Climate Change

We Need to Talk About Deep Blue Carbon

By Alison Kentish
Almost half of the world’s population lives in coastal zones. For islands in the Pacific and Caribbean islands such as Dominica, where up to 90 percent of the population lives on the coast, the ocean is fundamental to lives and livelihoods. From fisheries to tourism and shipping, this essential body which covers over 70 percent of the planet, is a lifeline.

Number of Crisis-Impacted Children in Need of Education Support Rises Significantly: Education Cannot Wait Issues New Global Estimates Study

Armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change and other crises increased the number of crisis-impacted children in need of urgent quality education to 224 million, according to a new Global Estimates Study issued today by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

Kenya Moots Disbanding the Loss and Damage Fund, Seeks Fair Equitable Climate Action

By Isaiah Esipisu
The Climate Change envoy to the President of Kenya has asked Kenya’s and, by extension Africa’s negotiators at the ongoing climate conference in Bonn, Germany, not to put much emphasis on financing the Loss and Damage kitty but instead calls for fairness and equity.

Climate Disasters Have Major Consequences for Informal Economies

By Catherine Wilson
In the Pacific Islands and many developing and emerging countries worldwide, the informal economy far outsizes the formal one, playing a vital role in the survival of urban and rural households and absorbing expanding working-age populations.

Rocky Point Fishers Await Sanctuary To Ease Environmental Issues, Low Fish Catch

By Zadie Neufville
Long before the COVID-19 Pandemic, fishers at the Rocky Point fishing beach in Clarendon were forced to venture farther out to sea to make a living or find alternatives to make ends meet.

A Global Plastics Treaty Can End the Age of Plastic

By Juressa Lee
Climate-crisis-fuelled storms have hit New Zealand hard this year. In January, we suffered unprecedented extreme weather and flooding, followed by Cyclone Gabrielle in February - the worst storm in 55 years—which triggered a national state of emergency. In total, we had 5.5 times more rain than Auckland summers typically receive.

Climate Carnage: Things Can Only Get Worse

By Baher Kamal
Please stop repeating all this softened wording, such as climate change, climate-related hazards, climate crisis, or extreme weather events... And just call it what it really is: climate carnage.

Carbon Tax: A Surprisingly Simple Contribution to Fight Climate Change

By Tatiana Falcão
Reducing carbon emissions is critical for combating climate change. And one effective way to do this is through the use of carbon taxes.

UN Human Rights Office Remains Under-Funded & Under-Resourced

By Volker Turk
In December last year, I launched our year-long commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have since issued a series of initiatives calling on States and all others to make pledges, and to take clear steps to fulfil the promises of the Universal Declaration.

Cooperatives in Argentina Help Drive Expansion of Renewable Energy

By Daniel Gutman
When the residents of Armstrong, a town of 15,000 in western Argentina, began to meet to discuss a renewable energy project, they agreed that there could be many positive effects and that it was not just a question of doing their bit in the global effort to mitigate climate change.

Climate Change Gets Its Day in Court

By Inés M. Pousadela
As a matter of global justice, the climate crisis has rightfully made its way to the world’s highest court. On 29 March 2023, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously adopted a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an advisory opinion on the obligations of states on climate change. The initiative was led by the Pacific Island state of Vanuatu, one of several at risk of disappearing under rising sea levels. It was co-sponsored by 132 states and actively supported by networks of grassroots youth groups from the Pacific and around the world.

G7 Has Failed the Global South in Hiroshima

By Max Lawson
"G7 countries have failed the Global South here in Hiroshima. They failed to cancel debts, and they failed to find what is really required to end the huge increase in hunger worldwide. They can find untold billions to fight the war but can’t even provide half of what is needed by the UN for the most critical humanitarian crises."

Rwanda: Better Mapping of Erosion Risk Areas Needed More Than Ever

By Aimable Twahirwa
Following severe flooding and landslides that hit major parts of Rwanda earlier this month, experts are convinced that investing in the mapping of erosion risk areas could go a long way to keeping the number of casualties down.

Why Quality Seeds Are among the Most Valuable Currency in Climate Finance for Africa

By Michael Keller
At long last, momentum is growing for an overdue rethink of climate finance and development assistance to support countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Climate Change Threatens Kenya’s Historical Sites in Coastal Region

By Diana Wanyonyi
Along coastal Kenya, historical sites and monuments are threatened due to the impacts of climate change—structures along the Indian Ocean are falling to ruin or collapsing into the ocean because of high tides.

Race to Zero in Asia and Pacific: Our Hopes in the Climate Fight

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
The latest synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes for grim reading: Every fraction of a degree of warming comes with escalated threats, from deadly heatwaves to severe hurricanes and droughts, affecting all economies and communities.

New Mosquito Species Could Derail Fight Against Malaria

By Wilson Odhiambo
‘Urban’ Kenya has been alerted because new mosquito species, Anopheles stephensi, threatens to derail decades of effort made in the fight against malaria.

Reshaping Multilateralism in Times of Crises

By Jens Martens
The world is in permanent crisis mode. In addition to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, the war in Ukraine and other violent conflicts, a worldwide cost of living crisis and an intensified debt crisis in more and more countries of the global South are affecting large parts of humanity.

How the Rise of Timor-Leste’s Aquaculture Sector Is a Blueprint for Other Small Island Nations

By Jharendu Pant
For Timor-Leste, as with most other islands in the Pacific, fortunes are to be found in fish – an equity food available to all regardless of status.

To Confront Our Current Crises, It’s Time to Put Our Money Where Our Mouth Is

By Ayesha Khan, Éliane Ubalijoro and Yuriko Backes
The finance sector’s role in the current global crises – notably climate, biodiversity, and food security – is significant. Polluting activities and environmentally-destructive practices for short-term economic gains have catapulted us to our current untenable situation. We're ‘sawing off the branch we’re sitting on’ by sacrificing life-giving ecosystem services for profit, and that branch is sagging and splitting under our weight.

Tuberculosis Risk Factors Exacerbated by Climate Change

By Ed Holt
While there is no established causal relationship between climate change and tuberculosis (TB), studies have begun to highlight the potential impact its effects could have on the spread of the disease.
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