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Companies Adopt Financing Tools for Climate Agenda
October 17, 2017
Erin Hiatt of the Retail Industry Leaders Association illustrates how some of the world's largest retailers, under pressure by activists and international organizations to implement the global "sustainability" agenda, are establishing climate and energy financing mechanisms such as "green bonds" and "internal carbon funds."
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Stakeholders Struggle to Define "Climate Finance"
October 16, 2017
Nathan Rive of the Asian Development Bank highlights how governments and international institutions working with the Green Climate Fund are struggling to disentangle "climate finance," aiming to reduce the impacts of global warming, and ordinary development finance, producing problems involving the long-term accountability in private and public development funding.
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Israel, US Threaten Retaliation over UNHRC "Blacklist"
October 16, 2017
The Times of Israel reports that Israeli and US officials have warned that the UN Human Rights Council's (UNHRC) publication of a database of companies operating in Israeli settlements could trigger cuts in UN funding by both countries and the withdrawal of the US from the UNHRC.
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NGO Criticizes "Voluntary" Australian Reporting Proposal
October 16, 2017
Komala Ramachandra of Human Rights Watch criticizes an Australian proposal for legislation requiring reporting by businesses on forced labor in their supply chains as insufficient, asserting that the law must include penalties for noncompliance, require "due diligence" on eliminating labor rights violations, and allow those who allege such violations access to Australian courts.
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Oxfam: US Corporate Tax Legislation Threatens Rights
October 11, 2017
An article published by Oxfam America asserts that American businesses have an ethical responsibility to object to a US congressional tax reform proposal over concerns that its reduction of tax obligations on US businesses will affect the economic and social human rights of "millions" of people around the world.