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Einige EU-Staaten wollen unter dem Dach der Internationalen Fernmeldeunion (ITU) eine Fokusgruppe zu Menschenrechten und technischen Standards gründen, erklärte Bilel Jamoussi gegenüber Euractiv. Er leitet diese Gruppen bei der internationalen Organisation.

Der Europaabgeordnete Tiemo Wölken (SPD/S&D) hat sich als Berichterstatter und Mitberichterstatter in verschiedenen Gesundheitsdossiers stets für einen gerechten Zugang zu Arzneimitteln und eine transparente Preisgestaltung eingesetzt. Bei den bevorstehenden Europawahlen strebt er eine dritte Amtszeit an.

Les traités de l’UE prévoient explicitement que la Commission doit être « impartiale », ce qui n’est pas le cas de l’exécutif actuel, selon le président du Conseil européen, Charles Michel.

A Kashmiri farmer smokes a traditional hookah on his farmland during a break from paddy cultivation. High temperatures are impacting farms across India. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
NEW DELHI, Jun 4 2024 (IPS)

As India’s 968.8 million voters were gripped by election fever, the worst-ever heat wave held the country in its clutches. 

The Indian capital, New Delhi, recorded the country’s highest ever temperature of 52.9 degrees Celsius (127.22 °F) on May 28. More than 50 people died within a week due to heat stroke across the country. However, ironically, despite climate change and the havoc it is unleashing upon the country’s inhabitants, there was scant mention of it in the manifestos of the 744 political parties contesting the elections. 

India and the Heat Wave

The year 2022 was called the hottest summer ever. That year, it was so hot in India that it broke the 122-year-old record. But then came 2023, when the summer season was so scorching hot that scientists said it was the hottest summer in the last 2,000 years in the northern hemisphere. But then came the year 2024. From January to June, all months were recorded as the hottest months ever. In the Indian state of Uttarakhand, there were forest fires. In the first week of May, forest fires were seen in states like Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand. Heat wave warnings are being issued all over the country, even in places like the southern Indian state of Kerala, where, until recently, heat waves were seldom recorded.

The pervasive heat waves are putting the country’s poor in dire straits. Roadside laborers are dying, and thousands of acres of crops are withering in the heat, affecting millions of people in India’s agriculture sector.

What is a heat wave?

The Indian Meteorological Department will announce a heat wave warning if the temperature on the plains is above 40°C, above 37°C in the coastal areas, and above 30°C in the mountains, or if, for two consecutive days, the temperature is 4.5°C above normal. And if it is 6.4°C above normal for two consecutive days, it is considered a severe heat wave. And if the temperature exceeds 45°C without checking any other conditions, a heat wave is declared.

But, in many cases, the Indian Meteorological Department issues a heat index warning rather than just talking about the temperature. 

What is a heat index? 

Humidity impacts how heat is experienced. So if two places have a temperature of 45°C, but one is more humid, it feels hotter. This is because the moisture in the air means that sweat on the skin doesn’t evaporate as easily. 

In places like the southern Indian city of Chennai, humidity is much higher compared to Delhi. So people feel hotter in Chennai due to the humidity, even when the temperature is lower.  To measure this, there is a heat index that indicates how hot it feels, rather than just measuring temperature. These extreme temperatures are killing people because its difficult to cool their bodies down. 

‘We will all go insane before dying’

According to a report from March 2023, non-communicable diseases were responsible for 1 out of every 4 deaths in India, all because of the heat. In Delhi alone, heat was responsible for 11 percent of deaths.

Prashant Tripathi, known as Acharya Prashant, an Indian philosopher and author, says the situation in India has reached a point where there is a threat of mass insanity looming in the country. Prashant claims that poor people will be the most severely impacted by climate change and that before they pass away, they will go insane, wander around in dry clothes, and attack one another. “This is a very serious matter. You see, when a person is suffering from a high fever, he blabs nonsensical things. The same could be the situation for heat waves. You will see an epidemic of mass insanity happening in the country. We will first go insane and then die—one by one,” he said.

According to him, the political parties have become so consumed with the race to win power that they do not even give a damn about these crucial issues.

Climate change and India’s electoral landscape

While going through the poll manifestos of India’s major political parties, climate change finds the minutest mention. While the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) highlights the importance of fossil fuel reduction for electricity generation, it pledges to work towards achieving net-zero emissions by 2070. The main opposition party, Indian National Congress, claims in its manifesto that it will address the issues of environment and climate change with the seriousness they deserve. The Communist Party of India pledged the promotion of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, if voted to power. Other than this, climate change finds no mention in the massive public rallies that were held across the country during the poll campaign.

