Good morning, this is Paula. Ahead of Davos – and Donald Trump’s return to the White House – Monday, the International Labour Organization’s boss tells us why narratives on fighting climate change, a significant factor affecting slow labour markets, need to change.
Gilbert Houngbo presented the UN agency’s annual forecast on labour markets that says the slow economic growth, debt, geopolitical tensions and climate are hampering progress.
We also delve into why the sidelining of wildlife's contribution to our everyday lives could derail global targets to protect nature and how to change that. |
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A waste picker drinks water while working during a heat wave at a garbage dump on the outskirts of Jammu, India, 19 June 2024. Waste picking is becoming more dangerous as climate change drives temperatures up. (Keystone/AP Photo/Channi Anand)
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On Thursday, the International Labour Organization’s director general, Gilbert Houngbo, presented the agency’s annual forecast of labour trends ahead of his own appearance next week in Davos. The report comes as major businesses lose interest in curbing their carbon footprint. While joking with journalists that he hoped that it wouldn't be too cold during the World Economic Forum’s annual Alpine meet, the Togolese official said, in a more serious tone, that the narrative on climate change – one of the key factors increasingly impacting labour – had to change.
The ILO’s report named climate-related shocks as a significant threat to the labour outlook for 2025, particularly in Africa and the Caribbean region, where agriculture and tourism sectors are particularly vulnerable. It estimates that since 2000, climate disasters triggered roughly 12 million people to emigrate from the Caribbean alone.
This is in contrast with a WEF survey of business leaders published the previous day, which showed that climate no longer represented their greatest concern for the global economy. In recent weeks, major United States banks have exited the Net Zero Banking Alliance, a UN initiative committed to aligning their portfolios to climate targets.
Read the full story on Geneva Solutions.
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Here's what else is happening
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A beaver gnawing on a branch in Edmonton, Canada, May 2024 (Mark Ma/Unsplash)
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Wildlife’s impact on our lives is vastly underestimated, says WWF. Here’s how to fix it.
Beavers are what nature wonks call “ecosystem engineers”. By building dams, digging canal systems, and coppicing shrub and tree species, these stout workaholic rodents help improve and maintain the habitats of hundreds of different species that live in their native woodlands and wetlands.
But like a lot of hard workers, they don’t always get the recognition they deserve. This goes for much of the animal world, according to new research by WWF International, which reveals that wildlife’s contributions to people have been vastly underrepresented in science despite their shrinking populations already leading to major disruption to ecosystems across the world.
The study's key author Becky Chaplin-Kramer, says more recognition and understanding of the major role that wildlife species play, for example, through better data gathering and monitoring, is crucial to protect the planet's fragile ecosystems.
Geneva Solutions (EN)
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