One of my favorite authors, John Green, has authored many books — mostly young adult novels. However, he recently released a book called The Anthropocene Reviewed.
This book is unlike his others, in that it’s essentially a collection of short essays which are all based on many human concepts. Green describes how diseases such as the plague, cholera, or even tuberculosis have shaped our world into what it is today. For example, tuberculosis will kill at least 1,600,000 people this year even though it is a treatable disease. It is one of the oldest contagious diseases and yet it’s still killing more people than many other diseases combined.
As I was learning this, I felt ashamed to see how our society has let price gouging, socioeconomic differences, racial bias, and other factors determine who gets certain diseases and treatments.
As a future healthcare worker, I was shocked to discover our environment is directly dictating which people are affected by certain illnesses.
I am currently majoring in nursing, and I eventually want to become a doctor. I hope to educate and promote effective solutions towards social and environmental determinants of health. Environmental hazards, food insecurities, socioeconomic factors, housing and social support systems are currently disproportionately affecting BIPOC residents across the Twin Cities. People that live in urban areas are more likely to acquire and sustain respiratory and infectious diseases due to the unjust climate crisis.
For example, the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) is a large trash incinerator burning tons of chemical toxins such as carbon monoxide and acidic gasses from many majority white suburbs of Minneapolis annually into residents of Northern Minneapolis atmospheres. Northern Minneapolis is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Minnesota and they have to endure the repercussions.
I was only able to see this with my own eyes when I moved to Minneapolis for college. Though my family lives in a suburb only 25–30 minutes south of Minneapolis, I was not able to see the “climate crisis” right in front of me. Now don’t get me wrong, I was a proud climate activist before and after the move. Yet, I wasn’t really able to feel the impacts of the climate crisis until living here for a year.
When fall semester began, I found myself experiencing chronic allergies and a sore throat when I woke up. I had to get a humidifier; I was drinking endless cups of hot tea to find comfort. I thought I was catching a cold or something at first, but upon further investigation I realized the air quality in Cedar-Riverside, a neighborhood of Minneapolis, was much lower than what I was used to back in my hometown. I would typically sleep with the window open at home, but I couldn’t do this in my dorm.
I was left star-struck and with so many thoughts. The residents of Minneapolis are unfortunately suffering from lower air quality compared to other parts of Minnesota. Considering my own agency, I had to acknowledge how privileged I was to not experience any respiratory diseases that might be caused or worsened based on where I live.
Poor air quality is just one factor that disproportionately affects lower income or BIPOC individuals and families in Minneapolis.
Human built systems are continuing to fail us! And we are letting it happen.
I want to be a part of the movement that recognizes this and supports the people that are suffering from the consequences. As a lover of people and human experience, I do not think we deserve this. I know we do not.
Change is difficult but absolutely necessary for a healthy world which I am optimistic can happen.
I am deeply honored to be granted the opportunity to attend COP28 this year with Climate Generation. I have always been curious about learning how I can impact my own community, especially with knowledge that might not be readily accessible or available to others. When I started volunteering/working with Climate Gen, I realized that there were so many unjust environmental issues happening around my community. The correlation between health disparities in areas that experience environmental injustice was strong. Though I am a nursing major, I am also on the pre-medicine track and hope to use my uniquely acquired skills from both my career path and this international event to help the people within my own community become healthy and environmentally conscious individuals.
Yvonne is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP28. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.
The post Human built systems – a work in progress! appeared first on Climate Generation.
Ahead of next year’s legislative session, lawmakers probe regulators and industry leaders about how data centers operate.
As Texas confronts decades of water mismanagement and growing demands for electricity from data centers, the state’s top utility regulator, Public Utility Commission Chairman Thomas Gleeson, told a state House committee on Thursday that it’s critical to have a clear picture of how much water data centers use.
Texas Data Center Developers Play Offense on Water, Claiming Huge Cuts in Usage
N.C. Gov. Josh Stein wants state lawmakers to rethink tax breaks for data centers. The industry’s opacity makes it difficult to evaluate costs and benefits.
