Latam-Caribbean development bank doubles oceans funding to $2.5 billion
BRUSSELS, June 7 (Reuters) - The Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) will double to $2.5 billion its investments in protecting the oceans and supporting sustainable marine economic activities, it said on Saturday.
The bank has already exceeded its existing oceans funding commitment, of $1.25 billion over 2022-2026, with investments including strengthening marine protected areas and supporting small-scale fisheries.
The extra $2.5 billion, which will be rolled out over 2025-2030, will target areas including low-carbon maritime transport, restoration of damaged ocean ecosystems and sustainable tourism, the bank said.
It comes on top of the $1.3 billion CAF invested in oceans over the last three years.
"This commitment reflects our transformative agenda, that is, to embed the health of the ocean in our development ambition," CAF executive vice-president Gianpiero Leoncini told a conference on oceans financing in Monaco.
A U.N. Oceans conference next week in Nice, France, will attempt to rally stronger commitments from countries to protect and invest in oceans - including by ratifying a global treaty to protect ocean biodiversity, which most of the 116 countries that signed it have still not done.
Oceans are crucial to trade, food and employment for coastal communities, and maintaining global climate systems. But funding to protect these functions has fallen far short.
Investments in ocean health totalled just $10 billion from 2015-2019 - far below the $175 billion per year needed, the U.N. has said.
CAF's existing oceans funding includes managing illegal fishing, providing loans to wastewater treatment plants and storm drainage systems to reduce damage from floods.
Oceans also provide a vital buffer against climate change, by absorbing around 30% of planet-heating CO2 emissions. But as the oceans heat up, hotter waters are destroying marine ecosystems and threatening the oceans' ability to absorb CO2.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
13 minutes ago
- The Sun
Morrison shoppers are rushing to buy three new chocolate flavours of popular coffee drink
SHOPPERS have been rushing to get their hands on three new chocolate flavours of a popular coffee drink. Eagle eyed customers spotted the new flavours on shelves in Morrisons. 2 2 The three items were flagged to coffee enthusiasts on the popular Facebook page Newfoodsuk. These Nescafe new coffee drink flavours are now available in stores. Mint chocolate lovers will be delighted to see an Aero Peppermint Mocha flavour in the mix, which can be spotted with green packaging. Another is a "green triangle" mocha flavour - branded alongside Quality Street. Vanilla cookie dough latte is also among the new flavours available. The 250g cans sell at Morrisons for £3.50 each. They are suitable for vegetarians. Facebook users were quick to note the new flavours, with some speculating which would be their favourites. One user commented: "Not sure about this. "Coffee should be coffee and the only exception is a mocha hut none of these mixed flavours." 'Father of Nutella' dies on Valentine's Day aged 97 after helping to create world-famous hazelnut spread Another said: "I'd love the vanilla one. "But I don't like Mocha. Something different to have." It is not the only chocolatey treat on Morrisons' shelves right now. The retailer is selling a giant Toblerone bar that weighs 4.5kg in time for Father's Day. It will be available until Sunday June 15. NEW CHOCOLATE PRODUCTS It comes as Cadbury is launching a new Dairy Milk flavour bar in the UK this month - Dairy Milk Iced Latte. The new bar combines classic Dairy Milk chocolate with a creamy coffee filling and crunchy biscuit pieces. Four limited edition bars have also been introduced, with packaging that changes based on the temperature. The chocolate maker also recently teased the launch of a new Cadbury White Dipped Twirl bar. Details on the new limited edition flavour are thin, although some smaller online retailers are selling it from 99p. Lidl shoppers have been going wild for a new Dubai-style pistachio spread landing on shelves. The Della Sante chocolate cream spread combines the flavours of the insanely popular chocolate but in spreadable form. The pots cost £4.99 or £3.99 for Lidl Plus members. How to save money on chocolate We all love a bit of chocolate from now and then, but you don't have to break the bank buying your favourite bar. Consumer reporter Sam Walker reveals how to cut costs... Go own brand - if you're not too fussed about flavour and just want to supplant your chocolate cravings, you'll save by going for the supermarket's own brand bars. Shop around - if you've spotted your favourite variety at the supermarket, make sure you check if it's cheaper elsewhere. Websites like let you compare prices on products across all the major chains to see if you're getting the best deal. Look out for yellow stickers - supermarket staff put yellow, and sometimes orange and red, stickers on to products to show they've been reduced. They usually do this if the product is coming to the end of its best-before date or the packaging is slightly damaged. Buy bigger bars - most of the time, but not always, chocolate is cheaper per 100g the larger the bar. So if you've got the appetite, and you were going to buy a hefty amount of chocolate anyway, you might as well go bigger.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
