The UN’s trade and development body has downgraded its global economic growth projection for 2022 to 2.6% from 3.6% due to the Ukraine war and to changes in macroeconomic policies made by countries in
Rich countries came under attack yesterday at the United Nations food summit for their biofuel subsidies and production targets, declining spending on development aid for agriculture and large subsidies to European and US farmers. Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, told heads of state and governments gathered in Rome that "nobody" understood why cereals had been diverted from human consumption "mostly to satisfy a thirst for fuel vehicles".
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday strongly urged the world leaders to seriously consider setting up of a Global Food Crisis Fund, in order to meet future food crisis. "I strongly commend to the world leaders gathered here to seriously consider the setting up of a Global Food Crisis Fund that will have contributions from all countries and from large business organizations that transcend geographical boundaries, and from financial institutions, arms manufacturers and philanthropists of the world, among others,' the President said addressing the UN Food Summit in Rome.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for a huge rise in food production Tuesday as world leaders started a summit on the food price crisis that threatens to plunge millions more people into poverty. The UN secretary general said food output had to rise 50 percent by 2030 to meet rising demand, increased finance for agriculture and the elimination of "trade and taxation policies that distort markets."
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe defended land policies blamed for devastating his country's agricultural sector, asserting at a U.N. food summit Tuesday that the West was trying to cripple the nation's economy. Mugabe's presence at a summit addressing high global food prices sparked protests from some world leaders. He is blamed for the economic collapse of a country once considered a regional breadbasket and Zimbabweans increasingly are unable to afford food and other essentials. MUGABE SLAMMED: Critics attack Zimbabwean for attending summit
The United States will tell a July meeting of the Group of Eight rich nations that it cannot meet big cuts in emissions of planet-warming gases by 2020, its chief climate negotiator Harlan Watson said. "It's frankly not do-able for us," he told Reuters on Tuesday, referring to a goal for rich countries to curb greenhouse gases by 25-40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.
Rich and poor countries argued over how the West can deploy know-how to fight climate change in developing countries but not lose jobs at a UN-run climate conference in Germany on Tuesday. Poorer nations want the West to help them cut their emissions of planet-warming gases and prepare for climate change such as rising seas and more extreme weather because historically the rich are most responsible for those emissions.
A United Nations summit on the global food crisis called on Tuesday for trade barriers to be reduced and food export bans scrapped to help stop the spread of hunger that threatens nearly one billion people. "Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Rome summit, where the United States and Brazil defended biofuel production from charges that it pushes up world food prices.
Tobacco companies are targeting the half billion young people in the Asia Pacific region by linking smoking to glamorous and attractive lifestyles, the U.N. World Health Organization said Friday. In a statement marking World No Tobacco Day on Saturday, WHO said the tobacco industry is taking advantage of young people's vulnerability to advertising and influence.
UNITED Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will issue an urgent plea to world leaders at a food summit in Rome today to suspend immediately trade restrictions, agricultural taxes and other price controls that have helped fuel the highest food prices in 30 years.
UN-led climate talks kick off on Monday in Germany with experts trying to forge a global warming pact facing a new challenge from critics who say climate change measures are partly to blame for higher food and energy prices. The meeting is the second of eight which aim to secure a global climate deal by the end of next year, to come into force after the first round of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The Bonn talks focus on the "toolkit" of steps which can curb rising emissions of greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide, which scientists say risk catastrophic climate change.
