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* Don’t Have Everybody “Stay Home” Too Long4
http://www.hsvg.org/ Guahan Global Foundation
Guahan Global Foundation P.O. Box 206, Hagatna, GU 96932, USA
(December 12, 2025) 2025 ends with uncertainty on climate action More people are now aware that more natural disasters caused by global warming are seriously affecting human society’s well-being and sustainability. But, the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Brazil last month did not turn past promises into concrete results on the ground as expected.   The conference is commonly known as COP30, which stands for the 30th Conference of the Parties, serving as the formal meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) parties and a vital platform for advancing solutions to the climate crisis and reinforcing the collective commitment to a sustainable future. It was billed by many as the “implementation COP,” but eventually COP30 did not significantly move us closer to a safer future.   For example, all countries were expected to submit an updated climate plan, which is known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), showing how they would help keep global warming limited to below 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to keep it to 1.5 degrees, the goal outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Although several major economies, including Brazil, Japan, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the European Union submitted stronger climate plans, some of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters have not finalized their plans or have announced targets that fall far short of what science says is needed.   The annual Global Carbon Budget Report was published on November 13 as countries met for COP30 climate talks. An international team of scientists found that the emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels would be 1.1 percent higher in 2025 than a year ago. The overall figure is due to reach a record of 38.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide, hitting a new high in history. It warns that curbing global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius would be essentially “impossible,” according to the report.   However, even though more than 80 countries had been pushing for the COP30 final agreement to include explicit reference to fossil fuels, including a roadmap to transition away from energy sources such as coal, oil, and gas, objections from some other countries won out with the final agreement avoiding mention of a shift away from fossil fuels.   Similarly, while more than 90 countries supported the inclusion of a binding roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation, the final text of the COP30 agreement included only the recognition of a need to halt and reverse forest loss, without any mandatory commitments.   The COP30’s Brazil presidency committed to create a science-based roadmap on the transition away from fossil fuels and halting deforestation over the next year, but these would be voluntary and sit outside of the UN system.   In fact, it is international scientific consensus that, in order to prevent the worst climate damages, global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero, which means emissions and removals are in balance, by 2050. A Shift away from fossil fuels is considered as one of the most important measures to significantly reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. Deforestation is hurting the planet’s ability to naturally remove carbon dioxide. The planet will keep heating for as long as global emissions remain more than zero. Climate damages, caused by global heating, will continue escalating for as long as emissions continue.   Our Pacific island community has reaffirmed for many times at the Pacific Islands Forum that the “2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent” is the region’s collective commitment to a resilient Pacific, and climate change continues to be a matter of priority. Ahead of COP30, many representatives from Pacific countries were optimistic about the progress that the conference would make since the international Court of Justice (ICJ) just issued its advisory opinion on climate obligations this July.   The advisory opinion said countries could be in violation of international law if they fail to take measures to protect the planet from climate change and nations harmed by the effects could be entitled to reparations. The case was actually initiated by a group of students from the University of South Pacific in Vanuatu and backed by more than 130 countries. After years of lobbying by island nations who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters, the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ for an advisory opinion in 2023. In July, 2025, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the historic advisory opinion and said “Young Pacific islanders initiated this call for humanity to the world. And the world must respond.”   Unfortunately, the COP30 results remind us that we can not solely rely on the ICJ document to hold certain countries to account and promote global climate action. As what is still happening in Ukraine, Russia has not stopped its aggression and invasion to Ukraine at all since February 2022, even though the Pre-Trial Chamber of the UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in March 2023.   Mr. Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s minister for climate change, has actually described the broader context as “a period of geopolitical upheaval” where militarization is rising, aid spending is falling, and international law is often disregarded, when he talked to the media before COP30.   Since conflicts have been reported in many different parts of the world, Pope Leo XIV has warned in his first overseas trip last month that World War Three is already fought and the future of humanity is at stake. He emphasized that “ambitions and choices that trample on justice and peace” were throwing the world into chaos. He wanted to urge peace for the world and encourage people of different backgrounds to live together in harmony, So, all Pacific islanders must work together to strongly call for de-escalating all tensions emerging in any parts of the world. We have to promote dialogues to resolve problems and avoid conflicts. Any attempts trying to unilaterally change the stable and peaceful status quo around the world should not be acceptable by our Pacific island community.   The only good news from COP30 seems to be a pledge to triple finance for adaptation to climate change, increasing from around $40 billion to $120 billion per year by 2035. It’s part of a larger goal to reach $1.3 trillion in total climate finance yearly by then, alongside operationalizing the Loss & Damage Fund for those most affected and establishing a Just Transition Mechanism, which would support the protection of workers and communities as countries shift to clean energy and a climate-resilient future. Our Pacific island community certainly welcomes the global financial mechanism helping vulnerable countries’ climate mitigation and adaptation. We need to keep following up the progress of the mechanism and ensure the fund will be rapidly raised and the financial aids will be well allocated and used to strengthen climate resilience across the Pacific as soon as possible. http://www.hsvg.org/hot_527443.html * 2025 ends with uncertainty on climate action 2025-12-12 2026-12-12
Guahan Global Foundation P.O. Box 206, Hagatna, GU 96932, USA http://www.hsvg.org/hot_527443.html
Guahan Global Foundation P.O. Box 206, Hagatna, GU 96932, USA http://www.hsvg.org/hot_527443.html
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Home ﹥ News > News > * Don’t Have Everybody “Stay Home” Too Long

