News

World leaders, heads of business and civil society members will descend on the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El Sheikh on Sunday for the United Nations Climate Conference (COP27).

The climate crisis increasing its intensity and reach, with droughts, floods and heatwaves becoming regular occurrences in both hemispheres. This has triggered a global conversation on how to help people, ecosystems and economies to adapt to a new reality known as climate change adaptation.

• More than eight out of ten parties to UNFCCC have adaptation planning instruments in place
• Estimated adaptation costs are five to ten times greater than international adaptation finance flows to developing countries
• Unprecedented political will and long-term investments in adaptation are urgently needed

Nairobi, 3 November 2022 – As climate impacts intensify across the globe, nations must dra

The window to take urgent climate action is closing rapidly. Unless countries dramatically scale up their efforts to counter the climate crisis, the world faces a global catastrophe, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned today.

24 October marks United Nations Day, the anniversary of the day in 1945 when the UN Charter entered into force. In the past 77 years, the UN has worked to maintain international peace and security, promote social progress, improve living standards and support human rights.

Even though Africa contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions yet, it is one of the regions hardest hit by climate change.  

The destructive impacts of the climate crisis are being felt around the world. This year, unprecedented floods have left one-third of Pakistan underwater, people and animals are dying from climate-related droughts in East Africa, and China is experiencing the most severe heat wave ever recorded.

In the aftermath of intense rains during Nepal’s 2019 monsoon season, farmer Geeta Tharu found her house submerged in a pool of water. The rains destroyed Tharu’s grain stores, which eventually plunged her family into debt.

In the Mpanda Commune in north-western Burundi, a long ribbon of rubber – about a metre high and two metres wide – snakes through a farmer’s field before disappearing into foliage.

A woman is sowing her crops alongside the structure, which is bulging with water and circles much of the commune.

Catastrophic floods have hit Pakistan in recent weeks that have killed over 1,000 people, displaced close to 500,000 and impacted the lives of over 30 million residents.

The floods have left more than one-third of the country submerged in water, with the government saying more rain is expected.

Heat records continue to topple across the globe as concurrent heatwaves bake multiple countries.

From the United States to Europe and China to Japan, extreme temperatures have soared for weeks, killing hundreds of people, sparking wildfires in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Greece and displacing thousands of residents, as many seek refuge in public cooling centers.

Just over two years ago, Christophe Hodder was selected as the first UN Climate Security and Environmental Advisor to Somalia. Since then, he had spearheaded a global effort to bring peace to a country mired in a three-decade-long civil war. A key part of his mission has been to help Somalia counter a record-setting drought and a series of other environmental problems, which have been blamed for stoking the conflict.

A prolonged and deadly heatwave has hit large swaths of India and Pakistan affecting hundreds of millions of people and sparking food and energy shortages. Experts say the extreme heat is a grim preview of what the climate crisis has in store for a region home to over 1 billion people.

As world leaders gathered in Stockholm, Sweden in 1972 for the UN Conference on the Human Environment, they were facing a planet in crisis. Acid rain was falling on cities. Oil spills were fouling the oceans. And forests were being clear-cut into oblivion.

Ancient forests. Snow-capped mountain peaks. And towering waterfalls cascading down rocky slopes. China’s Shennongjia National Park is the stuff of legends, providing inspiration to thousands of years of Chinese poets, artists and authors.

It’s also home to one of the world’s most elusive primates, the endangered golden snub-nosed monkey, who spends winters in large groups of mostly males deep in the mountain forests of Asia.

The world is in the midst of a climate emergency, with growing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions endangering human and environmental health.