Finance for nature-based solutions should be strengthened and diversified. 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.   

Implementation of nature-based solutions has been growing.

State of the Planet is a podcast produced and developed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

UNEP is the leading environmental authority in the United Nations system. Our work focuses on climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, sustainable development and other issues affecting the planet.

2020 was not only the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was also the year of intensifying climate change: high temperatures, floods, droughts, storms, wildfires and even locust plagues. Even more worryingly, the world is heading for at least a 3°C temperature rise this century.

With many people around the world in COVID-19 lockdowns, International Mountain Day on 11 December might be the perfect moment to escape on a journey of discovery to the mountains. Mountains are a hugely important refuge for biodiversity – the theme for this year’s Day.

When it comes to the environment, the United Nations and its affiliates are walking the talk, according to a new report.

Sonia Gómez has spent her entire life around agriculture. She grew up on her parents’ plantation in the fertile mountains of Costa Rica before opening her own organic farm several years ago. But that experience did little to prepare her for what has become a dire threat to her business: climate change.

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.

At the start of the 20th century, German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed a method for taking nitrogen from the air and melding it with hydrogen. It would prove to be one of the great scientific advances of the century.

Combined, the two elements made liquid ammonia, a key ingredient in synthetic fertilizers, which would drive an unprecedented agricultural expansion and help feed a fast-growing world.

In June 2020, Tropical Storm Amanda descended on El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador. Gale-force winds and torrential rains triggered more than 150 landslides and 20 major floods, tearing apart roads, electrical lines and almost 30,000 homes.