Biodiversity

• [New] By building a qualified, diverse, and inclusive talent pool, the United States has an opportunity to close a generations-long representation gap in multilateral organizations and advance diverse U.S. interests therein.
• [New] Climate Strategy: Yukon has set a target to reduce emissions from key sectors - including transportation, heating and electricity generation - by 30% below 2010 levels by 2030.
• [New] There are less and less people who will benefit from generous final salary (defined benefit) schemes and more and more of the UK population are having to rely on saving into a personal pension scheme where the pension you will receive is dependent on how much you save and the investment return.
• [New] With the introduction of mandatory health insurance underway in the public sector in the Kingdom and the wish to standardize across the public and private sector, Saudi health care providers will need to develop new capabilities to be able to generate revenue under the new reimbursement system.
• [New] Apple has announced a first-of-its-kind carbon removal initiative - called the Restore Fund - that will make investments in forestry projects to remove carbon from the atmosphere while generating a financial return for investors.
• [New] To pose high-to-catastrophic security risks by 2041 include disruptions to biodiversity and oceans, agricultural disruption, infectious diseases, extreme heat, and natural disaster and precipitation changes.
• [New] In 2021, most respondents did not rank climate security phenomena as posing high-to-catastrophic risks, with sea level rise, increased inequality, increased natural disasters, biodiversity loss, and infectious diseases raking highest.
• [New] Advance consultation with exporters could allow them to anticipate potential forms of disruption and take steps to minimise their exposure to political risk in the Chinese market.
• [New] A consequence of systemism is that the generation of knowledge about the world requires the usage of certain analytic skills in order to identify and understand systems, predict their behavior and modify them in order to produce desired effects.
• [New] The Biden administration has approved billions of dollars in sales of major conventional weapons that to countries that pose great risks, such as Jordan, Egypt, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Chile, while also maintaining sales of any weapon that can be used for self - defense to Saudi Arabia.
• [New] Yale's new Center for Natural Carbon Capture, recently established with a $100 million gift from FedEx, will focus on developing interventions that enhance the Earth's natural abilities to store carbon through biological and geological processes, and other methods that model natural processes.
• [New] China's Huawei has taken an early dominant role in fifth-generation internet, which is becoming an increasingly crucial part of the global economy, despite heavy US pressure on the company, which Washington argues poses threats to security and privacy in the democratic world.
• [New] Technology giant Apple has partnered with Conservation International and Goldman Sachs to create an investment fund focused on carbon-sequestering forestry restoration programmes that will remove at least one million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
• [New] In the short term, stablecoins will act like money in your Apple Wallet - they will be used within closed ecosystems to create and generate value.
• [New] The study of microbial composition from different parts of the world with unique climate and soil conditions will be necessary to advance the field of fire ecology and generate predictive models of smoke transport and effects.
• [New] Short-term solutions that serve to prop up a declining industry will only increase emissions and further degrade nature and social stability at a time when the world is rapidly trying to decarbonize.
• [New] Officials and conservation experts see the pilot project as a sign of Kenya's confidence in the role technology can play in battling forest crime and creating job opportunities.
• [New] Human activity is encroaching on more and more land, but the study authors argue that up to 20% of the planet's land surface could be restored by the reintroductions of only a few species into remaining intact habitat.
• [New] Australia represents an important contrast to the proxy warfare risks generated by the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
• [New] The Covid-19 pandemic had brought forward one to three years earlier than expected the full adoption of cloud services by global enterprises, and that the revenue generated by Huawei Cloud grew by 168% year-on-year.
• [New] In recent years, microplastic pollution has been reported in all kinds of environments worldwide and is considered a potential threat to the health of ecosystems and humans.

Last updated: 21 April 2021