Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
Greta Thunberg and fellow youth campaigners struck a skeptical tone for this week's climate talks in Italy, saying much has been promised but little done to tackle global warming in almost three decades since the landmark Earth Summit.
Fears that climate change is worsening grew after a UN report in August warned the situation was dangerously close to spiraling out of control, with the world certain to face further disruptions for generations to come.
"Thirty years of blah, blah, blah," Thunberg told the opening session of a Youth4Climate event on Tuesday.
Thousands of young activists have converged on Milan this week with some 400, from about 190 countries, due to engage with policymakers to hammer out proposals for possible solutions.
"So-called leaders have cherry picked young people to meetings like this to pretend they are listening to us, but they are not listening," Thunberg said.
"There is no planet B ... Change is not only possible but necessary, but not if we go on like we have until today."
The youth activists, who fought to get climate change to the top of the global agenda years after leaders at the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil pledged to tackle environmental problems, are being challenged to help come up with the solutions ahead of the COP26 United Nations summit in November.
Their proposals will be vetted by climate and energy ministers gathering at the same venue for their pre-COP26 meeting, and some will find their way to the Glasgow summit.
The meetings come as soaring energy prices on world markets stoke fears of a popular backlash against climate reform.
The U.N. COP26 conference aims to secure more ambitious climate action from the nearly 200 countries who signed the 2015 Paris Agreement and agreed to try to limit human-caused global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"Young people need to start getting involved in the actual negotiations," said Rose Kobusinge, a youth delegate from Uganda. "We want 1.5 (degrees) and we won’t go beyond that."
At their pre-COP26 summit, which starts on Thursday, some 50 climate ministers will tackle hurdles, including differing views on the pace of transition and who pays for it.
While new energy and funding pledges from the U.S. and China have left negotiators more upbeat, many G20 countries, including major polluters like China and India, are yet to deliver updates of their short-term climate action plans.
"Now is the time for leaders of the biggest economies and the biggest greenhouse gas emitters to make much bolder commitments," Britain's COP26 President Alok Sharma, said in a video message on Tuesday.
Climate activists are demanding policymakers match rhetoric with action and stump up the billions of dollars needed to wean the world off fossil fuels to cleaner energy during a year that has seen record-breaking heatwaves, floods and fires.
"Money speaks, and if rich nations don't restructure debt for poor nations and commit US$500 billion for climate action from 2020-2024, there's no point in wasting time at these meetings," Oscar Soria of the U.S.-based activist network Avaaz said.
Wealthy nations who pledged a decade ago to mobilize $100 billion a year to help vulnerable countries adapt and transition to cleaner energy are still short of their 2020 goal.
"It was promised by 2020 and we are still waiting," Vanessa Nakata, a youth delegate from Uganda, said.
(Additional reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by Alexander Smith)
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
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On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
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A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
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