Updates from UN Down To Earth reports on UN General Assembly in New York. Keep visiting to know the latest on non-communicable diseases. 'Lifestyle' diseases spur UN to act Health is rarely the topic of discussion at the UN general assembly. But starting September 19, the UN began a high-level …
Jyotsna GovilHonorary additional secretary of the Indian Cancer Society It is the first time the government has agreed that the numbers (of people) killed by non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have long overtaken the communicable diseases numbers. Government was till now concentrating only on the communicable diseases like polio and AIDS. According …
Health is rarely the topic of discussion at the UN general assembly. But starting September 19, the UN began a high-level meeting to debate a strategy to tackle non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This is the second time that the world body is calling a meeting on health. More than a decade …
The debate on the advantages and disadvantages of upgrading the United Nations Environment Programme to a 'world environment organisation' (WEO) has gained momentum in both academe and politics. This article contends that a WEO would further the interests especially of developing countries, because it would provide them, first, a high- …
Poor countries at the U.N. conference have said they will not sign a global warming pact unless industrialised nations guarantee them billions of dollars needed to adapt to the impact of climate change. Nations in the Caribbean and South Pacific recounted how they are being hit by worsening floods, rising …
The United Nations conference on climate change, now on in Bangkok, is expected to produce an agreement to cut global emissions drastically by 2050. Over the years, countries committed to cutting emissions have submitted their estimates to UNFCCC. In 2004, India estimated that it emits 1,228,540 Gigagram (Gg) or about …
It's not only our carbon footprint we should worry about. Experts are looking for solutions to our growing water foot-print, as urban populations explode and the demand for bio fuels adds stress on water for farmland. The threat to climate change has drawn attention to carbon footprints, the amount of …
Scientists and officials from across the world meet in Thailand this week for the first formal talks in the long process of drawing up a replacement for the Kyoto climate change pact by the end of 2009. Around 190 nations agreed in Bali last year to start the two-year negotiations …
The number of people in Asia infected with HIV could jump by more than 150 per cent, or 8 million, by 2020 unless more is done to combat the spread of the virus that causes AIDS, a report presented to the UN secretary-general said on Wednesday. That increase could be …
Biofuels are not only hurting poor consumers in Asia by driving up crop prices, they are also failing to help the region's farmers who have not been able to adapt their production to cash in on the boom, a United Nations report said on Thursday.
A child clings to its mother's beads in this file picture of a famine-hit Ethiopian village. The road from Harar runs for more than 600 miles east towards the border with Somalia, penetrating deep into the desiccated badlands of the Ogaden desert, the dusty heart of Ethiopia's war-torn Somali regional …
CIWEM has backed this year's sanitation-themed World Water Day and issued a reminder that billions of people have no access to adequate sanitation. The UK-based Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) said March 22 should highlight the plight of the 2.6bn people who do not have clean, reliable …
The United Nations has announced 2008 as the Year of Sanitation. This is at a time when at least 2.6 billion people - 41 per cent of the global population - do not have access to latrines or any sort of basic sanitation facilities. Sanjay Krishna, a volunteer, NGO Dhan …
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on the occasion of World Water Day, has called for action to make a measurable difference in people's lives. World Water Day, the observance of which grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, will be …
Only up to powering light bulbs so far, "salt power' is a tantalising if distant prospect as high oil prices make alternative energy sources look more economical. Two tiny projects to mix sea and river water
An environmental perspective is no longer the preserve of scruffy Greenpeace types, with their nature songs and banner protests. It's been appropriated by the men in suits with their calculators and PDAs who have just discovered the immense money-making possibilities involved in greening the economy. Nowhere is this more evident …
Expanding the number of carbon credit projects under the United Nations clean development mechanism and streamlining its regulation are key priorities for the coming year, said Rajesh Kumar Sethi, the new chairman of the CDM Executive Board of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Executive Board is the de …
Bangladesh should allocate government lands among landless people, who contribute to the overall agriculture production and national economy, International Land Coalition director Bruce H Moore said in Dhaka on Sunday. The country also needs enforcement of the regulations on sharecropping and ensuring fair employment conditions and wages for agriculture workers …
* Seventy percent of the world's surface is covered by water but 97.5 percent of that is salt water. Of the remaining 2.5 percent that is freshwater, 68.7 percent is frozen in ice caps and glaciers. Less than one percent is available for human use. * More than 1.2 billion …
Water is life: The impact of water shortage is being felt all over the world, in the industrialised as well as developing countries. At the United Nations, 22nd March is World Water Day. We don't expect people to stop what they are doing and observe a moment of silence
