Environment – UN News Centre

Small island nations across the world are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, and their problems have been accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has severely affected their economies, and their capacity to protect themselves from possible extinction. We take a look at some of the many challenges they face, and how they could be overcome.

The global Formula E electric race series, a partner with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP),  has grown in popularity since it launched some seven years ago, attracting the attention of major car manufacturers, changing people’s perceptions of electric vehicles, and bringing the world one step closer to a sustainable transport future.

An ancient temple in India and a “cultural landscape” in Spain have become two of the latest sites to be registered on the UN’s prestigious World Heritage List. 

Negotiations began on Monday to approve a UN science report which will anchor high level summits later this year, charged with boosting climate action worldwide.

The world is waking up to the importance of mangroves, a senior UN official said on Monday, underscoring the need for everyone to support restoration and protection of these crucial habitats. 

Inefficient global food production is at the root of a huge rise in hunger as well as one-third of all emissions and 80 per cent of biodiversity loss, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned, in a call to all countries to transform food systems to speed up sustainable development. 

“The world urgently needs a clear and unambiguous commitment to the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Agreement from all G20 nations”, António Guterres said on Sunday after the Group failed to agree on the wording of key climate change commitments during their recent Ministerial Meeting on Environment, Climate and Energy.

Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing global climate, water-related hazards top the list of natural disasters with the highest human losses in the past 50 years, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The head of the UN food relief agency called on the world’s richest nations on Thursday to invest more in sustainable living, to feed the world’s growing population.  

Cameroonians who have been displaced by conflict and climate change in the north of the West African country are turning to aquaculture as an alternative source of income, thanks to support from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Heavy rainfall that has triggered deadly and catastrophic flooding in several western European countries, is just the latest indicator that all nations need to do more to hold back climate change-induced disasters, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday.

Although a new European Union (EU) climate initiative unveiled on Wednesday could change global trade patterns to favour countries where production is relatively carbon efficient, its value in mitigating climate change will likely be limited, the UN trade and development agency, UNCTAD, has warned. 

Equitably “redirecting, repurposing or eliminating incentives” that harm biodiversity by at least $500 billion per year is just one of the 21 ambitious targets of a new draft agreement released by a UN body in the lead up to the landmark November climate conference, COP26, in the United Kingdom.  

The world’s running out of time to limit global temperature rise to below two degrees Celsius, a matter of life or death for climate vulnerable countries on the front line of the crisis, the UN Secretary General reiterated on Thursday.

The UN chief on Monday extended his condolences to the families of those who died in a landslide, which struck the Japanese coastal city of Atami in Shizuoka Prefecture, over the weekend.

A "pressure-cooker" heatwave that's broken temperature records twice in 48 hours in the US northwest and western Canada is being mirrored across large parts of the northern hemisphere, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.

It’s overwhelmingly accepted that climate change is a very significant threat to humanity and while there are countless solutions to tackling what has been described by the UN as the “existential threat” of our times, it is still not fully clear how these solutions will be paid for. 

The IKEA Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation have announced plans to launch a $1 billion fund to boost access to renewable energy in developing countries – one of the key commitments made during a series of virtual UN ministerial forums this week.

Indigenous people living on the frontline of climate change could offer potentially ground-breaking insight into biodiversity protection and sustainability, but they urgently need help to withstand a growing number of threats to their way of life, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said on Friday. 

The global climate crisis is “exacerbating and intensifying” water-related disasters, jeopardizing lives and livelihoods, the UN chief said on Friday at a major sustainable development symposium.

The European Union (EU) must use its leverage to ensure people everywhere have access to COVID-19 vaccines, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday.   

Thousands of families in southern Madagascar are on the edge of starvation, and “holding on for dear life”, the UN food agency chief said on Wednesday - after bearing witness to the suffering firsthand - urging the world to step-up and take action.   

  Small businesses which make up more than half of the global workforce were 2.5 times more likely to go under than larger firms in the first months of COVID-19, the International Trade Centre (ITC) said on Wednesday, warning that the impact of climate change could cause pandemic-scale disruption “every decade”.

A United Nations body is recommending that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef be included on a list of world heritage in danger, according to a draft report issued on Monday, a move which has been heavily criticized by the Australian Government.  

The Western Peat Meadows of the Netherlands look like classic Dutch countryside (cows, windmills and green fields), but the views mask a significant loss of biodiversity, caused by intensive farming methods. As the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration begins, a local organisation is planning to restore 100 million of hectares of land, across the world.

The negative environmental impact of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin has been widely covered in the press in recent weeks and months, and their volatility has also been flagged as a cause for concern. Nevertheless, the UN believes that blockchain, the technology lying behind these online currencies, could be of great benefit to those fighting the climate crisis, and help bring about a more sustainable global economy.

Land degradation from climate change and the expansion of agriculture, cities and infrastructure “undermines the well-being of 3.2 billion people”, the UN chief said on Wednesday in his message for World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. 

The health of children, adolescents and expectant mothers worldwide is at risk from the illegal processing of old electrical or electronic devices, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, in a landmark new report on the toxic threat. 

Stepping up global efforts to combat land degradation is the only way to safeguard food and water security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ward against future threats to health and the environment, the UN General Assembly President told ambassadors meeting in New York on Monday. 

Due to the ever-increasing demands of the global economy, the resources of the planet are being used up at an alarming rate and waste and pollution are growing fast. The idea of a more sustainable “circular economy” is gaining traction, but what does this concept mean, and can it help save the planet?