Last year, the world witnessed a number of animals that went near or completely extinct. This includes the Chinese paddlefish, the Sumatran rhino and the Indochinese tiger – which is extinct in the wild but a rare few are still living in captivity. Malaysia’s last Sumatran rhino named Iman died in November 2019, making the extremely endangered species locally extinct.
As nations around the world scramble to combat the deadly COVID-19 virus, it is important to remember that old diseases continue to remain a threat to many. Recently, the bubonic plague, once considered an ancient disease, triggered a health warning in China and Mongolia as fresh cases were reported, whereas ASEAN member state Malaysia reported its first polio case in 27 years late last year.
Around the world, scorching heat waves are breaking records, with France reaching a sweltering 45.9 degrees Celsius and Australia hitting 49.5 degrees in 2019. This year, it was reported that Siberia experienced a period of unusually high temperatures for the first six months of 2020 – including a record-breaking 38 degrees Celsius in the town of Verkhoyansk last June.
COVID-19 has killed more than 500,000 people worldwide, made millions more ill, and continues to wreak havoc. But as the saying goes – and without wishing to downplay this human tragedy in any way – it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
The world added 12 percent more clean power capacity in 2019 than the year before, but new renewable energy planned over the next decade falls far short of what is needed to forestall dangerous global warming, the United Nations (UN) warned on Wednesday.An additional 184 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power - mostly solar and wind - came on line last year, according to the Annual Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report, jointly issued by the UN Environment Programme and Bloomberg New
Among its many other effects, the COVID-19 crisis has intensified the pre-existing geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States (US). This tension has led many to warn of the “Thucydides trap,” a term coined by Harvard’s Graham T Allison to refer to the heightened risk of conflict when an emerging power threatens to displace an established one.
If the current coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it is that our interconnected, globalised economies and societies are highly vulnerable to sudden shocks.The COVID-19 outbreak, and the horrendous scale of its impact, was an unforeseeable “black swan” event. Right now, the imperative is to fast-track packages and policies that help to fight the health crisis, protect the vulnerable, and pave the way to restarting our economies once the pandemic is past its peak.
According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2020, Myanmar has had the highest weather-related losses in the past two decades, alongside Puerto Rico and Haiti. It is said that Myanmar is also one of the most vulnerable countries at risk of climate crisis. The consequences of climate change can be seen around the world, with natural disasters and rising sea levels headlining global news.
Southeast Asia is well on the way to achieving universal access to electricity by 2030. Millions of new consumers have gained access to electricity since 2000, yet some 45 million people in the region are still without it today and many more continue to rely on solid biomass as a cooking fuel.Demand for electricity in ASEAN has an average growth rate of six percent annually.
Owing to the smoke from nearby wildfires, Canberra in December had the world’s worst air-quality index, with readings 20 times above the official hazardous threshold. The city also recently experienced its hottest day on record (111°F/44°C). Meanwhile, Delhi had its coldest December day on record.
Indonesia's little-known glaciers are melting so fast they could disappear in a decade, a new study says, underscoring the imminent threat posed by climate change to ice sheets in tropical countries.As the COP 25 summit wraps up in Madrid, nations are struggling to finalise rules for the 2015 landmark Paris climate accord, which aims to limit global temperature rises.Thousands of kilometres away, glaciers on a mountain range in Indonesia's Papua region - and a handful of others in A
For more than a year, children and young people from around the world have been striking for the climate. We launched a movement that defied all expectations, with millions of people lending their voices – and their bodies – to the cause. We did this not because it was our dream, but because we didn’t see anyone else taking action to secure our future.
