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Harrison Ford at the 2019 Global Climate Action Summit

Ethiopia plants 350m trees in a day to help tackle climate crisis

National ‘green legacy’ initiative aims to reduce environmental degradation

About 350m trees have been planted in a single day in Ethiopia, according to a government minister.

The planting is part of a national “green legacy” initiative to grow 4bn trees in the country this summer by encouraging every citizen to plant at least 40 seedlings. Public offices have reportedly been shut down in order for civil servants to take part.

The project aims to tackle the effects of deforestation and climate change in the drought-prone country. According to the UN, Ethiopia’s forest coverage was just 4% in the 2000s, down from 35% a century earlier.

 

Ethiopia’s minister of innovation and technology, Dr Getahun Mekuria, tweeted estimates of the number of trees planted throughout the day. By early evening on Monday, he put the number at 353m.

The previous world record for the most trees planted in one day stood at 50m, held by India since 2016.

Lord of the Rain: one man's fight against climate catastrophe – video

Dr Dan Ridley-Ellis, the head of the centre for wood science and technology at Edinburgh Napier University, said: “Trees not only help mitigate climate change by absorbing the carbon dioxide in the air, but they also have huge benefits in combating desertification and land degradation, particularly in arid countries. They also provide food, shelter, fuel, fodder, medicine, materials and protection of the water supply.

“This truly impressive feat is not just the simple planting of trees, but part of a huge and complicated challenge to take account of the short- and long-term needs of both the trees and the people. The forester’s mantra ‘the right tree in the right place’ increasingly needs to consider the effects of climate change, as well as the ecological, social, cultural and economic dimension.”

Written by Anna Ploszajski. Originally appeared in The Guardian on 7/29/2019

Climate Change is Real and What Governments Do Matters

The impact of changes (both positive and negative) in political leadership, climate change adaptation policies stemming from extreme weather events, and more and more countries moving toward low carbon energy transitions are covered in this month's global report that looks back on significant activities in 2018. 

READ THE REPORT HERE

 

Become a Partner: We must save the Paris Agreement!

Our campaign is focused on raising public awareness and putting public pressure on leading greenhouse gas emitting countries.

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Donate Today: Every donation helps our work!

Our global, grassroots organization relies on the support of other committed individuals.

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7 Days in the Life of Avaaz...

Colombian Deputy Minister receives Avaaz petition delivery last week :)

We may have won our campaign to stop Colombia’s massive deforestation!

The team and members brought a million-strong petition (and several cute kids) to a key minister this week, and got 42 election candidates signed on to our 5-point forest pledge! After satellite pictures we obtained showed massive deforestation in Colombia, the President flew over the land we were campaigning for, and it looks like we’re going to win! Here's an update (in Spanish) from Ana Sofia.

Who wouldn't want to protect this?

We might help win the largest ocean reserve in the Atlantic!

Last week we met with the key official pushing this ocean-saving plan at the Ministry of Environment in Brazil. As we entered the room, they were looking at the final draft of the project and the official told us: “We need Avaaz to win this! When are you launching this campaign?!” The minister actually wanted our help to win over the rest of the Cabinet and the President! Video update from Diego (in Portuguese) here.

Our fake far-right leader on his fake tour of southern Italy got over 100 media hits!

We worked our hearts out to stop a far-right win in Italy!

With a fascist-led coalition close to winning the election on Sunday, we were flat-out for a month -- reaching millions of voters in close races over email, on Facebook, and in the media, asking them to cooperate across a splintered opposition, and vote for the candidate most likely to defeat the far-right. Our polling showed our impact, and Avaaz was constantly attacked in the right-wing press (e.g. here and here) and our Senior Campaigner Luca got threatening phone calls.

The election largely turned on the South, so last week we also staged a hilarious fake tour of the South by the far-right leader -- who once said Southerners smelled worse than dogs -- that generated over 100 media articles! Examples here, here and here, and here’s an update from Luca (in Italian). The media likes to hype the fascists, but the result was a clean sweep of the south and the far-right coalition is FAR short of the majority we feared!

READ MORE

The 99 Best Things That Happened in 2017

Photo Credit: Reuters/Kevin Coombs

If you’re feeling despair about the fate of humanity in the 21st century, you might want to reconsider.

In 2017, it felt like the global media picked up all of the problems, and none of the solutions. To fix that, here are 99 of the best stories from this year that you probably missed.