Tax breaks for data centers in North Carolina keep as much as $57 million each year into from state and local government coffers, state figures show, an amount that could balloon to billions of dollars if all the proposed projects are built.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF), a multilateral fund that provides climate and nature finance to developing countries, has raised $3.9 billion from donor governments in its last pledging session ahead of a key fundraising deadline at the end of May.
The amount, which is meant to cover the fund’s activities for the next four years (July 2026-June 2030), falls significantly short of the previous four-year cycle for which the GEF managed to raise $5.3bn from governments. Since then, military and other political priorities have squeezed rich nations’ budgets for climate and development aid.
The facility said in a statement that it expects more pledges ahead of the final replenishment package, which is set for approval at the next GEF Council meeting from May 31 to June 3.
Claude Gascon, interim CEO of the GEF, said that “donor countries have risen to the challenge and made bold commitments towards a more positive future for the planet”. He added that the pledges send a message that “the world is not giving up on nature even in a time of competing priorities”.
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UK imports of “green” jet fuel linked to Amazon deforestation
A Texas refinery shipping sustainable aviation fuel to Europe has sourced beef tallow with links to a meatpacking firm fined over illegal cattle purchases -
Italy pushes coal exit back after gas prices rise
Analysts say the move sends a negative signal, but its impact will be limited given coal’s marginal role in Italy’s energy mix
Donors under pressure
But Brian O’Donnell, director of the environmental non-profit Campaign for Nature, said the announcement shows “an alarming trend” of donor governments cutting public finance for climate and nature.
“Wealthy nations pledged to increase international nature finance, and yet we are seeing cuts and lower contributions. Investing in nature prevents extinctions and supports livelihoods, security, health, food, clean water and climate,” he said. “Failing to safeguard nature now will result in much larger costs later.”
At COP29 in Baku, developed countries pledged to mobilise $300bn a year in public climate finance by 2035, while at UN biodiversity talks they have also pledged to raise $30bn per year by 2030. Yet several wealthy governments have announced cuts to green finance to increase defense spending, among them most recently the UK.
As for the US, despite Trump’s cuts to international climate finance, Congress approved a $150 million increase in its contribution to the GEF after what was described as the organisation’s “refocus on non-climate priorities like biodiversity, plastics and ocean ecosystems, per US Treasury guidance”.
The facility will only reveal how much each country has pledged when its assembly of 186 member countries meets in early June. The last period’s largest donors were Germany ($575 million), Japan ($451 million), and the US ($425 million).
The GEF has also gone through a change in leadership halfway through its fundraising cycle. Last December, the GEF Council asked former CEO Carlos Manuel Rodriguez to step down effective immediately and appointed Gascon as interim CEO.
Santa Marta conference: fossil fuel transition in an unstable world
New guidelines
As part of the upcoming funding cycle, the GEF has approved a set of guidelines for spending the $3.9bn raised so far, which include allocating 35% of resources for least developed countries and small island states, as well as 20% of the money going to Indigenous people and communities.
Its programs will help countries shift five key systems – nature, food, urban, energy and health – from models that drive degradation to alternatives that protect the planet and support human well-being by integrating the value of nature into production and consumption systems.
The new priorities also include a target to allocate 25% of the GEF’s budget for mobilising private funds through blended finance. This aligns with efforts by wealthy countries to increase contributions from the private sector to international climate finance.
Niels Annen, Germany’s State Secretary for Economic Cooperation and Development, said in a statement that the country’s priorities are “very well reflected” in the GEF’s new spending guidelines, including on “innovative finance for nature and people, better cooperation with the private sector, and stable resources for the most vulnerable countries”.
Aliou Mustafa, of the GEF Indigenous Peoples Advisory Group (IPAG), also welcomed the announcement, adding that “the GEF is strengthening trust and meaningful partnerships with Indigenous Peoples and local communities” by placing them at the “centre of decision-making”.
The post GEF raises $3.9bn ahead of funding deadline, $1bn below previous budget appeared first on Climate Home News.
GEF raises $3.9bn ahead of funding deadline, $1bn below previous budget
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