DTE Magazine (July 2022, Part 2): Important Environmental Current Affairs

Down To Earth Magazine is a fortnightly magazine focusing on politics of environment and development, published in New Delhi, India.

UPSC Previous years’ questions on Development, Environment, Health and Disaster Management give us a clear idea about the increased importance of Down To Earth Magazine.

Down To Earth Magazine is one of the most important and indispensable source for UPSC Civil Services Exam Preparation. Keeping this in mind, here, we come with ”Gist Of Down To Earth Magazine” which covers important environmental current affairs articles in smooth pointed form, keeping in mind the demand of UPSC aspirants.

The Bonn conference

• The aim of the Bonn conference, also called the 56th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc), was to take forward the action items announced at the 26th Conference of Parties (cop26) to the unfccc in Glasgow, UK, last November, and advance some of the more technical and operational discussions related to implementation of provisions under the Paris Agreement, 2015, in time for cop27 scheduled this November in Sharm el Shaikh, Egypt.
• The conference was led by two technical committees—the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation.
• The meet was also the starting point for technical discussions on “the global stocktake”, a formal assessment of progress towards goals under the Paris Agreement. But tensions between the developed and developing worlds began even before the conference commenced.

Second UN Ocean Conference

• Leaders from more than 20 countries convened in Lisbon, Portugal in the last week of June to address the global “ocean emergency”.
• At the second UN Ocean Conference, countries made major commitments to support ocean health and blue economies amid an increasing incidence of climate change induced impacts.
• Focus was also on small island nations that face the brunt of ocean destruction, and how they can mitigate the impacts.
• In a first, Fiji committed to protecting more than 8 per cent of its waters by 2024, while Indonesia was hailed as a model for coral reef restoration.
• Rich countries also made large-scale commitments to support island nations.
• A 2021 proposal by Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama to create an interconnected “safe swim way” that will be off-limits to industrial fishing fleets, got funding of US $150 million from international non-profits.
• Europe and the UK also announced major funding grants.

Risk of vaccine inequity in monkeypox fight

• The World Health Organization (who) has termed the ongoing monkeypox outbreak as a “public health emergency of international concern”.
• However, with the outbreak continuing to spread to more than 50 countries, the body has urged vaccination for at-risk populations.
• As the US and the EU scramble for vaccines, developing nations are at risk of missing out on doses.
• Africa, where monkeypox is spreading to countries where it is not already endemic, may be “sidelined” again as seen during the covid-19 pandemic.
• The reason for this inequity is that there is only one vaccine for monkeypox, Jynneos, made by Bavarian Nordic, a Danish company. The company will send 2 million doses to the US by the end of 2022, and provide only 5 million doses for the rest of the world.
• As per reports quoting company executives, its manufacturing facility is shut since 2021, and is unlikely to restart operations this year.

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