Amir Kareem, a research scholar of political science from the University of Kashmir, told IPS that society is so taken up with communal controversies, as issues such as religious diversity and ethnicity are termed in India, that there is little time to look at the real big issue—climate change.

“The Indian political system is still reeling under the crises of providing good roads, free electricity, and jobs. Climate change is not a priority. The main reason is a lack of education and awareness. We are not making our people aware that it is the land, the soil, and the air that are providing us everything. There is crazy stuff of communal hatred, allegations, and counter-allegations, dominating the scene,” Kareem said.

Meanwhile, the million-dollar question remains: Why is the Indian political system playing a proverbial ostrich about the climate change the country is already engulfed in? Only time will tell what price the country will pay for such neglect. As the results pour in, will voters regret not asking heated questions about the climate?

This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

As the heat and dust of the India election draw to a close and the country experiences its hottest temperatures ever recorded, this explainer looks at how the phenomenon of climate change hasn’t made a dent in the political agenda.

Some EU countries are looking to start a focus group on human rights and artificial intelligence (AI) under the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) umbrella, Bilel Jamoussi, who leads these groups at the international organisation, told Euractiv.

Après la promulgation de la nouvelle constitution qui bascule le Togo dans la 5e République, beaucoup de changements vont s'opérer dans le fonctionnement des institutions, notamment au niveau de l'exécutif et du législatif.

Après la promulgation de la nouvelle constitution qui bascule le Togo dans la 5e République, beaucoup de changements vont s'opérer dans le fonctionnement des institutions, notamment au niveau de l'exécutif et du législatif.

Après la promulgation de la nouvelle constitution qui bascule le Togo dans la 5e République, beaucoup de changements vont s'opérer dans le fonctionnement des institutions, notamment au niveau de l'exécutif et du législatif.

Citizens in the EU Member States will elect their representatives to the European Parliament during the European elections of 6 to 9 June. The newly elected Members, representing EU citizens until 2029, will meet in July to elect their President, Vice-Presidents and Quaestors. They will decide on the composition of Parliament's standing and sub committees - thereby launching the new legislative term. The committees will then hold their first meetings to elect their respective Chairs and Vice-Chairs.
European Elections 2024 website
European Elections News
Fact Sheet: Electoral procedures for the European Parliament
AFET-SEDE-DROI calendar of meetings 2024
Meeting documents
Webstreaming
Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

As rapporteur and co-rapporteur on several health-related files, MEP Tiemo Wölken (Germany, S&D) has consistently prioritised fair access to medicines and transparent pricing, and with EU elections looming, he is eyeing a third mandate.

In Uvira, eastern Congo, Lake Tanganyika waters have risen so high that the town is flooded. People have been forced to move from their homes, and fields and houses have been destroyed. An estimated 180,000 people have been affected, and over 142,000 people have been displaced. 4,500 homes, 53 schools, and over 124 hectares of farmland were destroyed. Credit: WFP/Benjamin Anguandia

By Paul Virgo
ROME, Jun 4 2024 (IPS)

Kaponde Likando does not know how his family will survive until the next farming season. “We are not going to have anything (to harvest),” said the 60-year-old from Chingobe village in southern Zambia after his maize, sorghum, groundnut and sweet potato crops failed. “This has been the very opposite of what we expected.”

He is among 9.8 million people in Zambia to have been affected by a severe drought linked to the ongoing effects of the El Niño weather phenomenon.

Likando, who is married and has five children, now faces some grim choices.

“Our hope…we expect maybe to sell some of our animals so we can buy maize for food (consumption),” he said.

Across southern Africa, the current El Niño has dealt a devastating blow to some of the world’s hungriest and most fragile communities, where 70% of the population rely on agriculture for their livelihoods

The problem is that once that food runs out, with his livestock gone, there will be nothing standing between his family and starvation.

Likando’s plight is not limited to Zambians.

Across southern Africa, the current El Niño has dealt a devastating blow to some of the world’s hungriest and most fragile communities, where 70% of the population rely on agriculture for their livelihoods.

From Angola to Zimbabwe, it has left normally fertile soils arid, interrupting the production of staples such as maize, and curtailing people’s access to food, as stock dwindle as prices soar.

The three hardest-hit countries – Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi – have declared states of drought disaster. They face widespread crop losses, with between 40% and 80% of their maize harvests decimated.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says that, across the three countries, nearly five million people need humanitarian assistance.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kato Kasingabalwa is facing the other extreme of El Niño’s impact.

