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* Study Germany's and Taiwan's Success to Form a Reopening Strategy4
http://www.hsvg.org/ Guahan Global Foundation
Guahan Global Foundation P.O. Box 206, Hagatna, GU 96932, USA
(November 15, 2024)Urge worldwide action to save the Pacific Lots of evidence recently suggested that islanders’ voices on climate action have finally been heard and brought to the global stage. We look forward to seeing leaders, experts, and activists from the Pacific community move further at the 29th United Nations Climate Conference, commonly referred to as COP29 and now happening in Azerbaijan, to facilitate more significant worldwide climate action to protect those on the frontlines.   Many people must have noticed that the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a rare appearance at the opening of 2024 Pacific Islands Forum in August. According to UN’s press release, he declared in the opening remarks that “plastic pollution is chocking sealife. Greenhouse gases are causing ocean heating, acidification and rising seas. But Pacific islanders are showing the way to protect our climate, our planet and our ocean.”   Mr. Guterres stressed that the region urgently needs more financial support, capacities and technology to speed up the transition to clean energy and so countries can invest in adaption and resilience.   He also added, while the Pacific region is doing what it can, the Group of 20 (G20) most industrialized nations – the biggest emitters of carbon – must step up and lead by phasing the production and consumption of fossil fuels and stopping their expansion immediately.   “If we save the Pacific, we save the world,” the UN chief said.   The UN also released two reports on the sidelines of the forum. A regional report compiled by the World Meteorological Organization showed sea-surface temperatures in the south-west Pacific have risen three times faster than the global average since 1980. It also found that marine heatwaves in the region had roughly doubled in frequency since 1980 and become more intense and longer-lasting.   In addition, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in 2021 that the global mean sea level was rising at rates unprecedented in at least the last 3,000 years as a result of human-induced global warming. And, the new UN report titled “Surging Seas in a Warming World” indicated “emerging research on climate ‘tipping points’ and ice sheet dynamics is raising alarm among scientists that future sea-level rise could be much larger and occur sooner than previously thought.”   The Pacific Islands Forum leaders eventually issued an official communique that emphasized “climate change continues to be a matter of priority to the Pacific region” and recognized “sea level rise is a sever manifestation of climate change that threatens Pacific communities.” Accordingly, leaders agreed to elevate the issue of sea level rise “politically,” including at the UN General Assembly.   2024 UN General Assembly in September literally arranged a high level plenary meeting on sea level rise. Leaders and experts recognized in the meeting that the existential threats, for example, livelihoods are destroyed, families gradually move, community cohesion is tested, and heritage is lost, are the hard realities many people in small island states and low-lying countries experience today, not the projections of a coming future. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres therefore called for a strong financial outcome at COP29 to cope with threats caused by sea level rise.   Regarding financial outcome at COP29, it is worth noticing that this year’s conference is actually being called the “finance COP.” Following the historic agreement of creating a loss and damage fund at COP27 to compensate climate-vulnerable countries, COP28 has officially launched the fund. The finer details will be figured out at COP29 before the money actually starts flowing to nations in need next year.   Countries will also need to agree with a new global climate finance goal, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal. In addition to its total figure, COP29 will see discussion on several important terms of the NCQG, including who the donor base and recipients will be, how much will come from public and private sources, and whether it will be in the form of grants or loans.   As a member of the Pacific community, our foundation certainly looks forward to a global financial mechanism helping all Pacific islands’ climate mitigation and adaptation. However, we, together with many climate experts, also want to remind the world that the Nationally Determined Contributions, which outlines how a country will curb emissions, must be renewed every five years under Paris Agreement and the next round due is February 2025. So, COP29 is a crucial moment for countries to raise the bar and hold each other to account.   Nonprofit organization Climate Group also declared at its Climate Week NYC, taking place during the UN General Assembly in September, that the urgent and concrete action is needed to address the emission gap between what scientists say is needed to avoid disastrous climate change and what governments and business are delivered. They therefore called for governments, businesses, and the global climate community to focus on bolder annual to-do lists of climate action.   Their first Global To-Do List that governments and businesses can start taking action to drive results in the next twelve months consists of seven items including support workers to power down coal, unleash renewables, ban relining of coal-based steel furnaces, get serious on methane, stop ignoring energy efficiency, buy clean, and tax fossil fuels to fund the transition.   The UN chief Antonio Guterres actually also warned at the Pacific Islands Forum that the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – built around the 17 goals or SDGs – “is faltering.” Climate Group also reminded the world that we have Net Zero carbon emissions milestone to be accomplished by 2050 as well. The representatives of Pacific islands must make sure that COP29 focuses on what the whole world needs to do right now to get on track.   http://www.hsvg.org/hot_503561.html *Urge worldwide action to save the Pacific 2024-11-17 2025-11-17
Guahan Global Foundation P.O. Box 206, Hagatna, GU 96932, USA http://www.hsvg.org/hot_503561.html
Guahan Global Foundation P.O. Box 206, Hagatna, GU 96932, USA http://www.hsvg.org/hot_503561.html
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Home ﹥ News > News > * Study Germany's and Taiwan's Success to Form a Reopening Strategy

(April 22, 2020)

Study Germany’s and Taiwan’s Success to Form a Reopening Strategy

Why does Germany close dining and entertainment businesses only while France, Italy and Spain enforce nationwide lockdowns? Why are people in Taipei keeping daily life while Singapore closes schools and businesses and asks citizens to stay home till June 1?



The most important lesson we should learn from Germany is to stop being worried about the number of confirmed cases. Due to the coronavirus’ highly contagious nature and the country’s massive testing policy, Germany is certainly finding a lot of COVID-19 cases. The focus therefore ought to be mild cases’ quarantine and severe cases’ medical treatment. Germany did it right, so their domestic patients got well treated and they have been taking care of patients flown in from other European Union member countries.



While many countries have been calling for flattening the epidemic curve, as of April 13, Taiwan, with a population of 23 million citizens, reported 6 deaths from COVID-19 and only 273 patients who are still hospitalized. Taiwanese have been promptly wearing a mask since the middle of January even though many experts did not agree it could help at that time. Taiwanese government also coordinated mask manufacturers to increase productivity to meet people’s demands of purchasing masks. In contrast, most of western countries did not add wearing a mask into COVID-19 control guidelines until April.



It definitely makes a lot of sense that the governors who want to lift the restrictions do their researches on the experiences of those countries that have never place any restriction order during the pandemic to form a relevant and sustainable exit strategy. We are glad to see Mr. Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted California’s “flatten the curve” graph on April 11, which showed California has used “hospitalization rate” to replace “infection rate”, or confirmed cases, to monitor the epidemic curve. We would like to acknowledge California for its action of bringing COVID-19 control to a right track and to carefully thinking of its reopening plan.



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We also want to remind that it is better to still suggest the elderly should spent most of time at home during the early stage of the reopening. People with underlying medical conditions, who have a relatively higher risk of developing severe illness once contracting the virus, should be told to thoroughly practice good hygiene and to pay more attention to having their chronic diseases under control.



Data showed more than 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment since state-mandated lockdowns have been enforced. The spike in new jobless claims is believed to result from the lockdowns that have kept Americans from their workplaces and forced many companies to shutter or to lay off employees. With wearing a mask in public as a careful precaution measure, healthy young and middle-aged adults should be allowed to resume daily routines as soon as possible to avoid households’ miserable financial consequences of workplace shutdown. Probably it’s time for some states to ease lockdowns or any other similar restrictions with a carefully-formed exit strategy.


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