Eco Minute

BULLETIN 28 October 1:30 pm

Good afternoon, here is your Eco Minute:

# The high carbon emissions of the world’s richest one-percent are worsening hunger, poverty and excess deaths. This is according to the latest report by Oxfam, which looked at the portfolios of the 50 richest billionaires. The report found they produce on average more carbon emissions in under three hours than the average British person does in their entire lifetime. Oxfam says almost 40-percent of the billionaire’s shareholdings were in emissions-intensive industries such as oil, mining, shipping and cement. 

# The African Union says about 30-percent of Africa’s forests are fast disappearing because of illegal logging and timber trade. Africa’s tropical forests, where illegal logging is most prevalent, are the most carbon-rich ecosystems, storing 150- to 300 tonnes of carbon per hectare. One of the worst culprits on the continent is the Democratic Republic of Congo, which lost more than a million hectares of forest annually from 2010 to 2020, the third highest rate of forest denudation in the world behind China and Brazil.

# And finally: A wide-reaching new partnership between the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the European Union has been launched at the Meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Colombia. The COLOURS initiative offers a fair and equitable response to the challenges the world’s biodiversity faces, by ensuring that the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities are upheld. The initiative promises strong support towards countries committed to achieving the goals set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Stay tuned for more news………….