Environment

Early Coal Retirement: How about a Global Auction

By Philippe Benoit and Chandra Shekhar Sinha
Report after report highlights that we can only achieve the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions required by the climate goals of the Paris Agreement if much of the existing coal power generation capacity is retired early.  To this end, one concept that deserves greater consideration is conducting an auction for early retirement of coal power plants worldwide: a global coal retirement auction. This article sets out the broad outlines of how this global auction might operate.

Tackling Recurring Hunger Crises at the Horn of Africa – Beginning with Somalia

By Esther Ngumbi
The statistics are stark. The crisis is unprecedented. Yet again, according to the United Nations, famine looms in Somalia, with hundreds of thousands already facing starvation. In addition, droughts, and catastrophic hunger levels have left over 500,000 children malnourished and at risk of dying. This is already nearly 200,000 more than the 2011 famine. Urgent immediate actions must be taken now, both to address the crisis in the short-term and long-term.

Mexican Environmental Prosecutor’s Office Dodges Charges against Mayan Train

By Emilio Godoy
A beige line slashes its way through the Mayan jungle near the municipality of Izamal in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. It is section 3, 172 kilometers long, of the Mayan Train (TM), the most important megaproject of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's administration.

Land Ownership Model Is Restoring Biodiversity, Empowering Communities in Kenya

By Geoffrey Kamadi
When Mara Siana Conservancy came into operation in 2016, there was a single zebra and a topi (antelope) in the valley just outside the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. The valley was also host to fewer than 150 elephants and 200 buffalos.

COP27 Climate Summit is an Opportunity to Promote Peace

By Stefan Löfven and Christoph Heusgen
Peace is precious. The past few months have offered daily reminders of this simple fact. War in Ukraine. Russian and North Korean nuclear threats. Growing tensions over Taiwan. Huge population displacements. Energy crisis. Economic turmoil. Rising global hunger and inequality.

Farm-Kids-Turned-Scientists Give Back on the Climate-Crisis Front Line

By Paul Virgo
Dr Alice Karanja knows from personal experience the tough choices the climate crisis is putting people before in the Global South. Choices such as whether to have a healthy diet or give your children an education. Choices such as whether to go hungry or allow your children to have any schooling at all.

A Tale of Cities

By Haoliang Xu
For decades, urban practitioners have failed to consider the needs of women in city decision-making and planning. Imagine being a young girl in a bustling metropolis.

Artisanal Miners Ruining Already Diminishing Forests in Zimbabwe

By Jeffrey Moyo
With homemade tents scattered about, hordes of artisanal gold miners throng parts of Mazowe village in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland Central Province, where they have cut down thousands of trees to process gold ore.

Will The Lettuce Outlast All This?

By Baher Kamal
No. No lettuce, no matter how British it may be, could outlast such a steady depletion of the very foundation of life.

COP27 President Envoy on Youth: With Hurricanes, Floods, Heatwaves, Climate Change Cannot Be Ignored

By Hisham Allam
COP 27’s official Youth Envoy, Dr Omnia El Omrani, realised the impact of climate change in 2017, and Hurricane Irma slammed Miami. As a doctor, she witnessed the influx of emergency patients into the hospital as a result of the hurricane, which piqued her interest in environmental and climate issues. She described it as a significant milestone in her life.

How China Can Retire Coal Early in Pakistan and Elsewhere Through the BRI

By Philippe Benoit
With COP 27 approaching, pressure is mounting on wealthy countries to increase their support to poorer ones in the face of climate change. The recent floods in Pakistan have amplified this issue.  China, as the world’s second largest economy, will similarly face increasing pressure to help other developing countries on climate. 

Broken Relationship with Nature Exposed as Global Wildlife Population Plummets

By Joyce Chimbi
Home to a variety of iconic and rare animal and plant species, freshwater lakes, rivers, waterfalls, and the expansive Indian Ocean coastline, Kenya’s place as a biodiversity hotspot has never been in doubt.

Climate Change Brings New Pest & Disease Pressures Previously Unimaginable

By Alexander Müller, Adam Prakash and Elena Lazutkaite
In temperate zones lie most of the world’s richest countries, which have also been up till now the world’s major breadbaskets, in meeting international grain, oilseed and livestock product needs.

Indian Village Unlocks Treasure of Organic, Indigenous Farming

By Umar Manzoor Shah
At Jhargram, a far-flung village in India’s West Bengal state, a group of farmers sit together in one of the open fields. They debate, deliberate, and confabulate about the marketing strategy they should use when selling their harvest on the open market.

Tracking Social Media to Uncover Ivory Trafficking in Rwanda

By Aimable Twahirwa
Every morning, Valerie Mukamazimpaka, a businesswoman selling various food products from Rubavu, a district in Northwestern Rwanda, wakes up early morning to cross “Petite Barrière,” one of the busiest border crossings with the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Public Development Banks Can’t Drag Their Feet When It Comes to Building a Sustainable Future

By Bibbi Abruzzini
A coalition of civil society organisations is demanding public development banks (PDBs) to take radical and innovative steps to tackle human rights violations and environmental destruction. No project funded by PDBs should come at the expenses of vulnerable groups, the environment and collective liberties, but should instead embody the voices of communities, democratic values and environmental justice.

Developing Countries Battle Climate Change, While the Wealthy Make Frozen Pledges: Will COP27 Usher a New Era?

By Hisham Allam
The countdown to the UN Climate Summit COP27, which will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from November 6 to November 18, has begun. This summit has drawn the attention of world leaders, high-ranking United Nations officials, and thousands of environmental activists worldwide.

Accelerating Post-Pandemic SDG 6 Achievements on Water & Sanitation

By Guillaume Baggio and Manzoor Qadir
Global progress has been staggeringly inadequate against Sustainable Development Goal 6, “clean water and sanitation for all.” According to the latest SDGs progress assessment, 2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water, 3.6 billion lack sanitation services, and 3 billion lack basic hygiene services.

Solar Energy, the Solution for Remote Communities in Argentina

By Daniel Gutman
When asked about the impact of incorporating solar energy at the school he runs in Atraico, a remote rural area in the Patagonian steppe in southern Argentina, Claudio Amaya Gatica is unequivocal: "Life has changed, not only for the school but for the whole community.”

Are Climate Summits a Waste of Time?

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
Next month, the latest annual United Nations climate extravaganza, COP27, will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Last year it was in Glasgow. Next year it will be held in (drum roll please) … Dubai!

Gabon’s Environment Minister Reflects on Conservation Successes, Future Challenges

By Francis Kokutse
Over the past few years, Gabon has been successful in its forest conservation efforts. The country has also been able to work hard to achieve the goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to the 1.5-degree target. Minister of Water, Forests, the Sea, and Environment, Lee White, talks to IPS Correspondent Francis Kokutse:
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