Georgia pushes to bolster its food security
With reports suggesting COVID-19 could spark food shortages around the world, food systems experts and United Nations officials say countries must increase the resilience of their agricultural systems.
Albania: How a lagoon became a frontline defence against climate change
When Albert Pati moved closer to the sea to open a beach bar overlooking the Mediterranean in Albania, he never imagined that the sea would also be moving closer to him, now eroding the soil around his restaurant floor.
Students discover solutions to help Durban slums adapt to climate change
Life in Durban’s Quarry Road West informal settlement is no easy ride, owing in part to a pernicious mix of unemployment, poverty and lack of housing. To make matters worse, climate change has been sweeping away people’s homes as heavy rains cause the river that runs through the settlement to burst its banks.
Changes in building and construction have great potential to slow global warming
Most of us spend a large chunk of our lives in one building or another, but have you ever stopped to consider the greenhouse gases linked to the construction of these buildings?
One way to reduce greenhouse gases is the use of recycled and more environmentally friendly building materials.
Locust swarms and climate change
Interview with Richard Munang, United Nations Environment Programme expert on climate and Africa
Seven reasons to embrace nature-based disaster risk reduction
The southern Indian State of Kerala is famous for its various tourist attractions such as wildlife which includes endangered species like the Nilgiri Tahr goat and the lion-tailed macaque, the Vallam Kali traditional boat race and the Kumily spice festival.
Climate change hits nature’s delicate interdependencies
Changing weather patterns are disrupting hard-wired animal and plant reproduction systems with unpredictable consequences for biodiversity.
In the northern hemisphere, climate change is causing spring to arrive earlier. We know this from reliable climate records dating back to 1880 and in some cases earlier than that. Herbarium records are turning out to be a huge source of important plant data.
“Where there used to be so much there is so little”: the challenge of climate change in the Comoros
As 63-year-old farmer Mahmoud Hamidoune shelters from the rain hammering down on the peaks of the southern tip of Anjouan island in the Comoros, he recalls a time when it got so cold that people would stay home, and heading up the mountain to farm was called ‘going to Paris’.
Sowing hope in The Gambia
Without knowing about the weather and why it was changing, the people in the village of Jappineh in The Gambia’s Lower River Region would plant the same seeds in the same soil and hope for the best.
Oasis dreaming: regreening the Djiboutian Desert
Ali Omar remembers a time when the practically bare patch of desert in northern Djibouti he calls home was a bustling seaside resort and the waters around it were teeming with fish. “Lots of people lived here and they had shops all along the seaside,” says 75-year-old Omar, recalling his hometown Khor Angar’s 1970s heyday, before it was hot year-round and the village had dwindled to just a few huts in the desert.
The development of the GAN involved a broad UNEP-facilitated consultative process, including an international consultation meeting and four regional consultations.