No more leprechaun economics: Ireland's tax swindle is finally ending
Donald Trump has sent Ireland to the naughty step. Once the altar boy of American commerce, Dublin now finds itself blacklisted alongside China, Germany and Vietnam, each a prime candidate for tariffs and sanctions. The offence? Running a surplus with the United States. On the face of it, the complaint seems petty. One country sells more than it buys. So what? But Ireland's problem, like the others on Trump's list, is that its surplus rests on a creed that has fallen out of favour. As offshoring hollowed out Middle America, the old Clinton mantra 'It's the economy, stupid' has begun to sound rather less clever than it once did. That, at least, is the mood in Trump's Washington. And judging by his campaign-trail fixation with the word tariff, many Americans agree: a reckoning is overdue. Ireland offers a particularly inviting target. Its surplus owes less to tangible exports than to tax gymnastics. A pill is made in Ireland for 50 cents, sold to a sister company (also in Ireland) for €10, and then shipped to the global market at the same price. The profit is booked in Dublin, while tax collectors elsewhere are left out of pocket. The trick doesn't stop there. Intellectual property is shifted to Irish subsidiaries, global sales are routed through Irish entities, and profits vanish into low or no-tax jurisdictions. Together, these sleights of hand form what we're invited to call the Irish economic miracle – a miracle that, by one estimate, deprives other countries of nearly $20 billion a year in tax revenue. The question being asked in Washington is: who benefits? Ireland, clearly. One in every eight euros of its tax revenue now comes from US firms. That's a fivefold increase since 2010, driven by Ireland's famously 'competitive' tax regime. It accounts for a large slice of a €150 billion bilateral surplus. When Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin visited the Oval Office in March, Trump put it plainly: 'We do have a massive deficit with Ireland, because Ireland was very smart. They took our pharmaceutical companies away.' It's hard to argue with the logic. Ireland has been undeniably clever at attracting American capital. Spending it is another matter. Much of the money sits on Irish books without generating the economic activity one might expect. The state's coffers may be overflowing, but the windfall is narrowly concentrated. Public spending, as ever, has been handled with something shy of brilliance. From roads and hospitals to housing and energy, the services most visible to the public have seen little improvement, despite years of surging revenues. Meanwhile, resources have been channelled into more headline-friendly ventures: a €350,000 bike shed outside parliament; a vast new hospital project already among Europe's most expensive; and billions annually to accommodate asylum applicants – most of whom, the government has conceded, are economic migrants. The miracle, it seems, left little room for prudence. As every lottery winner learns, easy money tends to breed excess. But with full coffers, Ireland could afford to paper over the cracks. Meanwhile, American tech and pharma giants have flourished. Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer and others have routed billions through Ireland, to the delight of shareholders and pension funds. If Trump moves to close loopholes or impose tariffs, these are the interests he'll have to console ahead of the midterms. The losers, predictably, are the American workers left behind by the long, slow flight of industry and tax revenue. Worse off still are the countries quietly drained by Ireland's magic act. The sums involved are vast. The structures that move them are so complex they can feel impossibly abstract. But the consequences are not. According to modelling by the Universities of St Andrews and Leicester, this tax loss has deprived more than 100,000 children of school attendance and some 1.1 million people of access to basic sanitation. Quibble with the methods if you like, but the core truth is hard to deny: when profits are rerouted, people are short-changed. Not that Dublin seems overly troubled. Only last month, Ireland's Taoiseach declared: 'Ireland earns its living from an open and fair approach to world trade.' The most pious nations often turn out to be the most artful. Ireland rarely misses a chance to sermonise on Gaza, climate justice, or whichever cause currently allows it to cast itself as Europe's moral compass. But as La Rochefoucauld noted, hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. And by that measure, Ireland has paid handsomely.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
It's no wonder that the middle classes are fleeing Rachel Reeves's anti-wealth island
