climate change
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The issue of food security has been rapidly growing in importance over the last few years and has played an important role in many political events, such as the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Even back in 2009, Hilary Clinton noted that there had been over sixty food riots in the preceding two years, arguing that ‘massive hunger poses a threat to the stability of governments, societies and borders’.
As the world’s population is tipped to reach 9 billion by 2050, and with food prices estimated to hit the highest point since 1990 , it is incredibly important to figure out how we can feed ourselves sustainably.
But importantly the question isn’t so much, how do we make enough food to feed the world (the Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates there’s enough food produced currently to feed 12 billion people), but rather how to ensure equale access to food, and the land required to produce it.
A small Congolese child at a refugee camp holds a banana. When this photo was taken, disputes over land and resources were common and it was difficult to get adequate food supplies at refugee camps.
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Tags: actionaid, Africa, climate change, conflict, Food Rights, Milennium Development Goals
The COP 16 talks in Cancún have been quietly proceeding with none of the busy fanfare of that seen in Copenhagen last year. There have been a number of concerns about the talks in Cancún, including the lack of participation from the world’s poor.
According to UN reports, it is the poor who are bearing the brunt of climate change. Failure to reach any type of meaningful agreement will consequently relegate the poorest of the world’s population to a ‘future of dimished opportunity’. Climate change shocks significantly impact upon the 2.6 billion people who live on less than US$2 a day, resulting in an overwhelming decrease in human development.
A man walks through drought stricken land in the village of Chumvi Yare near Gambella , Isiolo District in Northern Kenya. When this photo was taken last September, the area had already been through three years of drought.
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Tags: actionaid, climate adaption, climate change, Food Rights, Mexico
We are doing a bunch of activities in Australia around the MDG Review Summit in New York this week and here’s some feedback on some of it.
Last week in Canberra we held our third policy dialogue in partnership with the Australian National University which featured our own Jean Kamau who is the ActionAid Country Director in Kenya, Richard Moore who is the Deputy Director General responsible for Asia at AusAID and Scott Wisor who is doing some wonderful research on development indicators at the ANU.
I had the privilege of moderating this discussion which one Panellist referred to as one of the best discussion panels they had participated in during their 20 year career in international development.
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Tags: aid budget, climate change, Education, Food Rights, Milennium Development Goals
Mozambique witnessed some of the worst violence ever since the last food riots held in 2008. At least six people have died, including one child on her way home from school. The violence seen is the latest in a series of protests sparked by rising food prises and global hunger.
A 30% increase in the price of bread and other goods sparked a three day protest and has left hundreds injured in Maputo and Matola. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called an emergency meeting to be held later this month to discuss the food crisis.
These price increases come as Russia, one of the world’s leading exporter of wheat, restricted exports of wheat after drought and bushfire. This has placed immense pressure on wheat substitutes such as rice, causing prices to skyrocket.
A child sits in the middle of a cropfield in Mozambique
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Tags: actionaid, Africa, climate change, Food Rights, Mozambique
There is a major international event occurring this week that is receiving very little coverage in the mainstream media. More than 20,000 indigenous, environmental and civil society delegates from 129 countries have gathered in Bolivia to attend the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which is being chaired by Bolivian President Evo Morales.
Some of our ActionAid colleagues attending the conference have reported that Mr Morales has been quoted as saying: “the main cause of the destruction of the planet Earth is capitalism” and he is absolutely correct.
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Tags: actionaid, Cancun, climate adaption, climate change, climate debt
Whilst banks around the world are back in the black and back to paying massive bonuses to their executives, millions of poor people around the world are reeling from the global financial crisis which has been caused by their greed.
ActionAid is supporting the call for a tiny tax on the bankers, a “Robin Hood Tax” that takes from the rich to give to the poor. A .05% tax on global financial transactions by banks and other financial institutions like hedge funds would raise billions to assist people affected by climate change and extreme poverty. In Australia we all pay a GST of 10% on practically everything we buy, so why shouldn’t the banks be paying a tax on their transactions?
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Tags: actionaid, climate change, robin hood tax
After nearly two weeks of snail paced negotiations in Copenhagen, ActionAid decided that enough was enough. We decided it was time for our Climate Debt Agents to repossess the property of spoiler governments such as Australia to enable the least developed countries to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.
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Tags: actionaid, climate adaption, climate change, climate debt, climate debt agents, climate mitigation, intergovernmental commission on climate change, Kevin Rudd, Penny Wong
Everyone is talking about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Schemes (CPRS) in Australia this week – the climate change legislation Australia had to have… a watered down compromise to reduce the risk of the big polluters causing unemployment carnage if there is a small reduction in their fat profits.
Some in the green movement say that “the legislation is a start and we have to start somewhere” whilst others note that “it would be better to have no legislation at all rather than a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation”. So what’s all this mean?
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Tags: actionaid, aid budget, archie law, carbon pollution reduction scheme, climate adaption, climate change, climate debt, climate mitigation
“How can we dance when our earth is turning, how do we sleep while our bed’s are burning?” – Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil
I remember my first onstage encounter well. The year was 1984 and the Oils were at the peak of their game and they were awesome! 10…1 had recorded amazing sales throughout Australia and my band (Huxton Creepers) were playing at the Entertainment Centre in Melbourne before the Oil’s, who were on their “Red Sails in the Sunset” tour.
So there we were, four 20 year olds who six months earlier had been playing to 15 of their friends in a tiny pub and now six months later we had record companies chasing us and we were about to go onstage in front of 10,000 people. The dream sorta stopped there, as soon as the stage lights went up and our singer said “Hi we’re the Huxton Creepers” an orange went flying by his head and just missed my head and then the Oils fans spent the rest of our set throwing coins at us during the songs and then chanting “Oils, Oils” between the songs. It was a rough initiation but at least our road crew got to buy cigarettes with all the change that landed on the stage!!
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Tags: actionaid, archie law, carbon pollution reduction scheme, climate change, floods, huxton creepers, midnight oil, peter garrett, vietnam