He lost everything, including his maize and rice harvests, in extensive flooding in Uvira, eastern Congo, after torrential rain caused Lake Tanganyika to overflow.

He and his five children have had to move three times to evade the rising water levels and they are living in a makeshift shelter on a vacant piece of land along with many other families whose homes have also been washed away.

Over one million people are estimated to have been impacted by the flooding in DRC, including many who, like Kasingabalwa, have been displaced, while homes, schools, and vast areas of farmland have been destroyed.

“The flooding caught us by surprise,” Kasingabalwa said.

“The water level is so high. We have been forced to move to places we could not have imagined settling in. Right now, the family is seriously struggling. Look at the state of my house there.

“I cannot even start describing the state in which my family members are. Some have wounds caused by water infections. The water is full and keeps coming closer to our settlement.

“It is confusing because in the morning, you wake and see the water level go down, but in the evening, the waves from the lake push the water up again, and we rush to move our belongings. This worries us the most..

“I’m a farmer, and all our harvests and seeds were gone.”

Although this El Niño cycle is coming to an end, the consequences will continue for months to come.

At an Extraordinary Summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on the current crisis in May, leaders said that 61 million people in the region were impacted by El Niño.

They launched an appeal for US$5.5 billion to meet the urgent humanitarian needs and a UN-led event takes place in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 5 to raise funds for the response.

The meeting was convened by UN Assistant Secretary-General Reena Ghelani, the Climate Crisis Coordinator for the El Niño/La Niña Response, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), WFP, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UNHCR Office in Pretoria.

El Niño events, which typically occur every two to seven years, have a major influence on temperature and rainfall in many parts of the world, raising the global average temperature and driving extreme weather events including drought, flooding and storms.

It is a natural phenomenon – a disruption of rainfall patterns caused by the warming of surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean – although recent studies suggest that global heating may be leading to stronger El Niño events.

Indeed, the most recent El Niño event is one of the five strongest on record.

“Climate change has affected us,” Likando said. “Seeing this drought, it’s more than in previous years.”

WFP says these climate extremes are a reminder of the urgent need to increase investment in activities that build resilience, especially in Southern Africa, so that communities can be empowered with climate adaptation solutions to mitigate, reduce and absorb the effects of such shocks.

WFP anticipated the effects of the El Niño season as soon as predictions were released in 2023, allowing anticipatory action plans and early warning messages to be prepared.

But the UN agency ability’s to respond to the emergency and avert a hunger catastrophe has been limited after its appeal for funding went unheeded earlier this year.

“El Niño disproportionately affects women and girls,” said Dr Menghestab Haile, WFP Regional Director for Southern Africa.

Haile explained that this is because it is often women who have leave the safety of their homes to go “miles and miles trying to find wood and food,” while girls are the first to leave schools to help their mothers.

“We need irrigation,” added Hailem who has a PhD in Meteorology.

“Water, water, water – if we’d had the resources to expand irrigation, farmers could produce more food.”

It is estimated that over 7 million people are living with Alzheimer’s Disease in Europe, and there is increasing concern about the ability to combat the disease with Europe’s ageing population. In this series of articles, Euractiv will explore the...

Le parti populiste ANO de l’ancien Premier ministre Andrej Babiš devrait remporter les élections européennes en République tchèque, alors que le débat public en amont du scrutin est dominé par son programme eurosceptique.

The Nigerian musicians are added to the festival line line-up, with just three weeks to go.

Le maire prokurde de Hakkari, une ville de l’extrême sud-est de la Turquie, a été destitué et remplacé par le gouverneur pour « appartenance à une organisation armée terroriste », suscitant une vague de réprobation au sein de l’opposition.

Security was tight and access restricted to Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Tuesday, the 35th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown, while Hong Kong also increased policing as activists in Taiwan and elsewhere prepared to mark the date with vigils.

Der griechische Ministerpräsident Kyriakos Mitsotakis hat erklärt, dass er nach den Europawahlen am 9. Juni wahrscheinlich der Hauptverhandlungsführer der konservativen Europäischen Volkspartei (EVP) sein wird.

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Von seinen Anhängern als „Macrons Klima-Trumpf“ gefeiert, von seinen Gegnern als „Greenwashing“ für den französischen Präsidenten abgetan. Der Vorsitzende des Umweltausschusses im Europäischen Parlament, Pascal Canfin, verteidigt seine Bilanz in einem Interview mit Euractiv vor den Wahlen.