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International Women’s Day on 08 March, offers an opportunity to call for climate action for women, by women – as the world comes together under the theme ‘Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.’

On a chilly December day in 1972, the United Nations General Assembly passed what is formally known as UN-Resolution 2997.

It would be the last step in the establishment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – an organisation conceived to spearhead a global effort to minimize humanity's footprint on the planet.

The flaring gas and smoke that bellow into the sky from Iraq’s southern oil fields are visible from miles away. 

Not only is the flaring unsightly but it is an environmental hazard, releasing black carbon, which is linked to air pollution, respiratory disease, and emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Wetlands are some of the planet’s most important ecosystems. They’re a haven for wildlife, they filter pollution and they’re important stores of carbon.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – the atmospheric gases responsible for causing global warming and climatic change – are critical to understanding and addressing the climate crisis.

Last week, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic, 38C, on 20 June 2020. This warming is causing previously permanently frozen permafrost below ground to thaw.

To most people, fins, masks and neoprene wetsuits are recreational gear. But to the non-profit group Sea Women of Melanesia, this year’s Champion of the Earth for Inspiration and Action, they are the tools of change.

Delegates at the recent UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties COP26 in Glasgow would have found it hard to ignore Scotland’s stunning scenery: dense woodlands, dark lochs and sweeping mountain ranges. But it was the peatlands that perhaps captured their attention the most, not only for their iconic beauty but for the role they can play in combatting climate change.

As the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) came to a close, news agencies and bloggers ploughed through the Glasgow Climate Pact to make sense of the commitments made to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

It was, in the end, an agreement of compromise.

As over 190 world leaders and tens of thousands of government representatives, businesses and citizens gather at the twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow this week and next, we unpack what to expect and delve into the latest climate science from the United Nations Environment Pr

Despite being responsible for only around 3 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, experts say that Africa will be the region hardest hit by climate change.

For generations, people have combed the sponge-like cloud forests around the city of Xalapa, Mexico for edible mushrooms. But a combination of deforestation and climate-change-related drought have devastated mushroom crops, an important source of income in a region beset by poverty.

Every year on 19 August, World Humanitarian Day offers the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations an opportunity to celebrate the daily work of humanitarian responders worldwide and recognize their dedication to helping others.

Nemonte Nenquimo has spent years fending off miners, loggers and oil companies intent on developing the Amazon rainforest.

The leader of Ecuador's indigenous Waorani people, she famously fronted a 2019 lawsuit that banned resource extraction on 500,000 acres of her ancestral lands — a court win that gave hope to indigenous communities around the world.

For many locals and tourists, Praslin Island in Seychelles is synonymous with paradise. From the white sands of Anse Lazio, frequently voted as one of the top beaches in the world, to the endemic species of the jungle, to the colorful coral reefs in Curieuse Marine Park, Praslin is filled with both beauty and biodiversity.

But, as events at one site on the northwest side of the island demonstrate, this paradise is precarious.

The past decade was the hottest in human history. Apocalyptic fires and floods, cyclones and hurricanes are increasingly the new normal, and emissions are 62 per cent higher now than when international climate negotiations began in 1990.

The evidence is clear. We are in a race against time to adapt to a rapidly changing climate – one of the three planetary crises we face along with biodiversity loss, pollution and waste.

Responding to the profusion of challenges at our doorstep, world leaders have been stepping up – and making ambitious commitments.

World Environment Day, which falls on 5 June, marks the official launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global push to revive natural spaces lost to development.

Near Omar Gona’s house in Djibouti’s Tadjourah city stands a wall three metres high and five metres thick. What might be an eyesore for some is a godsend for the city because the wall holds back the monsoon rains that have decimated people’s lives here for decades.

Food, water, medicine, energy: the planet’s ecosystems provide the essentials of life, so long as they’re taken care of.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been happening. During the last several decades, human development has pushed many of the world’s forests, savannahs and other natural systems to the brink of collapse.

Did you know nature is one of humanity’s best defences for adapting to climate change? A new funding opportunity is scaling up ecosystem-based adaptation across the world. The call for proposals is now open.

During the online session of the fifth UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) which took place 22-23 February 2021, a short online poll was conducted. The aim of the poll was to have the additional voices heard alongside government representat

• What does it take to be a United Nations worker in some of the world’s most difficult and dangerous locations?
• How are health workers, humanitarians and peacekeepers racing to protect the most vulnerable populations from the threat of the COVID-19 virus?
• Stationed in remote locations and far from family, how are they coping themselves?

These are some of the questions that the

Planning for adaptation is progressing, although nature-based solutions are lagging. As temperatures rise and climate change impacts intensify, nations must urgently step up action to adapt to the new climate reality or face serious costs, damages and losses, the 2020 edition of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Adaptation Gap Report finds.