UN staff and delegates to the UN Environment Assembly, which opened in Nairobi on Monday, were among 157 to die on the way from Addis Ababa At least 22 UN staff died in an Ethiopian Airlines plane crash on Sunday, along with many delegates travelling to a major environment summit, according to officials.
“The environmental community is in mourning today,” she said in a statement released as she participated in the opening ceremony of the UN Environment Assembly in the Kenyan capital on Monday.
We lost UN staff, youth delegates travelling to the assembly, seasoned scientists, members of academia and other partners,” said Msuya.
The airline has grounded its fleet of Boeing 737 8 Max aircraft – the same model involved in a recent disaster in Indonesia.
UN offices lowered the organisation’s flag to half mast on Monday.
The Associated Press reported that 32 Kenyans were killed in the accident, nine Ethiopians, eighteen Canadians as well as multiple citizens from China, the US, Italy, France, the UK, Egypt, the Netherlands, India and Slovakia.
“The entire UN Environment Assembly will honour them in our efforts this week,” Msuya said.
The assembly aims to generate a sharper political focus on biodiversity, climate change and the natural systems that support human civilisation.
Global issues need global coverage CHN is dedicated to bringing you the best climate reporting from around the world.
It’s a huge job and we need your help.
The flight attendants, who immediately suspected a lithium-ion battery fire, sprayed the luggage with a fire extinguisher.
If anything, this incident shows the importance of well-trained and quick-thinking flight attendants.
According to a CNN report that began with the phrase “Smartphones going up in flames,” Samsung admitted to 35 incidents of phones catching fire, and started a recall of more than 2 million phones. ”
More than 60 airlines banned hoverboards because of concerns about—you guessed it—their lithium-ion battery packs.
Even less remembered is the notebook battery crisis of 2006, when some 9.6 million batteries made by Sony and used in notebook computers made by Dell, Apple, Toshiba and others were recalled.
But concerns with lithium-ion batteries, pervasive as the technology is, go back much further.
The technology was originally developed in the 1970’s, as it permitted much more power density than nickel cadmium or lead-acid batteries.
In 2010, a UPS 747 cargo aircraft caught fire and crashed near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
In 2013, an investigation determined the fire was started by the lithium-ion battery cargo.
The smoke detection equipment on the aircraft took too long to notify the pilots, the heat from the fire disabled the oxygen system, and the smoke obscured the pilots’ vision.
How high-tech tracking systems used by airlines can cut grocery food waste.
A technology used to track inventories of sweaters and jeans and ensure the on-time arrival of luggage on commercial airliners could hold the key to tackling food waste, collectively saving food retailers billions of dollars and helping them play a critical role in addressing global food security and hunger.
Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags have been used by apparel and consumer product retailers for years, improving efficiency and quickly identifying stock in warehouses and on store shelves.
They have massive advantages over inventory systems that rely on traditional barcodes because RFID chips have a unique identity, can store extensive information, can be read at greater distances, work quickly and don’t require a direct line of sight for scanning.
This happens when, for example, items are overstocked for promotions; there are over-deliveries to a store; or stocks aren’t rotated and older items get buried on shelves behind newer ones.
The time and labor costs to manage a store’s stock is significant.
Grocery stores operate on razor-thin margins, so any opportunity to improve efficiencies in food delivery and stock management is worth considering.
Last summer, we completed a pilot with a leading U.K.-based food retailer, which included the deployment of the first food-friendly intelligent label.
The results are encouraging.
We are also seeing dramatic improvement in inventory accuracy — more than 99% — in food distribution across the supply chain.