Climate Change

Indigenous Voices and Food Systems Lead the Way at COP28

By Robert Kibet
In a groundbreaking development, indigenous farmer communities are poised to bring the spotlight onto food systems at the upcoming UN Climate Conference (COP28) in Dubai.

Improving Livestock Health Is a Net Positive Move Towards Net Zero

By Carel du Marchie Sarvaas
The recent downturn in sales of alternative meat products is only the latest evidence that the world is unlikely to give up animal protein completely in the long run.

COP28: Climate Summit in Closed Civic Space

By Andrew Firmin
The need to act on the climate crisis has never been clearer. In 2023, heat records have been shattered around the world. Seemingly every day brings news of extreme weather, imperilling lives. In July, UN Secretary-General António Guterres grimly announced that ‘the era of global boiling has arrived’.

Good for Girls and Good for the Planet: Eco-Friendly Sanitary Towels

By Wilson Odhiambo
’Going Green’ seems to Dr Jacquline Kisato's favorite catchphrase as she passionately explains her eco-friendly sanitary towel, a product she expects will help empower women and young girls while also putting money into farmers’ pockets.

Smallholder Farmers Gain Least from International Climate Funding

By Maina Waruru
Smallholder farmers from the Global South benefit from a grossly disproportionate 0.3% of international climate finance despite producing a third of the world's food and despite holding the key to climate-proofing food systems.

Time to Convert Climate Change Rhetoric into Action, Says WFP’s Gernot Laganda

By Stella Paul
It is crucial to narrow the gaps and ensure that climate finance goes to where people are most vulnerable, says Gernot Laganda, Director of Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)—especially as the most fragile states only receive USD 2.1 per capita while non-fragile states receive USD 161.

Carbon Market Greenwashing Systems Deepen Inequalities in Global South – Experts

By Joyce Chimbi
Somalia, Syria, DRC Congo, Afghanistan, Yemen, Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Ethiopia are the 10 countries at greatest risk of climate disaster globally despite collectively contributing just 0.28 percent of global CO2 emissions. A climate-induced humanitarian crisis continues to unfold across these countries and many others in the global South, including Kenya, which declared drought a national disaster in September 2021.

Recognizing Food & Land-Use Systems as Contributors to Climate Change

By Vibha Dhawan
For a long time, the agriculture sector has been heralded as a success story for India. Spurred by the Green Revolution, it provided a path-breaking solution to feed the country's burgeoning population starting in the 1960s.

Fast-Track Climate Resilience Building of Small and Vulnerable Nations Ahead of COP28

By Joyce Chimbi
As the countdown to COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, continues, IPS caught up with Dr Oldman Koboto, Mauritius-based Manager for the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH).

PPPs Fiscal Hoax Is a Blank Financial Silver Bullet

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure and service provision are both costly and risky. Worse, PPPs typically fail to ensure universal, let alone fair access to public amenities.

The Relentless Struggles of India’s Seawall Mammas

By Manipadma Jena
The sun is high in the noon sky—humidity unrelenting at 95 percent in this Indian sea-coast village. The monsoon has been deficient; rice paddies are yellowing on the edges from the salty surf misting in on them. Waves now break barely 200 metres from the farms and homes.

Kashmir’s Apple Industry Faces Dire Threats as Climate Change Takes its Toll

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Of Kashmir’s seven million inhabitants, a staggering one million rely directly on apple farming. The region is pivotal in India’s apple and horticulture production, contributing to over 70 percent of the country’s apple supply. This not only provides income to farmers but also sustains a vast network of laborers, traders, and transporters within the fruit economy.

Even Rich Nations Now Worried About ISDS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Governments the world over are worried about investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) rules. These allow foreign investors to sue them for billions over new laws or policies reducing their profits.

Women Correct Historical Injustices, Build Climate Resilience Through Cash Pooling

By Joyce Chimbi
Although women account for more than three-quarters of the agricultural labour force and manage 40 percent of small-scale farms, historically, they neither owned nor controlled the land because land rights were passed down to male relatives. It is a historic gender injustice whereby women could only access land through close male relatives.

Back to Nature to Avoid Water Collapse in the Capital of Chile

By Orlando Milesi
A return to nature is the main solution being promoted by communities and municipalities to avoid the water shortage that threatens to leave Santiago, the capital of Chile, home to more than 40 percent of the 19.5 million inhabitants of this South American country, without water.

Human Action Pushing the World Closer to Environmental Tipping Points, UN University Warns

By Alison Kentish
Melting mountain glaciers. Unbearable heat. An uninsurable future. Space debris. Groundwater depletion. Accelerating extinctions. The United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security said this week that these six environmental "tipping points" can have "irreversible, catastrophic impacts for people and the planet."

Uganda: When Climate Justice Becomes Climate Justice Denied

By Wambi Michael
On December 4, 2019, landslides in the Bududa region of Uganda killed 20. The landslides occurred after heavy rains, and a Red Cross report estimated that 96 households were affected, with 49 houses destroyed. It displaced many, while others continued to live in high-risk areas that could "slide at any moment."

Action Delayed, Justice Denied by Voluntary ESG Approach

By Siti Sarah Abdul Razak and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Policy approaches relying solely on voluntary actions to address urgent needs are unlikely to succeed. Depending on optional compliance to address global warming will not fix things in time.

Climate Change Turns African Rivers into Epicentres of Conflict

By Maina Waruru
Almost all major river basins in Africa have become the epicentres for conflicts over the last 20 years, and agricultural yields on the continent could drop by up to 50 percent in the coming years owing to the drying up of 'traditional' water sources, thanks in part to effects climate change and degradation of the environment, the inaugural edition of the State of Africa's Environment Report 2023 released in Nairobi finds.

Brazil: A Step Forward for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

By Inés M. Pousadela
Brazil’s Supreme Court has delivered a long-awaited ruling upholding Brazilian Indigenous peoples’ claims to their traditional land. It did so by rejecting the ‘Temporal Framework’ principle, which only allowed for the demarcation and titling of lands physically occupied by the Indigenous groups who claimed them by 5 October 1988, when the current constitution was adopted. This excluded the numerous Indigenous communities who’d been violently expelled from their ancestral lands before then, including under military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985.

New Zealand: Political Volatility under Cost-of-Living Crisis

By Andrew Firmin
It’s a rapid reversal for New Zealand’s Labour Party, in power for six years. At the last election in 2020 it won an outright majority, the first party to do so under the current voting system. But three years on, it’s finished a distant second in the election held on 14 October. The result speaks to a broader pattern seen amid economic strife in many countries – of intense political volatility and the rejection of incumbents.
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