Environment

Are Countries Ready for AI? How they can Ensure Ethical & Responsible Adoption

By Yasmine Hamdar, Keyzom Ngodun Massally and Gayan Peiris
From ChatGPT to deepfakes, the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) has recently been making headlines. But beyond the buzz, there are real benefits it holds for advancing development priorities.

Social Media Mobile Phone Data in Disaster Management and the Implications That It Has on Vulnerable Populations

By Hannah Tuckman with the UNC Water Institute and the Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Belmont Forum funded project
This week sees the review of the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. It will bring governments, partners and communities together to reduce disaster risk and losses and to ensure a safer, sustainable future.

Unceasing Human Attacks on the Source of 80% of Food, 98% of Oxygen

By Baher Kamal
Two big facts are impressive enough: plants are the source of 80% of all food, and as much as 98% of all oxygen. Logically, it would be taken for granted that human beings would do whatever is needed to protect this essential source of life. But do they?

Climate Change Threatens Kenya’s Historical Sites in Coastal Region

By Diana Wanyonyi
Along coastal Kenya, historical sites and monuments are threatened due to the impacts of climate change—structures along the Indian Ocean are falling to ruin or collapsing into the ocean because of high tides.

Race to Zero in Asia and Pacific: Our Hopes in the Climate Fight

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
The latest synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes for grim reading: Every fraction of a degree of warming comes with escalated threats, from deadly heatwaves to severe hurricanes and droughts, affecting all economies and communities.

Can African Farmers Still Feed the World?

By Baher Kamal
Less than a decade ago, Africa was home to 60-65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land and 10% of renewable freshwater resources, as reported by the African Union in 2016, while concluding that African farmers could feed the world.

New Mosquito Species Could Derail Fight Against Malaria

By Wilson Odhiambo
‘Urban’ Kenya has been alerted because new mosquito species, Anopheles stephensi, threatens to derail decades of effort made in the fight against malaria.

Reshaping Multilateralism in Times of Crises

By Jens Martens
The world is in permanent crisis mode. In addition to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, the war in Ukraine and other violent conflicts, a worldwide cost of living crisis and an intensified debt crisis in more and more countries of the global South are affecting large parts of humanity.

How the Rise of Timor-Leste’s Aquaculture Sector Is a Blueprint for Other Small Island Nations

By Jharendu Pant
For Timor-Leste, as with most other islands in the Pacific, fortunes are to be found in fish – an equity food available to all regardless of status.

To Confront Our Current Crises, It’s Time to Put Our Money Where Our Mouth Is

By Ayesha Khan, Éliane Ubalijoro and Yuriko Backes
The finance sector’s role in the current global crises – notably climate, biodiversity, and food security – is significant. Polluting activities and environmentally-destructive practices for short-term economic gains have catapulted us to our current untenable situation. We're ‘sawing off the branch we’re sitting on’ by sacrificing life-giving ecosystem services for profit, and that branch is sagging and splitting under our weight.

Tuberculosis Risk Factors Exacerbated by Climate Change

By Ed Holt
While there is no established causal relationship between climate change and tuberculosis (TB), studies have begun to highlight the potential impact its effects could have on the spread of the disease.

Rural Women’s Constant Struggle for Water in Central America

By Edgardo Ayala
“This is a very difficult place to live, because of the lack of water,” said Salvadoran farmer Marlene Carballo, as she cooked corn tortillas for lunch for her family, on a scorching day.

Empowering Women is Key to Breaking the Devastating Cycle of Poverty & Food Insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa

By Danielle Nierenberg and Emily Payne
Studies consistently show that women have lower rates of agricultural productivity compared to men in the region, but it’s not because they’re less efficient farmers.

Biodiversity Rich-Palau Launches Ambitious Marine Spatial Planning Initiative

By Busani Bafana
Growing up in Palau in the western Pacific Ocean, Surangel Whipps Jr. played on the reefs and spearfished on an island teeming with birds, giant clams, fish, and turtles.

Energy Crisis in Cuba Calls for Greater Boost for Renewable Sources

By Luis Brizuela
Long lines of vehicles outside of gas stations reflect the acute shortage of diesel and gasoline in Cuba, which has had negative impacts on an economy that is highly dependent on fuel imports and has only a small proportion of renewable sources in its energy mix.

UNDP Good Growth Partnership: Smallholders Key to Reducing Indonesian Deforestation (Part 2)

By Cecilia Russell
Smallholder farmers are critical to the success of Indonesia’s efforts to address deforestation and climate change. Creating an understanding and supporting this group, internally and abroad, is a crucial objective for those working towards reducing deforestation and promoting good farming practices, especially as smallholders often work hand-to-mouth and are vulnerable to perpetuating unsustainable farming practices.

UNDP Good Growth Partnership: Getting All on Board to Meet Deforestation Targets (Part 1)

By Cecilia Russell
Indonesia finds itself in a delicate balancing act of uplifting people from poverty, managing climate change and biodiversity, and satisfying an increasingly demanding international market for sustainable farming practices—and at the pivot of this complexity is the management of its palm oil sector.

“Defending Human Rights Is a Crime in Some Countries and a Deadly Activity in Others”

By Bibbi Abruzzini and Clarisse Sih, Forus
In today's world, human rights defenders face immense challenges, with threats, attacks, and repression being rampant in many countries. According to the latest report by Front Line Defenders, killings of rights defenders increased in 2022, with a total of 401 deaths across 26 different countries. Despite the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders 25 years ago, the threats faced by defenders persist globally.

UNDP Assistance Helps Farmers to Meet New EU Deforestation Rules

By Alison Kentish
In 2015, just over 30 cocoa farmers from Padre Abad in Ucayali, a province in the lush and ecologically diverse Peruvian Amazon, formed an alliance to tackle long-standing concerns such as soil quality, access to markets, fair prices for their produce and a growing number of illegal plantations. The result was the Colpa de Loros Cooperative, and from the start, the goal was to produce the finest quality, export-ready cocoa.

Mercury Project Puts Great UNEP Treaty at Risk

By Charlie Brown
The Minamata Convention on Mercury, a stellar success story to date, has been favorably compared to the prototype success story for a treaty on toxins: the Montreal Protocol. Both had a single focused mission; both gained universal support across the globe; both matched technological innovation with environmental science to discard old polluting methods.

Traceability and Deforestation


 

 
New European Union regulations mean only “deforestation-free” products can be sold there. Forests cover 31% of the globe’s land surface, with most of the Earth’s biodiversity, and play an essential role in mitigating climate change.
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