Climate change, health and inequality, food prices, world heritage, statelessness… Friday’s news

Without concerted and urgent action, climate change will exacerbate inequality and widen gaps in human development, according to a new platform launched today by the United Nations Development Program.

Cross-country comparison of the health impacts of climate change points to a future that intensifies current inequalities: among the G20 countries, which account for the bulk of cumulative CO2 emissions, a third will experience additional death rates from climate change climate.

However, this figure rises to almost three quarters of the least developed countries, which will increase inequality markedly in the coming decades.

This phenomenon will also occur within each country. For example, in the Colombian city of Barranquilla, a high-emissions port in the north of the country, the death rate from global warming will rise to 37 per 100,000 people by 2100, a figure five times higher than the current rate. mortality from breast cancer in Colombia.

The new platform, available free of charge on the eve of COP27, provides access to a vast body of research that contributes to action to reduce the uneven effects of rising global greenhouse gas emissions.

UN Refugee Agency calls for ending statelessness limbo

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, today called for redoubled efforts to resolve the plight of those without nationality.

Grandi made this call to coincide with the eighth anniversary of the world campaign of UNHCR to end statelessness, a situation that affects more than four million people and is a widespread and serious violation of human rights.

The head of the organization recalled that those affected face “a devastating legal limbo” and that their lives are marked “by exclusion, deprivation and marginalization.”

Despite great progress in recent years, Grandi stressed that “much more political commitment and efforts are still needed to improve the lives of the millions who languish without citizenship and live in the shadows.”

Since the launch of the campaign, more than 450,000 stateless people have obtained or confirmed their nationality, and tens of thousands of people from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas also have a path to citizenship as a result of recently enacted legislative changes.

“I urge governments and lawmakers around the world to use the next two years of the campaign to accelerate action and close the legal and public policy gaps that continue to leave millions of people behind.”

Food prices remained stable in October

The prices of food products remained stable during October with an increase in the cost of cereals that was offset by the decrease in the prices of other basic products, according to the reference index of the United Nations Organization for Agriculture and feeding.

The latest update of this indicator that analyzes the monthly evolution of international prices for a basket of food products was close to 15% below its historical maximum registered in March, although it increased by 2% compared to October 2021 .

While the cost of cereals grew by 3%, the prices of vegetable oils, dairy products and meat fell by more than 1%.

In another report dedicated to grain supply and demand, the agency lowered its forecast for global grain production in 2022 to 2,764 million tonnes, down 1.8 percent from 2021.

Mexico and Spain add two new places to the list of World Agricultural Heritage

And the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also announced today that five new sites from China, Mexico, Morocco, Spain and Thailand are added to its list of Important World Agricultural Heritage Systems.

Selection criteria for listing state that sites must be of global importance, have public good value, support food and livelihood security, agrobiodiversity, knowledge systems, social values ​​and culture. , as well as outstanding landscapes.

The peninsular Mayan milpa of Mexico is a traditional agroforestry system based on the sustainable use of biodiversity, with a triad of crops such as corn, beans and squash that in some places is complemented by lima beans.

The agri-food system of the León Mountains, in northwestern Spain, is home to a remarkable diversity of land uses with forests (chestnut groves, beech groves, birch trees, juniper groves, oak groves), pastures and cultivated areas. This allows the coexistence of agriculture, livestock, forestry, gathering, hunting and fishing in the same space.