Climate Change

“We are the last generation that can prevent irreparable damage to our planet,” General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés (Ecuador) warned the gathering in her opening remarks, stressing that 11 years are all that remain to avert catastrophe. Highlighting the meeting’s theme, Ms. Espinosa called for an intergenerational approach to climate change. ‘Climate justice is intergenerational justice,’ she said, calling on States to act collectively and responsibly.”

“The plastic debris floating in the world’s oceans entangles wildlife, kills birds that swallow it mistaking it for food, and seeps into the food chain, showing up in fish that humans eat. A major threat to the ocean, this plastic pollution is estimated to cause more than $13 billion in economic damage to marine ecosystems each year. Turns out, it also disturbs important ocean bacteria, and the effects are far more profound than one may think.”

“The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington found that nearly 5 million deaths worldwide in 2017 could be attributed to stroke, heat attack, diabetes, lung cancer and chronic lung disease that resulted from air pollution. A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences focused on the U.S. and found that air pollution led to more than 107,000 premature deaths and cost the country $866 billion in 2011.”

“On average, African Americans are exposed to 61% more of the tiny pollution particles that come from burning gasoline. Asian Americans breathe 73% more and Latinos 75% more...Research has long concluded minority and poor communities are more likely to live near dangerous air pollution, a pattern activists call environmental racism.”

"Our study shows clearly that forest restoration is the best climate change solution available today and it provides hard evidence to justify investment," said Prof Tom Crowther, the senior author on the study.

"If we act now, this could cut carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by up to 25%, to levels last seen almost a century ago."

"The grassroots movements now taking charge of the climate fight consist overwhelmingly of teenagers and twentysomethings—people like Ocasio-Cortez and Thunberg. These young fighters are decidedly not your parents’ environmentalists: supplicant, “realistic,” and all too accepting of failure. They are angry about the increasingly dire future that awaits them and clear-eyed about who’s to blame and how to fix it."