At dawn on the white-sand shores of Jambiani, 45-year-old Saada Juma braces herself against the pull of the tide, wrangling ropes laced with seaweed. Her hands, hardened by decades of labor, move instinctively as she secures her aquatic crop.
In the 1900s, global discussions around climate change and fossil fuel usage reached new heights, leading to the emergence of climate change art. Since then, it has remained a key theme in contemporary art, with artists and corporations alike continuing to push messages of climate reform to instill a sense of urgency, fear, and shared responsibility in viewers.
Current rates of land degradation pose a major environmental and socioeconomic threat, driving climate change, biodiversity loss, and social crises. Food production to feed more than 8 billion people is the dominant land use on Earth. Yet, this industrial-scale enterprise comes with a heavy environmental toll.
Across continents and cultures, seeds and plants hold more than the promise of a harvest—they carry the wisdom of generations, the hopes of communities, and the keys to a more resilient future. Yet the diversity of the seeds and plants we grow, eat, and depend upon, is under growing strain.
They are lightweight, cheap, and able to be used in every sector of every supply chain. Few materials have revolutionized manufacturing and the global economy as much as plastics have. They are essential in almost everything, however this comes at a cost. A cost of
1.5 trillion annually in environmental damage, and a 75 percent waste ratio of all plastic ever produced.
There is no question that most climate activists and governments were delighted when Brazil offered to host the 2025 UN Climate Conference taking place this November.
While recent heat waves were causing
thousands of deaths, the Trump administration was busy
dismantling policies that regulate greenhouse gases on the theory they don’t harm human health.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has issued one of the most progressive climate justice decisions of our time. Its historic
Advisory Opinion on the climate emergency and human rights, released on July 3, 2025, was unequivocal: States have legal obligations under international human rights law to reduce, prevent, and address climate damage, including reining in big polluters.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) stands on the precipice of a profound environmental and social crisis, as the government prepares to auction 55 new oil blocks that cover more than half the country’s landmass.
The UN80 Initiative, unveiled in March by Secretary-General António Guterres, is a system-wide effort to reaffirm the UN’s relevance for a rapidly changing world.
Plastic pollution has emerged as one of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time. Since the mid-20th century, over 8 billion metric tons of plastic have been produced globally (UNEP, 2021). Shockingly, more than 90% of this plastic waste has not been recycled. Instead, it has been incinerated, buried in landfills, or leaked into the environment where it can persist for hundreds of years, fragmenting into microplastics.
In the past year, Asia and the Pacific has faced intensifying climate pressures, from extreme heat in Bangladesh and India to devastating floods in northern Thailand and rising food insecurity across the Pacific.
The case was “unlike any that have previously come before the court,” President of the International Court of Justice Judge Yuji Iwasawa said while reading the court's unanimous advisory opinion outlining the legal obligations of United Nations member states with regard to climate change.
In June 2025, Kenyan climate-tech firm Tera became the first African project developer to have its carbon removal initiative independently validated and registered under Riverse, a European standard for engineered climate solutions.
Nearly ten years after the
Paris Agreement — a legally binding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — the
gap between climate goals and government actions remains stubborn.
Thailand’s transport sector is a significant contributor to national greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 18.4 per cent of the
country’s total emissions. Bangkok is at the centre of this challenge. With more registered vehicles than residents, the resulting traffic congestion worsens air pollution and strains the city’s roads and overall mobility infrastructure.
The United Nations’ HOMO SARGASSUM exhibition served as a public immersion into the marine world and called upon viewers to take action in the face of the climate crisis, specifically regarding invasive species and water pollution.
When the Cali Fund was unveiled in February on the sidelines of COP16.2 in Rome, the announcement sent ripples through the global conservation community. For the first time ever, companies that profit from digital sequence information (DSI)—the digitized genetic material of plants, animals, and microorganisms—will be expected to pay into a multilateral fund to protect the very biodiversity they benefit from.
“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Winston Churchill’s famous maxim feels very relevant today, when multilateralism and many environmental causes seem to be in retreat. We now face a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
CIVICUS speaks to Cristinel Buzatu, regional legal advisor for Central and Eastern Europe at Greenpeace, about how Romania’s state gas company is weaponising the courts to silence environmental opposition.
The World Bank’s private sector arm has raised the bar — and others may follow. On April 15, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) became the first development finance institution to adopt a formal remedy policy, publishing its
Remedial Action Framework (RAF) to address environmental and social harm caused by IFC-supported investment projects.