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For Spain's prime minister, everything seems fine as long as he guarantees his own political survival

Ursula von der Leyen had hoped to sign the agreement in Brazil this week

The current framework was almost at the end of a temporary six-month extension

The agreement still has to survive a complex vote in the Parliament

The searches come at a sensitive moment for Dati, who is running for mayor of Paris in next year’s election

France is under pressure to rein in its deficit and soaring debt, but efforts have been hampered by political deadlock

US attacks against the Digital Services Act (DSA) have sharply escalated since the Commission's recent €120 million DSA fine on Elon Musk's social media platform X

Wind turbine operators will receive €115 per MWh and cover roughly a tenth of current demand

In today's edition: Energy security, global heating, Arctic shipping, black carbon emissions

La nature duale des technologies provenant des écosystèmes chinois et américain
conduit les deux pays à entrer en rivalité selon le modèle de la course aux armes avec peu de
leviers pour réduire l’intensité de cette compétition. Cette note propose d’examiner les
caractéristiques de cette structure sociale de rivalité technologique selon ce modèle de course
aux armes et d’identifier les facteurs structurant de cette situation.

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L’article La rivalité technologique sino-américaine est-elle une course aux écosystèmes ? est apparu en premier sur IRIS.

By CIVICUS
Dec 19 2025 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses climate displacement and Tuvalu’s future with Kiali Molu, a former civil servant at Tuvalu’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and currently a PhD candidate at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and the University of Bergen in Norway. His research focuses on state sovereignty and climate change in the Pacific.

Kiali Molu

In Tuvalu, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, rising seas and intensifying storms have made life increasingly precarious. Over 80 per cent of people have applied for Australia’s new climate visa under a treaty signed in November 2023. Under the treaty, 280 Tuvaluans can resettle in Australia each year through a ballot system. While recognising Australia’s willingness to host Tuvaluans, civil society continues to pressure major emitters, including Australia, to cut greenhouse gas emissions and fund climate adaptation measures in vulnerable countries to prevent further displacement.

Why have so many Tuvaluans applied for Australia’s climate mobility visa?

This visa is part of the Falepili Union Treaty agreed by Australia and Tuvalu. The treaty combines a special mobility pathway, guarantees around Tuvalu’s statehood and sovereignty and a broader security arrangement. Under the mobility component, Tuvaluans can apply for residency in Australia through a ballot system, without being forced to permanently relocate.

Many applications are driven by practical reasons, such as employment opportunities to be able to support families back home. Others value the ability to travel more freely, particularly given Australia’s historically long and uncertain visa processes. Access to education opportunities and social protections also matter. What’s important is that selection under this pathway does not require people to leave Tuvalu. It creates choice and security in a context where the future feels increasingly uncertain.

How is climate change reshaping daily life in Tuvalu?

Rising sea levels and frequent king tides regularly flood homes, public buildings and roads, interrupting community gatherings, education and work. Coastal erosion continues to reduce habitable land, while saltwater intrusion contaminates groundwater and destroys pulaka pits that are central to food security, as they’re used to grow staple root crops.

These impacts extend beyond infrastructure: higher reliance on imported food means families face rising costs, and stagnant water means a rise in waterborne diseases. Constant flooding is increasing anxiety about displacement and cultural continuity, and farming and fishing livelihoods are becoming harder to sustain. Climate change affects our food, health, housing and identity every single day.

What does potential resettlement mean for Tuvaluan culture and identity?

Our identity is inseparable from our community, our land and the ocean surrounding it. Tuvaluan culture is rooted in fenua – shared practices around agriculture and fishing, church life and the falekaupule, a community meeting house. Large-scale resettlement risks disrupting these foundations. The transmission of everyday cultural practices, language and oral history may weaken if younger Tuvaluans grow up away from the islands.

However, mobility doesn’t automatically mean cultural loss. Tuvaluan communities abroad are finding ways to preserve collective life, language and traditions through associations, churches and digital platforms. Initiatives such as the Tuvalu Digital Nation aim to safeguard cultural heritage virtually. Still, there is no substitute for ancestral land, and this raises profound questions about what it means to be Tuvaluan if our homeland becomes uninhabitable.

What climate adaptation measures does Tuvalu urgently need?

Adaptation for Tuvalu is not only about renewable energy and seawalls. While these remain essential, there’s also a critical legal and political dimension. The international system still defines statehood on the basis of physical territory, offering little protection to nations facing permanent land loss due to climate change.

We believe Tuvalu should push for a new global legal framework that rethinks sovereignty in the context of climate displacement. This would protect Tuvalu’s international legal personality, maritime boundaries and political rights even if parts of its territory become uninhabitable. This diplomatic strategy is needed as much as physical adaptation measures because it addresses national survival, not just infrastructure resilience.

What responsibilities do major polluters have towards climate-vulnerable states?

Major polluters have legal and moral obligations towards climate-vulnerable countries. International law increasingly recognises duties to reduce emissions, prevent environmental harm and cooperate in protecting those most at risk. Recent legal developments, including advisory opinions from international courts, reinforce that these responsibilities are enforceable, not optional.

These obligations go beyond emissions cuts. They include providing climate finance through mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund and the Loss and Damage Fund, supporting adaptation efforts and sharing technology. For countries like Tuvalu, this support is fundamental to preserving lives, culture and sovereignty. Continued inaction by major emitters should not be seen solely as political failure, but also as a breach of international law.

