Environment

Africa Activists Urge Obama to Act on Extractive Industries Law

By Jim Lobe
As the three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit got underway here Monday, anti-corruption activists urged President Barack Obama to prod a key U.S. agency to issue long-awaited regulations requiring oil, gas, and mining companies to publish all payments they make in countries where they operate.

Will Climate Change Lead to Conflict or Cooperation?

By Joel Jaeger
The headline of every article about the relationship between climate change and conflict should be “It’s complicated,” according to Clionadh Raleigh.

Nicaragua Pins Hopes for Progress on Grand Canal

By José Adán Silva
Víctor Sánchez doesn’t want gold or the comfortable future income he was promised. He just wants to live the life he has always lived on his farm along the Banks of the Las Lajas river – but the river is slated to become part of the route followed by the Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal.

World Bank Board Declines to Revise Controversial Draft Policies

By Jim Lobe
A key committee of the World Bank’s governing board Wednesday spurned appeals to revise a  draft policy statement that, according to nearly 100 civil-society groups, risks rolling back several decades of reforms designed to protect indigenous populations, the poor and sensitive ecosystems.

Under Water: The EPA’s Struggle to Combat Pollution

By Naveena Sadasivam, ProPublica
For years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been frustrated in its efforts to pursue hundreds of cases of water pollution — repeatedly tied up in legal fights about exactly what bodies of water it has the authority to monitor and protect.

Gas and Sun Light the Way for Energy Industry in El Salvador

By Edgardo Ayala
El Salvador is making steady progress towards diversifying its energy sources, with a plan to bolster the use of cleaner sources and achieve a substantial change in its energy mix by 2018.

Antigua Weighs High Cost of Fossil Fuels

By Desmond Brown
Caught between its quest to grow the economy, create jobs and cut electricity costs, and the negative impacts associated with building an oil refinery, the Antigua and Barbuda government is looking to a mix of clean energy and fossil fuels to address its energy needs.

Drought and Misuse Behind Lebanon’s Water Scarcity

By Oriol Andrés Gallart
In front of Osman Bin Affan Mosque, in a central but narrow street of Beirut, several tank trucks are being filled with large amounts of water. The mosque has its own well, which allows it to pump water directly from the aquifers that cross the Lebanese underground. Once filled, the trucks will start going through the city to supply hundreds of homes and shops.

A Carrot Is a Carrot – or Is It?

By Justin Hyatt
Food security is often thought of as a question of diversifying supply and being able to move food through areas plagued by local scarcity, relying on the global economic system – including trade and transport – as the basis for operations.

Fish Before Fields to Improve Egypt’s Food Production

By Cam McGrath
Less than four percent of Egypt’s land mass is suitable for agriculture, and most of it confined to the densely populated Nile River Valley and Delta. With the nation’s population of 85 million expected to double by 2050, government officials are grappling with ways of ensuring food security and raising nutritional standards.

Human Development Report Finds South Asia’s Poor on a Knife’s Edge

By Amantha Perera
Millions still live in poverty and even those who have gained the security of the middle-income bracket could relapse into poverty due to sudden changes to their economic fortunes in South Asia, the latest annual Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) revealed.

OPINION: Tackling Human Vulnerabilities, Changing Investment, Policies and Social Norms

By Khalid Malik
As successive Human Development Reports have shown, most people in most countries are doing better in human development. Globalisation, advances in technology and higher incomes all hold promise for longer, healthier, more secure lives.

Cameroon’s Rising Sea Drowns Tourism

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
Pierre Zambo is a hotel manager in Kribi, a sea resort town in Cameroon’s South Region. In the past his hotel would have “more than 100 tourists each week. But today if I manage to have 50 people registered into my hotel weekly, then it's good business.”

Forest Rights Offer Major Opportunity to Counter Climate Change

By Carey L. Biron
The international community is failing to take advantage of a potent opportunity to counter climate change by strengthening local land tenure rights and laws worldwide, new data suggests.

For Nepal’s Dalits, Struggle Continues Amidst Slow Progress

By Naresh Newar
With over 41 percent of Nepal's three million Dalits living below the poverty line, and over 90 percent classified as 'landless', the country must reassess its progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) vis-a-vis its most vulnerable populations.

Disasters Poised to Sweep Away Development Gains

By Stephen Leahy
Extreme poverty and hunger can be eliminated, but only through far greater efforts to reduce carbon emissions that are overheating the planet and producing punishing droughts, catastrophic floods and ever wilder weather, said climate activists involved in talks to set the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

St. Lucia Builds Resilience to Drought and Flooding

By Desmond Brown
As unpredictable weather patterns impact water availability and quality in St. Lucia, the Caribbean island is moving to build resilience to climate-related stresses in its water sector.

Creating a Slum Within a Slum

By Adam Bemma
At the eastern edge of Nairobi's Kibera slum, children gather with large yellow jerry cans to collect water dripping out of an exposed pipe. The high-rise grey and beige Soweto East settlement towers above them. A girl lifts the can on top of her head and returns to her family's third floor apartment.

U.S. Debating “Historic” Support for Off-Grid Electricity in Africa

By Carey L. Biron
Pressure is building here for lawmakers to pass a bill that would funnel billions of dollars of U.S. investment into strengthening Africa’s electricity production and distribution capabilities, and could offer broad new support for off-grid opportunities.

U.S. Ranks Near Bottom Globally in Energy Efficiency

By Julia Hotz
A new ranking has lauded Germany for its energy efficiency, while condemning the United States for lagging near the bottom.

Do Not GM My Food!

By Julio Godoy
Attempts to genetically modify food staples, such as crops and cattle, to increase their nutritional value and overall performance have prompted world-wide criticism by environmental, nutritionists and agriculture experts, who say that protecting and fomenting biodiversity is a far better solution to hunger and malnutrition.
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