Environment

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.

UNDP Assistance Helps Farmers to Meet New EU Deforestation Rules

 
 
The UNDP has assisted cocoa farmers from the Peruvian Amazon to ensure the commodities meet European Parliament regulations. The regulation prohibits the placing of products on the market if their production has led to deforestation.

Now Europeans Learn What Climate Extremes Are All About

By Baher Kamal
Apologies to those Western politicians and media who continue to say that Ukraine's brutal proxy war stands behind whatever catastrophes, disasters or crises occur in the Planet.

Local Innovations Key to Meeting Challenges of the Climate Crisis

By Srilata Kammila
Several years ago, on a visit to a village in rural Zimbabwe, I met a small group of women with a story to share. Having participated in a UNDP-supported adaptation project – including drought-resistant seeds and education in climate-smart agricultural practices – the women had significantly increased the productiveness of their home gardens.

What Local Food Challenges and Choices Across Vietnam Reveal About a Global Push for Food Systems Transformation

By Tuyen Huynh
Last month, Nature spotlighted three insightful new studies chronicling food-related challenges from a global perspective. One presented worrisome new data on the global rise in the prevalence of diabetes, high blood pressure and liver disease, all linked to obesity. Another presented a new assessment revealing that half of the greenhouse emissions generated by food systems globally are caused by food waste. Finally, the third study found that food consumption could add “nearly 1 degree Celsius to warming by 2100,” with most of that attributed to global methane emissions from meat, dairy and rice production.

ChatGPT & Artificial Intelligence: What this Means for Small Business

By Martin Labbé
As 2022 came to a close, ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, became the fastest-growing app in history, reaching an estimated 123 million users less than three months after its launch.

Biogas and Biomethane Will Fuel Development in Cuban Municipality

By Luis Brizuela
The first five biomethane-fuelled buses in the Cuban municipality of Martí will not only be a milestone in the country but will also represent a solution to the serious problem of transportation, while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and bolstering local development.

Chile’s Water Vulnerability Requires Watershed and Water Management

By Orlando Milesi
Good management of the 101 hydrographic basins which run from the Andes mountain range to the Pacific Ocean is key to solving the severe water crisis that threatens the people of Chile and their main productive activities.

From Recovery to Resilience: Volcanic Eruption in Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Two Years on

By Didier Trebucq
On the morning of 9th of April 2021, the La Soufrière Volcano on the main island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines erupted -filling the sky with ash and transforming the lives, livelihoods and landscape of this small Southern Caribbean nation.

Pacific Island Countries To Develop Advanced Warning System for Tuna Migration

By Neena Bhandari
Climate change and warming ocean waters are causing tuna fisheries to migrate to international waters, away from a country’s jurisdiction, thereby putting the food and economic security of many Pacific Island countries and territories at risk.
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