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‘The ICJ’s advisory opinion strengthens climate justice by establishing legal principles states cannot ignore’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Abdul Shaheed 24.Sep.2025
International Court of Justice signals end to climate impunity CIVICUS Lens 01.Aug.2025
‘Australia must turn its climate rhetoric into action’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Jacynta Fa’amau 27.Sep.2024

 

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REPORT on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the acceleration of permit-granting for defence readiness projects
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Security and Defence
Lucia Yar, Henrik Dahl

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

REPORT on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the acceleration of permit-granting for defence readiness projects
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Security and Defence
Lucia Yar, Henrik Dahl

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

In today's edition: Omnibus committees, 11-year privacy battle, child safety panel

In today's edition: MDR, US pricing and von der Leyen's mysterious global health initiative

Plus Putin talks, EU preference, and the Defence Single Market

Farmers can now know and benefit from their contribution to climate change thanks to a formula that can be used to calculate the amount of carbon stored in fruit trees. In a project dubbed Fruit Trees for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in East Africa, the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), in […]

In today's edition: Mercosur, Várhelyi, gene editing

Credit Jan Kopriva

By Gilles-Éric Séralini, Jérôme Douzelet and Gérald Jungers
PARIS, Dec 19 2025 (IPS)

Today, society is rightly concerned about the rising prevalence of autism among children worldwide; affecting up to 1% of children, it has a profound impact on families. Neuroinflammation and environmental origins are increasingly implicated. But what causes them?

Let us take a broader view. Depression among adolescents is widespread, without it being possible to clearly separate social from neurological causes. Even in China, scientists have demonstrated a link between pollution, asthma, and depression among young people.

Genetic factors, while not excluded, cannot explain everything, as they do not change rapidly enough to account for such a swift increase across the population. Likewise, when we include neurodegenerative diseases among older people, and even among younger adults, the number of people affected becomes staggering. Finally, environmentally linked cancers affect at least one in three people worldwide.

All these diseases and conditions are chronic and slow developing. Medicine primarily alleviates their symptoms, while their causes lead to extremely serious consequences for society. If we then look at the biosphere as a whole, species extinction and abnormalities, alongside climate disruption, we gain certainty about the role of anthropogenic effects in these problems. This is neither the result of individual ill will nor bad luck, but rather the rotten fruit of a system.

An increasing number of specialists believe that a paradigm shift is necessary to break free from this situation. Recently, forty-three of us from five continents co-signed an article in Environmental Sciences Europe, a high-impact scientific journal, detailing the malpractice surrounding the authorization of toxic substances, particularly pesticides and plasticizers.

The historical archives of Monsanto-Bayer have shown how doubt has been deliberately maintained through dishonest practices in order to keep society in ignorance, falsely believing that authorized products are properly assessed. These revelations, made possible through the U.S. justice system, led to convictions for fraud benefiting more than 100,000 cancer patients.

The issue is closely related when it comes to disabilities, yet these remain neglected. According to a recent French parliamentary report, 50,000 pupils are currently without appropriate support solutions, compared with 36,000 in 2024. Among them are many autistic children suffering from gastrointestinal microbiota disorders, one of the leading reasons for medical consultations. This highlights the devastation caused by ultra-processed food, which has harmful effects on food intolerances. We now understand how the nervous system surrounding the intestine, the “second brain,” connected to the primary one, malfunctions.

Let us already do, humbly, what we can where we are, much like Pierre Rabhi’s hummingbird parable, which seeks to extinguish a forest fire with the water carried in its beak: “At least I will have tried.” This is what the association LEX Les Enfants Extraordinaires does in Barjac, in the Gard region, France. It welcomes young people with disabilities who have no support solutions, offering them a social life alongside the village’s older residents. Organic gardening and cooking workshops are welcoming spaces, at least without adding pesticides and pollutants; work is done through short supply chains. Equine-assisted activities, animal-assisted therapy, and wheelchair repairs also allow participants to once again become givers of joy and creators of smiles.

Taken individually, these diseases are sometimes attributed to bad luck or to various social causes. But one inevitably thinks of epigenetic or transgenerational, therefore environmental, inheritance. We shudder at the effects of persistent, fossil-based pollutants, starting from the fetus and pregnancy, since we have shown that they cross the placenta, as do some of the world’s most widely used pesticides, such as Roundup, implicated in Monsanto-Bayer’s frauds. These substances accumulate in our environment, limited by the atmosphere; all forms of life are sensitive to and subjected to them.

We detect how pollutants embed themselves in all living tissues and are deliberately disseminated. They are laden with heavy metals, derived from carcinogenic and neurotoxic petroleum residues used in their manufacture. We have demonstrated that all endocrine disruptors are also neurotoxic through other cellular mechanisms, like sand gradually clogging and disrupting the brain and nervous system.

Solutions do exist. We can feed the world through agroecological agriculture, as specifically demonstrated by international reports from Olivier De Schutter. This requires raising fewer pigs, chickens, and cattle in intensive systems, as these practices saturate the ultra-processed food of wealthy countries with pollutants. Such intensive systems are unnecessary. Today, we maintain more suffering livestock than children worldwide.

Agroecological agriculture will regenerate ecosystems, fortunately highly resilient, through credible alternatives already implemented across the planet. Sadly, these are currently stifled by legislative gridlock generated by lobbying efforts designed to preserve the outdated, intensive post-war model. Outdated, because “growth” is a flawed concept, built on neglect and the deliberate omission of externalities. But we will get there.

Gilles-Éric Séralini was Professor of Toxicology and Molecular Biology at the University of Caen Normandy. Along with Gérald Jungers, an associate researcher, he is a member of the “Risks, Quality and Sustainable Environment” cluster of the MRSH.

Jérôme Douzelet is the founder and coordinator of the association LEX, Les Enfants Extraordinaires, in Barjac, of which G.E.S. is President

IPS UN Bureau

 

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In Friday's edition: Ukraine, Mercosur, Várhelyi, Frontex