The World Is Watching Norway. Will the Country Protect Antarctica?

A global boycott of Antarctic krill products is gathering support. As a Norwegian, I want my country – the world’s largest krill-fishing nation – to change course when it comes to protecting Antarctica.

Fifty Years at the Table: What Small Nations Need from the Next UN Secretary-General

On 21 September 1976, less than three months after independence, Seychelles took its seat in the General Assembly of the United Nations. We became the 145th member of the Organisation. For a young nation of scattered islands in the Indian Ocean, with a small population and no army to speak of, it was far more than a ceremony. It was a promise that, in the family of nations, size would not decide whose voice was heard.

Wanted: A Feminist UN Secretary-General for ‘We the Peoples’, Not the Powerful

Notwithstanding last minute shenanigans and the possibility of backroom deals by powerful states, two women from Latin America are leading contenders in the race for the UN’s next Secretary-General. After 80-plus years of men-only leadership, momentum is building to break the glass ceiling at the global institution dedicated to saving future generations from the scourge of war.

International Day of Climate Action 2026

 
The world is getting hotter. And the consequences are already being felt. From devastating floods and prolonged droughts to intensifying heatwaves, climate change is disrupting lives and livelihoods across the globe.

From Small Islands to Antalya: COP31 Must Move Climate Promises from Paper to People

When you grow up on a small island, the ocean is not scenery. It is your neighbour, your livelihood, and the measure of time itself. For decades, as I walked the beaches of Seychelles, I watched the subtle shifts that scientists were warning the world about. The tide crept a little higher up the sand each year. After a warm season, vibrant coral gardens turned ghost-white. Storms that once belonged to rare memory began arriving with unsettling regularity.

As El Niño Returns, East Africa’s Urban Poor Brace for Heavy Rains

Nearly three decades have passed, but Japhet Gimbi still remembers the rain. He was a Form 2 student in Tabora, western Tanzania, when the 1997 El Niño flooded the town. As the rain kept falling, fewer students made it to school. That was a super El Niño, one of the strongest on record. Since then there have been five other events including the 2014-2016 "super El Niño".

Afro-Brazilian Religious Communities Face Mounting Discrimination Amid the Climate Crisis

In 2024, as floodwaters approached Lutalo Canti’s home in Porto Alegre, Brazil, he lifted some furniture off the floor and left in a hurry. Extreme rainfall in the country’s southern region had caused local rivers to overflow. The flooding would eventually reach more than 400 municipalities and impact over 2 million people.

Finding Silver Linings Amid Haze of Climatic Uncertainty

With the city enveloped in a cloak of haze, the urgency of tackling the climate crisis could hardly have been clearer as the four-day Global Tipping Points Conference 2026 drew to a close at Malaysia’s Sunway University on Thursday.

Crisis and Opportunity at the UN

At this year’s highest-profile UN event, Donald Trump publicly mused over his ‘big decision’ about whether to ‘annihilate’ Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as dozens of delegates walked out, branded those who condemn genocide in Gaza ‘moral cowards’.

World Lost More Than 7 Million Hectares of Forest in 2025

The world lost more than 7 million hectares of forest to deforestation in 2025, a modest improvement on recent years but still far from what is needed to meet global forest protection targets by 2030, according to a new assessment of international conservation efforts.

Kazakhstan Has Spent 23 Years Bringing Faiths Together. Now Comes the Harder Part.

In a world increasingly divided by war, political distrust and competing ideologies, Kazakhstan has spent more than two decades pursuing an unusual diplomatic undertaking: keeping representatives of different religions in conversation.

Tanzania’s Biggest City Bets on Elevated Bridge to Dodge Chronic Flooding

Each morning on her way to Kariakoo, Clementina Nyangwine looks out of her commuter bus as it crawls through Jangwani and watches giant foundation piles rising above the muddy Msimbazi valley.

Protection That Holds: Keeping Nature Safe From Extraction

When governments gather in Yerevan this month for the 17th UN Convention on Biological Diversity, they will weigh a promise nearly 200 countries adopted six years ago: to effectively conserve at least 30 percent of land, inland waters, and sea by 2030. Achieving the ambitious 30x30 target is essential to sustaining the systems humanity relies on for survival—including crop pollination, purification of water and air, and climate regulation—as well as the biodiversity that underpins food production, fisheries, and tourism.

The Late Arrivals

One night, many years ago now, on a remote beach in the outer islands of Seychelles, I sat in the darkness and watched a green turtle come ashore. She had waited for the heat of the day to leave the sand. Under a sky crowded with stars, she hauled herself slowly above the tideline, dug with a patience no human hand could match, and laid her eggs. Then, in the small hours, she turned back toward the water. She did not hurry. She paused once, as though listening, and then made her slow, unhesitating way down the sand, back to a home older than any I could imagine.

If We Can Start an Epoch, We Can Start a Farming Revolution

In November 1952, the United States detonated the world's first thermonuclear device at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The test, code-named Ivy Mike, erased the island of Elugelab and scattered a signature of plutonium across the planet that remains in lake beds, ice sheets and ocean sediments today.

How to Protect Coastal Communities From Tide-Related Loss and Damage in Bangladesh

Villagers rush to the vulnerable spot of the embankment—early warning of the rising tide has alerted them. Together, they save the village from tidal flooding by repairing the vulnerable embankment, which is at risk from the impact of low pressure in July this year. The message is clear: early warnings of the rising tide save lives and property.

“The Price of a Narrow Metric: Why Vulnerability Must Count”

From a distance, an island nation can appear to possess everything: pristine waters, a thriving tourism industry and a strong cultural identity. Its income figures may suggest prosperity.

What Faith Can Teach Agriculture

Years ago, standing in a small farmer's field in Haiti, I began to suspect that we had agriculture backward. The development world saw a man in need of rescue. I saw a farmer who might help rescue the rest of us.

Overshoot of Paris Agreement and the Looming Super El Niño Drive Urgent Calls for Global Climate Action at UNGA 81

The United Nations 2026 Climate Summit addressed critical strategies to mitigate the compounding impacts of the climate crisis and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

BRAZIL: ‘Resistance Is Intergenerational, and Art Is How Energy Gets Renewed’

 
CIVICUS discusses the role of art in climate and rights struggles in the Brazilian Amazon with Tom Wheeler, executive director and co-founder of Treesistance. Treesistance is a platform operated by the Netherlands-based Sinchi Foundation that partners with Indigenous communities across four Brazilian states on cultural preservation and forest protection.