In the lead-up to COP29, our team is providing you with insightful information through the Island Voices platform. During the upcoming weeks, we are organising virtual sessions to highlight key island-related topics, and engage with experts on pressing climate challenges.
These sessions will offer a unique opportunity to hear from island leaders, policymakers, NGO professional and innovators on how their communities are preparing for COP, what they hope to achieve, and the role island stakeholders will play in global climate negotiations.
Global biodiversity financiers strategise at COP16 to end ‘perverse subsidies
COP16, the U.N. biodiversity summit in Colombia, is in it’s second week. Without the presence of fossil fuel company lobbyists to stall progress, participants are moving fast and developing plans to end “perverse subsidies” gifted by national governments to fossil fuel companies and other sectors to the tune of $1.7 trillion annually.
More than 20% of Earth’s plant species are found only on islands – and time is running out to save them
Islands have long intrigued explorers and scientists. These isolated environments serve as natural laboratories for understanding how species evolve and adapt. Islands are also centres of species diversity. It has long been speculated that islands support exceptionally high amounts of global biodiversity, but the true extent was unknown until now.
Thousands protest against over-tourism in Canary Islands
Around 30,000 people recently took to the streets of the different cities and towns of the archipelago under the banner “The Canary Islands have a limit.” In 2023 over 16 million tourists visited and it’s likely that number will be higher when 2024 is over. Tourists spent more than 20 billion euros in 2023, but it comes at a price. And whilst the protesters concede that tourism provides crucial jobs, they say most of them are low-skilled and badly paid.
