
As World's Priorities Shift, African Leaders Focus on Food Sovereignty
From increased wheat production in Ethiopia and rice output in West Africa continental leaders are more alive to the threat posed by global trade disruptions than they were previously, said Alvaro Lario, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
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San Francisco Chronicle
16 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
UN's top court says failing to protect planet from climate change could violate international law
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations's top court announced Wednesday that if countries fail to take measures to protect the planet from climate change, they could be in violation of international law. The International Court of Justice was delivering an advisory opinion in a landmark case about nations' obligations to tackle climate change and the consequences they may face if they don't, calling it an 'urgent and existential' threat to humanity. 'Failure of a state to take appropriate action to protect the climate system ... may constitute an internationally wrongful act,' court President Yuji Iwasawa said during the hearing. The non-binding opinion, which runs to over 500 pages, is seen as a potential turning point in international climate law. The court also said a 'clean, healthy and sustainable environment' is a human right. Enshrining a sustainable environment as a human right paves the way for other legal actions, including states returning to the ICJ to hold each other to account as well as domestic lawsuits, along with legal instruments like investment agreements. The case is led by the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu and backed by more than 130 countries. All U.N. member states including major greenhouse gas emitters like the United States and China are parties to the court. Outside the court, climate activists gathered with a banner that read: 'Courts have spoken. The law is clear. States must ACT NOW.' The courtroom, known as the Great Hall of Justice, was packed. After years of lobbying by vulnerable island nations who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the ICJ in 2023 for an advisory opinion, an important basis for international obligations. A panel of 15 judges was tasked with answering two questions: What are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? Second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment? 'The stakes could not be higher. The survival of my people and so many others is on the line,' Arnold Kiel Loughman, attorney general of the island nation of Vanuatu, told the court during a week of hearings in December. In the decade up to 2023, sea levels rose by a global average of around 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches), with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels. Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis, but it affects many more island nations in the South Pacific. 'The agreements being made at an international level between states are not moving fast enough,' Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's minister for climate change, told The Associated Press. Activists could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the decision. 'What makes this case so important is that it addresses the past, present, and future of climate action. It's not just about future targets -- it also tackles historical responsibility, because we cannot solve the climate crisis without confronting its roots,' Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, told AP. The United States and Russia, both of whom are major petroleum-producing states, are staunchly opposed to the court mandating emissions reductions. But those who cling to fossil fuels could go broke doing it, the U.N. secretary-general told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview this week. Simply having the court issue an opinion is the latest in a series of legal victories for the small island nations. Earlier this month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that countries have a legal duty not only to avoid environmental harm but also to protect and restore ecosystems. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change. In 2019, the Netherlands' Supreme court handed down the first major legal win for climate activists when judges ruled that protection from the potentially devastating effects of climate change was a human right and that the government has a duty to protect its citizens. ___

Business Insider
17 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Top 10 countries with the lowest reserves of foreign exchange and gold 2025
A nation's gold and foreign exchange reserves are more than just accounting numbers in the linked global economy of today; they are a crucial indicator of its strategic capacity and economic resilience. Business Insider Africa presents the top 10 countries with the lowest reserves of foreign exchange and gold 2025. This list is courtesy of Global Firepower. Somalia ranks number 1 on the list. A number of vulnerabilities are present in nations with inadequate reserves, and these difficulties are particularly noticeable in many African countries that are struggling with debt, inflation, and currency instability. In times of crisis, a government's capacity to act in the currency market to maintain its national currency is limited by low gold and foreign exchange reserves. A country that lacks an adequate buffer is vulnerable to severe currency depreciation, which raises the price of everything from gasoline and food to machinery and medications. This increases societal dissatisfaction and reduces consumer purchasing power. Furthermore, low reserves reduce investor trust. International investors regard countries with limited reserves as high-risk, resulting in capital flight and a substantial drop in foreign direct investment. Credit rating agencies may downgrade such nations, raising borrowing costs and further straining governmental budgets. It creates a vicious cycle: low reserves contribute to negative investor sentiment, which fuels further economic instability. Low reserves also hinder a country's capacity to repay foreign debt, increasing its reliance on international rescues such as the IMF. While such bailouts