Post-pandemic Asia Pacific lags on climate SDG – UN

25/03/2022 0 Comments read Environment & Development

Impacts of COVID-19, climate change and human-made crises have further disadvantaged vulnerable groups, including rural populations, poorer households, women and people with severe disabilities, says a UN report. Tai O fishing village on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 25.03.2022 (SciDev.Net): The Asia Pacific region has significantly regressed on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to climate action and responsible consumption and production, moving the region further away from the 2030 goalpost, according to a UN report.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific’s (ESCAP) 2022 Asia-Pacific SDG Progress Report, launched on 17 March, notes that inequality in the region has widened due to impacts of COVID-19, climate change and human-made crises. It says vulnerable groups, including women, rural populations, poorer households and people with severe disabilities, have been disadvantaged the most as a result.

“The sole focus on economic recovery post-pandemic is likely to hinder progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, which was already lagging to begin with,” Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, UN Under-Secretary-General and ESCAP’s executive secretary, tells SciDev.Net. “As the region strives to build back better and recover, the 2030 Agenda can serve as a guiding mechanism for both economic and social development”.

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Cities must lead the clean energy drive, says report

22/09/2017 0 Comments read Environment & Development

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 22.09.2017 (SciDev.Net): Cities must lead access to clean, affordable and uninterrupted energy since urban growth and living standards intensify per capita energy use in developing countries, says a new report.

Released on 7 September by the World Resource Institute (WRI), the report highlights fundamental energy challenges facing cities in the global South. It also noted that poor urban households often spend 14 – 22 per cent of their incomes on energy.

The study’s lead author, Michael Westphal of WRI’s Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities, says that cities can implement three practical solutions to meet

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India, Australia must build thorium based N-reactors: Dr Kalam

20/05/2011 0 Comments read Diaspora, Nuclear Disarmament

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 20.05.2011 (IANS): India and Australia should work together in building Thorium-based nuclear reactors to meet the growing energy needs, said former Indian President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, during his recently concluded four-day (May 17-20) visit to Sydney.

He said, “Thorium-fuelled reactors are supposed to be much safer than uranium-powered ones, use far less material (1 metric ton of thorium gets as much energy as 200 metric tons of uranium, or 3.5 million metric tons of coal), produce waste that is toxic for a shorter period of time (300 years as against uranium’s tens of thousands of years), and is hard to weaponize. In fact, thorium can even feed off of toxic plutonium waste to produce energy. And because the biggest cost in nuclear power is safety, and thorium reactors can’t melt down, they will eventually be much cheaper, too”.

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