14 January 2021 - NPWJ News Digest on Environmental Justice & Human Rights

Articles

Ex-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder charged with willful neglect of duty related to Flint water crisis
CNN, 14 Jan 2021

Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and former Flint Public Works director Howard Croft were each charged Wednesday with two counts of willful neglect of duty as part of an investigation into the Flint water crisis, according to court documents.

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Navajo Nation, New Mexico reach settlements over mine spill
ABC News, 14 Jan 2021

The Navajo Nation’s Department of Justice announced Wednesday it has settled with mining companies to resolve claims stemming from a 2015 spill that resulted in rivers in three western states being fouled with a bright-yellow plume of arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.

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Use pandemic to protect forests, WWF urges consumers, politicians
Aljazeera, 13 Jan 2021

Fran Raymond Price,the global forest practice lead at WWF International, said the COVID-19 pandemic had made the links between deforestation and human health clearer in the past year. “Where you have greater deforestation and land-use change, you have the risk of new diseases being more likely,” Price told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

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Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruption
The Guardian, 13 Jan 2021

The planet is facing a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction, according to an international group of scientists, who warn people still haven’t grasped the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises.

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UN chief calls for ‘urgent transition’ from fossil fuels to renewable energy
UN News, 11 Jan 2021

“All countries need credible mid-term goals and plans that are aligned with this objective”, Secretary-General António Guterres said, addressing the virtual COP26 Roundtable on Clean Power Transition. “To achieve net zero emissions by 2050, we need an urgent transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy”.

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COVID-19 recovery offers ‘chance to change course’, Guterres tells One Planet Summit
UN News, 11 Jan 2021

The process of recovery from the coronavirus pandemic offers the chance to change course, and put humanity on a path on which it is not in conflict with nature, the United Nations Secretary-General said on Monday, urging greater efforts by everyone to protect biodiversity and step up climate action.

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