April, 07 2014, 07:07am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International Climate Justice and Energy coordinator:
email: dipti@foei.org or skype: nimadichai
Inga Roemer, Friends of the Earth Germany / BUND
+ 49 30 275 86 468 or inga.roemer@bund.net
Robbie Blake, Friends of the Earth Europe Biofuels campaigner:
+32 2893 1017 or robbie.blake@foeeurope.org
Society Must Change to Address Climate Crisis, say Scientists
BERLIN, Germany
Avoiding dangerous climate change will require not just rapid reductions in fossil fuel use but also a revolution in the structures of our economies and societies, according to a momentous UN scientific report on climate change to be released on April 13 in Berlin. [1]
"Scientists tell us that to avoid a rapid deterioration of the climate crisis we must immediately reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and invest massively in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Governments must act quickly following this warning. Investment in community-owned renewable energy is urgently needed," said Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International Climate Justice and Energy coordinator.
"So far, world leaders have sorely lacked the political will to make the shift to low-carbon societies, for example by reducing fossil fuel use, and investing in community power," she added.
This third installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s Fifth Assessment Report will illustrate the very significant socio-economic changes that are needed to cut our carbon emissions.
"Scientists confirm that we must take urgent steps to avoid triggering catastrophic climate change and its irreversible impacts on humans and ecosystems. Real solutions to the climate crisis are already available. We need community-based energy solutions, energy efficiency and reduced consumption levels, not dangerous energy sources like fossil fuels or nuclear power," said Inga Roemer of Friends of the Earth Germany / BUND.
The IPCC report is likely to suggest that energy efficiency and renewable power, but also nuclear, have a role to play in addressing the climate crisis.
BIOFUELS
The IPCC stated on March 31, 2014 that using biofuels to reduce fossil fuel use has caused food price rises, "risk of increased food insecurity", and "further marginalizing smallholders and indigenous peoples," whilst causing additional carbon emissions. [2]
"False solutions like biofuels may make money for big business but they do little to solve the climate crisis. They increase food prices, deforestation, land grabs and carbon emissions," said Robbie Blake, biofuels campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe.
Biofuels have been promoted as a supposed solution to rising emissions from transport and, in the past decade, their use has increased five-fold.
SUSTAINABLE DIETS
The report may also, for the first time, identify the importance of sustainable diets to reducing greenhouse gas, for example diets with significantly less meat than is the norm in developed countries.
Friends of the Earth International is the world's largest grassroots environmental network, uniting 74 national member groups and some 5,000 local activist groups on every continent. With over 2 million members and supporters around the world, FOEI campaigns on today's most urgent environmental and social issues.
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Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
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Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
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"The way we're going to bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need in healthcare is, in fact, by a political movement which understands the government has got to represent all of us, not just the 1%," the senator told Jacobin.
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Khanna—a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, led in the House of Representatives by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—made the case that you can recognize those stories without accepting the assassination.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
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Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
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