There’s a sudden gust of momentum — at least rhetorically — on the climate finance front as the high-level debate of the 76th United Nations General Assembly begins.
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday at the U.N.’s climate roundtable: “Everyone nods and we all agree that Something Must Be Done. Yet I confess I’m increasingly frustrated that the ‘something’ to which many of you have committed is nowhere near enough.” U.S. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry predicted the $100 billion target for climate finance for low- and middle-income countries will be met by COP 26 in November, and U.S. President Biden is expected to refer to the target in his speech to the General Assembly today.
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Meanwhile, Gabon — which is 90% covered by jungle — is hoping to become the new Amazon now that the Amazon is emitting more carbon than it absorbs. Branding itself as part of the “lungs of Africa,” Gabon is now actively seeking NGO partners to help preserve biodiversity and rebuild ecosystems.
A recently passed law also allows Gabon to trade carbon credits to other governments or private companies, and it’s expected to put $5 billion in credits on the open market in the lead-up to COP 26, where it’ll serve as chair of the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change.
Read: Gabon plans to become a green superpower by harnessing its rainforest
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Shots fired
Expectations — and frustrations — are high ahead of Biden’s COVID-19 summit Wednesday. Medical experts told a Partners in Health event that there is a need for a drastic change in the approach of high-income nations in order to hit the target of vaccinating 70% of the global population in the next year.
“Fundamentally we are allowing two companies [Pfizer and Moderna] … to hold the world hostage,” said Tom Frieden, former director at U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at an event organized by Physicians for Human Rights.
Meanwhile, local media reports say the Indian government will resume exports of COVID-19 vaccines manufactured in the country next month after a lengthy pause that upended expectations of dose availability across the world. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, says it’s still working to engage with the government and the Serum Institute of India — a major supplier to COVAX — over the potential impact of such a move.
Gender violence
A report by Human Rights Watch out today finds that the Kenyan government failed to provide quality health care for survivors of gender-based violence — including emergency sexual, reproductive, and psychosocial care, protection services, and financial assistance — during the pandemic.
• A national gender-based hotline found a 301% increase in calls from women and girls in the first two weeks of the lockdown between March and April 2020.
• The National Crime Research Center reported that gender-based violence incidents increased by 87.7% between April and June 2020.
Read: Kenya reportedly fails to protect GBV survivors during pandemic
North star
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau retains power but didn’t win a majority of Parliamentary seats as he’d hoped after the Canadian elections yesterday. So what might that mean for development?
“The Green Party and New Democrats both pledged significant increases in Canada’s development budgets, while the Liberals and Tories pledged to continue investments at current levels, the former pledging to slight increases,” Justin McAuley, media manager at the ONE Campaign Canada, tells us. Holding “a significant surplus of pre-purchased COVID-19 vaccines,” McAuley predicted Canada will be under pressure to come up with a big contribution at the Biden Administration’s pandemic summit Wednesday.
Lost in translation
“It is shocking to walk into a well-funded international coordination meeting in Bengali-speaking Bangladesh, Amharic-speaking Ethiopia, or Swahili-speaking eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo and hear all communications — in English.”
— Rebecca Petras, spokesperson, Red TPetras proposes solutions in an op-ed for Devex:
• A global language policy for aid agencies and donors — including plain language text for non-native speakers, and interpreters for international responders.
• Local-language criteria in evaluations of grant applications.
• Funding for communication in local languages.
• Digitization to facilitate automatic machine translation tools.
Read: Opinion: The power — and peril — of language
Truss-ted advisers
Elizabeth Truss’ elevation to U.K. foreign secretary got most of the attention, but Will Worley reports there are four new junior ministers at Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office who will be doing much of the interacting with civil society. There were changes in the special adviser ranks too. Catch up on who’s who.
Read: UK's FCDO gains 4 new junior ministers in reshuffle
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In other news
The U.S. State Department on Monday announced its plan to raise the number of refugees it will allow in the country from 62,500 to 125,000 by the next fiscal year. [Al Jazeera]
More than 80 new companies have signed a pledge to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, bringing the total of signatories now to at least 200. [ABC News]
Mobile clinics that provide free testing and vaccination outside the U.N. headquarters aim to prevent a superspreader event as leaders and delegates arrive in New York for the General Assembly. [Reuters]
Shabtai Gold, Michael Igoe, and William Worley contributed to this edition of Newswire.
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About the author
Vince Chadwickvchadw
Vince Chadwick is a contributing reporter at Devex. A law graduate from Melbourne, Australia, he was social affairs reporter for The Age newspaper, before covering breaking news, the arts, and public policy across Europe, including as a reporter and editor at POLITICO Europe. He was long-listed for International Journalist of the Year at the 2023 One World Media Awards.