may provide temporary respite, they are sometimes accompanied with stringent restrictions, like austerity measures, which can be politically unpopular and socially disruptive. This reliance reduces a country's budgetary sovereignty and limits its ability to establish economic policies. Furthermore, low reserves limit a country's ability to import crucial commodities and services, such as electricity and food, potentially leading to shortages and increased civil discontent. For some African countries, whose economies rely significantly on imports, this poses a direct danger to national security and progress. In the context of global power rankings such as Global Firepower, a low level of reserves indicates a deeper weakness in economic preparation. Top 10 countries with the lowest reserves of foreign exchange and gold 2025 Rank Country Reserves of Foreign Exchange and Gold by Country (2025) 1. Somalia $16,747,500 2. Burkina Faso $47,138,000 3. Zimbabwe $115,530,000 4. South Sudan $183,615,000 5. Sudan $206,763,700 6. Chad $211,591,000 7. Eritrea $225,014,976 8. Syria $341,962,500 9. Central Africa Republic $374,405,000 10. Beliz $473,729,000
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
For hope on climate change, UN chief is putting his faith in market forces
NEW YORK (AP) — For nearly a decade United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been using science to warn about evermore dangerous climate change in increasingly urgent tones. Now he's enlisting something seemingly more important to the world's powerful: Money. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Guterres hailed the power of market forces in what he repeatedly called 'a battle' to save the planet. He pointed to two new UN reports showing the plummeting cost of solar and wind power and the growing generation and capacity of those green energy sources. He warned those who cling to fossil fuels that they could go broke doing it. 'Science and the economy show the way,' Guterres said in a 20-minute interview in his 38th-floor conference room overlooking the New York skyline. 'What we need is the political will to take the decisions that are necessary in regulatory frameworks, in financial aspects, in other policy dimensions. Governments need to take decisions not to be an obstacle to the natural trend to accelerate the renewables transition.' That means by the end of the fall governments need to come up with new plans to fight climate change that are compatible with the global goal of limiting warming and ones that apply to the their entire economy and include all greenhouse gases, Guterres said. But don't expect one from the United States. President Donald Trump has pulled out of the landmark Paris climate agreement, slashed efforts to boost renewable energy and made fossil fuels a priority, including the dirtiest one in terms of climate and health, coal. 'Obviously, the (Trump) administration in itself is an obstacle, but there are others. The government in the U.S. doesn't control everything,' Guterres said. Sure, Trump pulled out of the Paris accord, but many states and cities are trying to live up to the Biden administration's climate-saving goals by reducing the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that release heat-trapping gases, Guterres said. Invest in fossil fuels, risk stranded assets? 'People do not want to lose money. People do not want to make investments in what will become stranded assets,' Guterres said. 'And I believe that even in the United States, we will go on seeing a reduction of emissions, I have no doubt about it.' He said any new investments in exploring for new fossil fuel deposits 'will be totally lost' and called them 'just a waste of money.' 'I'm perfectly convinced that we will never be able, in the history of humankind, to spend all the oil and gas that was already discovered,' Guterres said. But amid the hope of the renewable reports, Guterres said the world is still losing its battle on climate change, in danger of permanently passing 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degree Fahrenheit) warming since preindustrial times. That threshold is what the Paris agreement set up as a hoped-for global limit to warming 10 years ago. Many scientists have already pronounced the 1.5 threshold dead. Indeed, 2024 passed that mark, though scientists say it requires a 20-year average, not a single year, to consider the threshold breached. A scientific study from researchers who often work with the U.N. last month said the world is spewing so much carbon dioxide that sometime in early 2028, a couple years earlier than once predicted, passing the 1.5 mark will become scientifically inevitable. Guterres: 'We need to go on fighting' even as it looks bleak Guterres hasn't given up on the 1.5 degree goal yet, though he said it looks bad. 'We see the acceleration of different aspects of climate change., rising seas, glaciers melting, heat waves, storms of different kinds," he said. 'We need to go on fighting,' he said. 'I think we are on the right side of history.' Guterres, who spoke to AP after addressing the U.N. Security Council on the Israeli occupation of Gaza, said there's only one way to solve that seemingly intractable issue: An immediate ceasefire, a release of all remaining hostages, access for humanitarian relief and 'paving the way for a serious political process leading to the two-state solution. Some people say the two-state solution is now becoming extremely difficult. Even some saying it's impossible. But the question is, what is the alternative?' Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan are all crises, Guterres said, but climate change is an existential problem for the entire planet. And he said people don't realize how climate-caused droughts and extreme weather can feed poverty and terrorism. He pointed to the Sahel as an example. 'We see that people live in worse and worse conditions, less and less capacity to grow their crops, less and less capital,' he said. 'And this is largely due to climate change.' 'Everything is interlinked: Climate change, artificial intelligence, geopolitical divides, the problems of inequality and injustice,' Guterres said. 'And we need to make sure that we make progress in all of them at the same time.' ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press