An incredible year for global health

1. This year, the World Health Organisation unveiled a new vaccine that’s cheap and effective enough to end cholera, one of humanity’s greatest ever killers. New York Times

2. Cancer deaths have dropped by 25% in the United States since 1991, saving more than 2 million lives. Breast cancer deaths have fallen by 39%, saving the lives of 322,600 women. Time

3. Zika all but disappeared in 2017. Cases plummeted in Latin America and the Caribbean, and most people in those places are now immune. Science Mag

4. A new report showed that the world’s assault on tropical diseases is working. A massive, five year international effort has saved millions of lives, and countries are now signing up for more. STAT

5. Soft drink sales in the United States dropped for the 12th year in a row, thanks to consumer education and new sugar taxes aimed at stemming obesity and diabetes. Reuters

6. Trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, was eliminated as a public health problem in Oman and Morocco, and Mexico became the first country in the Americas to eliminate it. NBC

7. Meet Sanduk Ruit and Geoff Tabin, two eye doctors responsible for helping restore sight to 4 million people in two dozen countries, including North Korea and Ethiopia. CBS

8. Premature deaths for the world’s four biggest noncommunicable diseases­ — cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory — have declined by 16% since 2000. World Bank

9. Global abortion rates have fallen from around 40 procedures per 1,000 women in the early 1990s, to 35 procedures per 1,000 women today. In the United States, abortion rates have reached their lowest level since 1973. Vox

10. In July, UNAIDS, revealed that for the first time in history, half of all people on the planet with HIV are now getting treatment, and that AIDS deaths have dropped by half since 2005. Science Mag

From Quartz.com

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International Campaign To Abolish Nuclear Weapons Wins 2017 Nobel Peace Prize

Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) receives a bottle of champagne from her husband Will Fihm Ramsay (R) next to Daniel Hogsta, coordinator, while they celebrate after ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize 2017, in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo by Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Fihn said she could not believe the award was real until the official announcement, and thought the call, made minutes before the ceremony, was a “prank.”

For Fihn, the award is a statement on “unacceptable” nuclear reliance.

“We can’t threaten to indiscriminately slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians in the name of security. That’s not how you build security,” she said.

The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

The Nobel Committee said the organization, which is made up of non-governmental organizations from more than 100 countries, is being honored for its work “to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

ICAN’s immediate goal is to support and implement the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted this summer. It’s the first treaty negotiated for nuclear disarmament in 20 years, the organization said.

The world’s nuclear powers, including the United States and Russia — who lead the nuclear stockpile race with around 6,700 and 7,000 nuclear weapons respectively — opposed the talks, citing a disregard for “the realities of the international security environment.”

“We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it,” U.S., UK and French representatives to the UN said in a statement earlier this year.

To go into effect, the UN’s treaty needs 50 countries to ratify the deal. So far, 53 countries have signed onto the deal, but only three — Guyana, the Vatican and Thailand — have ratified it.

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of ICAN, expressed shock at receiving the award when she received the news from Oslo.

“What an honor. I feel like I have to collect myself for a couple of seconds,” she said during the initial phone call.

By Jennifer Hijazi, October 6, 2017, PBS News

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Call For December 10 Human Rights Day/ Syria Actions

PEACE & PLANET NETWORK

We are all the victims of state and non-state terrorism. Ending such calamities as the Paris and Beirut massacres requires a struggle against the forces of destruction emanating from the Middle East and from the imperial wars of the US, NATO and allied states.

The U.S. and its allies are fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine and Somalia. Worse, in Syria and Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the two major nuclear weapons states, the U.S. and Russia, are fighting on opposite sides of the conflicts. There, U.S. nuclear-armed allies, Britain, France and Israel, are also involved. An accidental or intentional military incident, could send the world spiraling into a disastrous nuclear confrontation. The bombing attacks on neutral hospitals remind us that in the chaos of war such mistakes are all too common.

US allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have fueled the wars in Syria and Iraq with foreign fighters, weapons, funding and porous borders. Without this massive and fundamental support ISIS and the other jihadist fundamentalists could not carry on.

To add to the potential conflicts, the U.S. and China, another nuclear-armed nation, are facing off against each other in the seas bordering China and other Asian nations. Here again potentially dangerous military incidents could trigger war as China responds to the U.S. bases, military alliances and military “exercises” to reinforce its regional dominance, with disputed claims to 80% of the South China Sea and rival military exercises.

The Obama administration has recently announced that U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan, are being reintroduced into Iraq and will be introduced into Syria, thus further escalating the conflicts. The recent introduction of Russian forces into Syria, invited by and supporting Assad, challenges Obama’s goal of regime change, but further contributes to the violence the people of Syria have to face.