(April 13, 2020)

Don’t Have Everybody “Stay Home” Too Long


European Commission announced a concept of short-time work on April 1 as an initiative of helping people keep their jobs and go back to full work as soon as the lockdown will be over. We welcome this initiative and would like share our evidence-based analysis reminding that healthy adults should be allowed to resume their daily lives as soon as possible to have a fully-operated system efficiently tackle the pandemic.

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New data in the U.S. showed 17 million Americans filed for unemployment in the past four weeks. The spike in new jobless claims is believed to result from the pandemic control lockdowns that have kept Americans from their workplaces and forced many companies to shutter or to lay off employees. We all know that unemployment could not only affect people’s finance but also ruin their ability of taking care of their health.


In addition, the “stay-home” order in some states within the U.S. has also affected certain senior care operations, for example, free meal delivery to the seniors got delayed or rerouted, while the elderly is actually a group of people who need extra care most during the pandemic. It is better that healthy adults are allowed to resume their routines soon to help the community get back to normal early.


According to a report published by Italy National Health Institute on March 17, 96.3% of fatal victims in Italy were patients over 60 years old. 99.2% of Italy’s coronavirus fatalities were people with at least one chronic medical condition, such as hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. Based on the demographic, we suggest the system should have the vulnerable stay home and, more importantly, offer them extra care. Young and middle-aged adults without serous health conditions should keep their routines to maintain the community’s full operations and, in addition, to help many households avoid the miserable economic consequences of workplace shutdown.


Only when the system is fully-operated, we are able to take good care of the vulnerable and to end the pandemic. It is worth to notice that Hong Kong and Taiwan seem to have contained the spread pretty well and Japan and South Korea have been seeing a good trend of calming down the epidemic. All countries mentioned above did not place a nationwide lockdown or “stay-home” order at all.


Germany has not shut down daily life either. Only food and entertainment outlets have been closed since the end of March. Germany has been conducting intensive testing and strictly quarantined sick people and their contacts. It has also got the medical system ready for a pandemic. Therefore, as of April 12, Germany has 127,459 confirmed case and 2,996 deaths recorded. Its case fatality rate (CFR) is 2.35% and this figure is considerably lower than fellow EU members Spain (10%), France (10.8%) and Italy (12.7%). More impressively, Germany has started taking care of patients flown from Italy and France.


What Germany is doing is actually flu control protocols. Although COVID-19 is not flu, the coronavirus appears to be showing its highly contagious nature and “flu-like pandemic pattern” after so many countries around the world reported cases. Thoroughly follow “modern” flu control protocols is therefore the most relevant and sustainable measure for most countries.


What does “modern” flu control protocols mean? The protocols should include a surveillance network that asks clinics and hospitals to report patients with flu-like symptoms for further virus testing and early advanced treatments. Furthermore, It adjusts resource allocation to help medical community get ready for a huge amount of patients to save the vulnerable, and reminds healthy people to practice good hygiene all the time as well as implements home or institutional quarantine on sick people and their contacts to flatten the epidemic curve.


Lockdown was probably working well during the 1918 flu pandemic, but not now. Lockdown probably helped China, but it does not fit all countries. We are looking forward to seeing European Commission helps its member countries ease their lockdowns as soon as possible. We are also hoping the EU shows the world a good leadership and helps countries in other regions copy with the pandemic together in the near future.



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