United Nations

China, France Call for Five-Year Reviews in Climate Deal

December 04, 2015

Reuters reports that the Presidents of China and France have agreed to push for five-year reviews of countries' progress on implementing a UN climate agreement seeking to limit greenhouse gases currently under negotiation in Paris.
WHO Points to Catastrophic Health Effects of Climate Change

December 04, 2015

Head of public health at the UN's World Health Organization ("WHO") Maria Neira has warned of a long train of negative health effects caused by global warming, including strokes, lung cancer, risks from natural disasters, food and water shortage, and infections.
UN Agent Calls for Respect of "Right to Food" in Climate Deal

December 03, 2015

Forecasting that global warming "could subject an additional 600 million people to malnutrition by 2080," UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food Hilal Elver has called for the climate deal now under negotiation in Paris to take into account the fundamental right to food and other human rights.
UN Agencies Coordinate Push for Binding Climate Deal

December 02, 2015

In a coordinated push for the international organization's climate agenda ahead of the UN climate change conference in Paris, UN agencies produced a wave of reports detailing the current and future catastrophic impacts of global warming caused by "weather-related events" around the world.
UN Tool Predicts "Climate-Induced Hunger"

December 02, 2015

As the UN convenes a conference for global leaders in Paris to strike a deal on greenhouse gas emissions, the UN World Food Programme is promoting a tool that claims to accurately predict "vulnerability to climate-induced hunger" throughout the world in the 2080s as a result of continued global warming.
UN Agent Expresses Concerns on Education Partnerships

December 02, 2015

Arguing that education that is not free will increase social inequality, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education Kishore Singh has called for vigilance in establishing public-private partnerships in education and urged governments to avoid "privatizing" education.
Israel Criticizes Venezuela's Reelection to UNHRC

December 01, 2015

Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon has criticized the international organization for maintaining double standards on human-rights issues following the reelection of Venezuela, often criticized for its poor human-rights record, as a member of the UN Human Rights Council ("UNHRC").
UN Warns Climate Pledges Are Insufficient

December 01, 2015

The head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres has warned that pledges by countries around the world to limit their greenhouse gas emissions in preparation for a UN climate summit in Paris will not be sufficient to keep global temperature increases under the UN's "danger threshold" of two degrees Celsius.
UN Rapporteur Seeks Urban "Right to Housing" Discussion

November 30, 2015

UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing Leilani Farha has called on governments, in the lead-up to a major UN conference on housing and urban development in 2016, to include the "right to adequate housing" as a pillar in discussions regarding urban planning in order to make the growth of cities "sustainable."
WHO Lauds Health Benefits of UN Climate Agenda

November 30, 2015

A report from the World Health Organization ("WHO") praises the potential benefits of government implementation of the UN's agenda on countering climate change and calculates the number of lives per year that will be saved by 2050 by reducing climate pollutants.