Many Middle Eastern and European states now face a crisis of accepting millions of refugees, most of whose flights can be traced to the devastation of their communities by the region’s wars. The vast majority of these refugees come from countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya.

December 10^th is International Human Rights Day. The human rights of the refugees and those who still remain in areas of violent conflict are daily being violated.

December 1 is World AIDS Day

 

    In 1988, the World Health Organization established World Aids Day to raise awareness about HIV and to commemorate the lives that have been lost to HIV. December 1 is a day for global citizens to unite in the fight against HIV. It is a day to support those living with HIV by fighting common misconceptions about the virus that contribute to the stigmatization of HIV positive persons. The World Health Organization estimates that 39 million people’s lives have been taken by HIV since the start of the epidemic in the early 1980’s. Today, over 35 million people are living with HIV/AIDS with the majority residing in developing countries. Prevention is key to combating the HIV epidemic, and awareness along with education are crucial to prevention efforts. 

    HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which is a virus transmitted through bodily fluids that attacks the immune system. When left untreated, HIV severely damages the immune system, leading to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) in the final stage of HIV. Thankfully, antiretroviral treatments can control HIV so that HIV positive persons can live healthy, uncompromised lives and reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to others. The number of HIV positive people receiving antiretroviral treatment has increased by 5.6 million since 2010 to 12.9 million people in 2013. However, most people living with or at risk for HIV don’t have access to prevention, care, and treatment due to poverty, stigma, and lack of government funding. Despite the progress achieved in combating HIV/AIDS thus far, it is still the fastest growing health threat to development today.  

    In light of World Aids Day, I invite you to raise HIV awareness by wearing the symbolic red ribbon in solidarity with those living with HIV/AIDS. I urge you to further educate yourself about HIV/AIDS in an effort to destigmatize HIV and debunk common misconceptions. You can find out more about the red ribbon here, and more about HIV/AIDS here.

    Let’s combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic once and for all.

Paris Pledges Falling Short

The 21st United Nations sponsored Conference of the Parties (COP21) will be held in Paris this December. The goal of COP21 is to produce the first meaningful, legally binding international climate treaty since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. 

Paris may be our last collective chance to enact meaningful climate action to prevent a 2ºCelsius (3.6ºF) rise in global temperatures within this century. Scientists warn that passing the 2ºCelsius tipping point may result in persistent, unpredictable, and extreme weather that will be disastrous for much of life on Earth.

In advance of COP21, countries have agreed to make greenhouse gas reduction pledges, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC). These pledges will guide the negotiations. Each nation’s contribution is to be determined by national circumstance. No firm standards were set regarding pledges. We should all be concerned that, to date, most countries have made weak pledges that exploit this ambiguity.

The Citizens’ 2015 Global Climate Agreement Campaign has been organized to keep citizens, environmental leaders, and policymakers around the world engaged and informed about the status of country pledges and other issues related to the success of COP21. The Campaign has set the following standards we believe country COP21 pledges should reach: 

1. As called upon by the UN, all countries should use their 1990 level of carbon emissions as a baseline from which to measure and pledge future reductions.

2. Industrialized countries should pledge to reduce their emissions by 25% by 2025 with further reductions in five-year increments, i.e., 40% by 2030, etc. 

3. Less-industrialized countries should pledge to reduce their emissions by at least 15% by the year 2025 with further reductions in five-year increments, i.e., 25% by 2030, etc.

World Refugee Crisis Continues

US-Mexico border in San Diego. (Creative Commons, Bruno Sanchez-Andrade Nuño)

Last Friday, June 20 marked yet another World Refugee Day, a day meant to draw our attention to the growing number of refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced individuals and families.  This year the numbers have gone up from 45.2 million at the end of 2012, to 51.2 million at the end of 2013. 

Last year’s World Refugee Day was just days after the G8 Summit, where global giants focused primarily on the crisis in Syria and how to address the growing tensions between Syrian rebels and the Assad regime.  The refugee crisis in Syria has only grown in the last year, with roughly 1.5 million who had fled the country at this time last year and a striking increase by the end of last year, which created 2.5 million more refugees and 6.5 million displaced within the country.

The crisis of displaced persons is, however, not specific to Syria and we must also consider an issue closer to home.  Since October 2013, nearly 47,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the US-Mexico border, reports The Nation, with nearly 21,000 from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, and over 17,000 from Mexico. 

 With the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border expected to reach nearly130,000 next year, it’s time we think about what World Refugee Day really means—finding a solution to this humanitarian crisis.