A cigarette vendor in Manila sells a pack of 20 sticks for less than a dollar. / Credit:Kara Santos/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, May 31 2016 (IPS) – This year for World No Tobacco Day on May 31 the World Health Organization has recommended that countries adopt plain packaging as a way to reduce tobacco use, however so far mostly only rich countries have been able to afford to implement the changes.
Around the world, a number of effective interventions are being used to reduce tobacco use, including taxation, age restrictions, smoke-free public spaces, marketing bans, and counter marketing, and plain packaging where Australia has led the way.
The plain pa…
World must urgently increase action and ambition to cut another 25 per cent off 2030 emissions. Credit: UNEP
ROME, Nov 4 2016 (IPS) – On the eve of the entry into force of the Paris Agreement today Nov. 4, the United Nations sounded new climate alarm, urging the world to ‘dramatically’ step up its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions by some 25 per cent more.
The (), in its 2016, warned that the world must urgently act to cut a further 25 per cent from predicted 2030 emissions to meet the stronger, and safer, target of 1.5 degrees Celsius” global temperature rise.
“The world is still heading for temperature rise of 2.9 to 3.4 this century, even …