.com: Africa: Food for Thought on Food Security (Op-Ed)
President of Oxfam America, Raymond C. Offenheiser writes a guest column for AllAfrica.com in which he highlights the startling fact that for the first time in our history, over one billion people in the world suffer from daily hunger. Investing in farmers, he believes, is the most effective way to address the issues of hunger and poverty and to prepare for likely increases in food prices. Writes Offenhesier, “Investing in agriculture is a powerful poverty reduction tool. It can also contribute to overall economic growth by increasing efficiency in the marketing chain – reducing the share of poor people’s income spent on food, and enabling them to purchase other goods and services, like education, health care, and housing.”

Global Brief: Who’s To Lead?
With issues of climate change, the increasing price and decreasing availability of food and escalating energy costs coming into play at full force, Global Brief poses the complicated question of who is ultimately going to lead world affairs in the 21st century. The publication believes that central to the question of who leads in the process of politics “is the maxim that that good leadership requires good citizenship.” If crisis is to be opportunity, and not a portent to catastrophe, then an unwavering moral commitment to equity, an effective civil society and an aggressive and innovative approach to governance will be central to who leads, and to who gets what, when and how.

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