Small Island Economies Battered by Erratic Weather

Malcolm Wallace always knew on which side his bread would be buttered.

How to Tell the Biggest Stories of Our Times

What does gorilla conservation have in common with the provision of contraceptives to women? How does rural-urban migration contribute to global warming? What does city planning in Kenya have to do with coastal erosion in the Philippines?

Mayors Leading an Urban Revolution

With presidents and prime ministers failing to take meaningful action to avert a planetary-scale climate crisis, the mayors of cities and towns are increasingly stepping up to enact changes at the local level.

Q&A: The Eleventh Hour for Climate Justice

Climate justice – the nexus between human rights and climate change – must be a pillar of the post-2015 development agenda, says former Irish president Mary Robinson.

Push for Transparency in U.S.-Mexico Drilling Agreement

As lawmakers here prepare to take up legislation that would green-light a U.S.-Mexico agreement on oil-and-gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, development and rights groups are urging them to reject a proposal that would exempt involved companies from new disclosure requirements.

CO2 Reshaping the Planet, Meta-Analysis Confirms

Greenland will eventually truly become green as most of its massive ice sheet is destined to melt, the authoritative U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported Friday.

U.S. Projects 17-Percent Emissions Cut by 2020

The United States has formally told the United Nations that it is on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 17-percent by the end of the decade, assuming that currently proposed regulations are implemented.

Sunshine Gets Slowly More Energetic in Zimbabwe

On top of a small wooden cabin in Norton, a dormitory town outside the capital of Zimbabwe, is a solar panel that Silvester Ngunzi uses to light up his household.

Tallying the Benefits of Climate Action

More than a half-dozen governments on Tuesday launched a yearlong collaborative investigation into the economic benefits of taking broad action to combat global climate action.

Pressure Mounts to Cap Airline Emissions

A contentious global agreement on how to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the global airline industry will be at the top of the agenda over the next two weeks at an international summit, potentially solidifying details that have yet to emerge after more than a decade and a half of talks.

U.S. Proposes Landmark Cap on CO2 from Power Plants

Regulators here have taken the first major step of President Barack Obama’s second term to scale back U.S. carbon emissions, proposing first-ever rules to dramatically reduce allowable greenhouse gas pollution for future power plants.

Street Power Takes On Gold

Street protests are snowballing in Romania against a Canadian-led gold mining project in the Rosia Montana area in the Apuseni Mountains. More than 20,000 people joined a protest march in Bucharest on Sunday, and thousands in other Romanian cities took to the streets.

Proposed Global Accord Called a Disaster for Public Services

Nearly 350 international civil society organisations are urging countries taking part in new negotiations towards an agreement on “trade in services” to abandon the effort, warning that the accord would negatively impact on universal access to and national regulation of public services.

U.S. Debates Climate Impact of Development Investments

A debate is heating up here over the extent to which U.S. government-facilitated private-sector development investments should be required to take into account how those ventures impact on climate change.

Hopeful but Homesick in Peshawar Schools

“I miss my mother and cry every night,” eight-year-old Afaq Ali tells IPS. He is a Class 5 student at the University Public School in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the administrative centre for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to its west.

Q&A: “The Last Great Exploration Is to Survive on Earth”

Newly arrived from London, Robert Swan is facing a promise he made to famed marine researcher and conservationist Jacques Cousteau decades ago.

Q&A: Room for Negotiation in Decisive Battle over the Amazon

Everything indicates that the decisive battle between harnessing hydropower and preserving the Amazon will play out in the Tapajós river basin in Brazil. At stake there are a potential of nearly 30,000 MW and a vital part of the Amazon rainforest.

Broad Coalition Pledges to Cut “Super Greenhouse Gases”

An international coalition has agreed to begin working towards domestic regulation aimed at reducing the use of HFCs, compounds commonly used as refrigerants but referred to as “super greenhouse gases” for their particularly negative impact on global warming.

Brazilian Hydroelectricity Giant Promotes Biogas

The massive Itaipú hydroelectric dam, shared by Brazil and Paraguay, has now become a model for the micro-scale production of an energy source that is not only clean, but also helps to reduce pollution and promote local development: biogas.

Water Scarcity Could Drive Conflict or Cooperation

When the General Assembly declared 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation (IYWC) three years ago, the U.N.'s highest policy-making body was conscious of the perennial conflicts triggered by competition over one of the world's most critical finite resources.

Native Americans Take Lead in Tar Sands Resistance

Native American tribes in the United States have taken the lead in opposing the expansion of the Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada, engaging in civil disobedience to the point of arrest and attempting to physically block shipments of construction equipment from passing through their native lands.