A brain drain is coming. We need to talk about emigration. Yes, you read that right, emigration – not just immigration. You heard the warnings during the Brexit wars – business and investors will leave for Paris, Frankfurt, Milan (and the Earth will stop spinning...) unless we remain in the customs union – and back then it was largely a load of hot air. But hear me out. This time, it's actually happening. Entrepreneurs and businesspeople are fleeing in their droves. In the past year alone, more than 10,000 millionaires have left the UK. Only China saw more high net-worth individuals leave. European countries are now stealing our lunch, with Italy and Portugal styling themselves as destinations for investor flight with attractive low-tax regimes. It wasn't Brexit that did it, but an economically illiterate tax regime determined to squeeze the juice dry. The best-paid 1 per cent already paid about a third of all income tax collected: those with the broadest shoulders were – and still are – bearing the greatest burden. But the Chancellor viewed successful investors and risk-taking entrepreneurs as criminals to punish, rather than assets to court. The non-dom tax changes may have polled well in focus groups, but they've backfired – and the public will now pay the price. Who is going to fund increases in defence, healthcare and transport spending? Yet again, it will fall to the middle classes to bridge the gap left. The Chancellor's ineptitude means further tax rises on working people in the autumn are now inevitable. The social contract with the middle class hasn't simply frayed – it's been shredded. They have been disproportionately targeted to fund a record tax burden while their quality of life has remained largely stagnant. They're paying more than ever to get less than ever in return. The public services they use are crumbling, the streets they walk feel less safe, and the town centres they visit are hollowed out by petty crime and boarded-up shopfronts. In France, discontent leads to riots; in Britain, it seems to dissipate into despair. The very real risk now is that Brits vote with their feet and simply pack up and leave en masse. A recent poll showed that nearly a quarter of UK adults are considering moving abroad in the next five years. These are highly skilled professionals who are the bedrock of any country: 48 per cent of those in the IT industry are considering emigrating, as are 30 per cent of those in the healthcare sector. And it's not just white-collar workers, either – when I speak to tradesmen, they think they would have far better prospects in countries such as Australia and Canada. This is no longer an issue of investor flight, but a full-on brain drain. In the 1970s, a high-tax and anti-business environment led to Britain experiencing a net loss of 500,000 people. Half a century later, history could well repeat itself. Even my generation, now pushing into our 40s, who didn't feel like we had it particularly good entering the jobs market in the 2000s, and with the massive house-price boom of that period, had it so much better. When I speak at universities, I am struck by how many are contemplating opportunities abroad. And who can blame them? Young graduates today pay more than ever to live in tiny bedrooms in shared flats. The prospect of homeownership – or starting a family – has never been more distant. Unlike previously, the alternatives to the UK are increasingly appealing. Their money can go further elsewhere, and they can live in more prosperous countries with a better quality of life. In 2007, the average Brit was richer than the average American, Australian, Austrian, Belgian, Canadian and German, to name just a few. Now, they have all overtaken us. And it's not just them. Finland, the UAE, Hong Kong and Israel have all sailed past us when it comes to GDP per capita. A failed policy consensus of the past 20 years has driven this country into decline – and now the consequences are upon us. We won't return to being a country of net emigration anytime soon. Quite the opposite: Starmer's immigration White Paper was a recipe for more mass legal and illegal migration. That means hundreds of thousands more migrants who, over their lifetime, will take out more then they put in – many of whom are from culturally divergent countries. Meanwhile, net contributors are pushed towards the exit. On average, a millionaire leaves the country every 45 minutes, while an illegal migrant enters the country every 15 minutes. It's the most brain-dead migration policy imaginable. I don't just fear for the raw economic consequences. If middle-class flight takes off, the foot will slam on the accelerator driving the dizzying pace of change. Brits who have grown up here and are imbued with our history, heritage, culture, customs and traditions can't simply be swapped like-for-like. Nations, like all good things, take an age to create but are easily destroyed. Many Brits can sense that the country they love is slipping away: at first gradually, then suddenly. I understand why people consider leaving the UK, although I could never, ever imagine it myself. I too despair sometimes, but I care too much to just shrug my shoulders and resign myself to defeat. We have a fight on our hands to turn this country around. But safe streets, cohesive communities, cheap energy, functioning public services, higher wages and a startup culture are never unobtainable. For all our problems, this is a great country – and I'm convinced we can be greater still.
