"India's Supreme Court is calling for a lockdown in the capital, New Delhi. It's because of a health emergency, but it's not about COVID-19. It's about air pollution."
The COVID-19 outbreak has left little unchanged — including how environment reporters do their jobs, given that many experts believe the disruption of the human-wild interface could be the source of the next deadly virus. The new Backgrounder makes the case in this analysis, looking at how societies — and journalists — handled this pandemic and must prepare for possible future outbreaks.
"China’s updated targets for cutting emissions to fight climate change reiterate what its leader pledged nearly a year ago. That doesn’t bode well for progress at next week’s global climate summit."
"Setting net zero carbon emissions targets is not the solution to climate change, India’s federal environment minister said days before world leaders meet at the Cop26 climate summit."
"China’s largest coal-producing region was hit by severe flooding, threatening the country’s already strained power supply and displacing more than 120,000 people as residents called for help from other regions."
It sometimes feels like journalists lurch from one catastrophe (or hurricane, flood, wildfire, heat wave) to the next. But that can mean missing the bigger story: Disasters, increasingly linked to climate extremes, are often interlocking events, in which one system failure causes the next and the next. The latest Backgrounder explores three case studies, and how news media can focus attention on steps toward resilience.
"Bangladesh is one of the world's largest exporters of labour, but thousands have been left without work as the pandemic slows economies around the world".
"Last Friday, the lights went out across northeast China. Cars piled up at intersections under blacked-out stoplights. Residents took to social media to complain about needing to walk up dozens of flights of stairs to get home. Sales of candles increased tenfold, according to state media."
A critically important global gathering to advance the Paris climate accords gets underway in Scotland next month. And the latest TipSheet offers an extensive walk-through on the UN meeting — basic terminology and negotiating aims, global politics, green climate funds and more — to help environmental journalists report on it with relevance, whether from there or home.
Twenty years after the attacks on 9/11, the war on terror has left many risks in the built environment under a cloak of secrecy. For WatchDog Opinion, keeping vital information about such preventable hazards under wraps from the public and journalists is not just wrong, but bad policy. Here’s why. Plus, a rundown for environment reporters of where exactly this secrecy reigns.
