As a shocking new report finds that many coastal cities will be flooded by rising sea levels by 2050, Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera announced Wednesday that the U.N. Climate Summit in Santiago has been canceled. Anti-inequality protests have entered their third week in the country with protesters calling for the Piñera government to resign. The U.N. said it is now looking for an alternative venue for the annual climate meetings. Meanwhile, a dire new report has warned 300 million people are at risk from rising sea levels, with the most vulnerable populations concentrated in the Global South. According to the study published in Nature Communications, global sea levels are expected to rise between two and seven feet or possibly more, with some coastal cities being wiped off the map. We speak with Harjeet Singh, the global lead on climate change for Action Aid who is based in New Delhi, India; and Benjamin Strauss, co-author of the study in Nature Communications and CEO and chief scientist at Climate Central.
Democracy Now! speaks to journalist Sharon Lerner about how corporations in the United States are refusing to turn to more sustainable materials, with most of the country’s plastic waste ending up in landfills or scattered around the world. According to her investigation, in 2015, the United States only recycled 9% of its plastic waste, and since then, that figure has dropped even lower. Lerner is a health and environment reporter at The Intercept and a reporting fellow at Type Investigations. Her series “The Teflon Toxin” was a finalist for a National Magazine Award.
