The Revolution of Renewable Energy Needs Political Leadership

The cost of renewable energy is low, and at times, less than fossil fuels. What are the barriers to switching to renewables? Where current energy systems exist, they will need to be upgraded to be able to draw power from modern renewables and to exploit storage solutions that they require.

Looking Beyond Fossil Fuels To Reduce Emissions

In midst of the 24th United Nations climate change conference (COP24), many are trying to double down in the search for practical, actionable solutions to the climate crisis: land itself.

Central America: Eradicating Gender Violence is Vital to State Security

María is a 35-year old Salvadoran woman with three young children. Growing up, María knew her mother but never met her father. When María was six, she started working at the Central Market of San Salvador and at the age of 12 she was raped and became pregnant for the first time.

Thermal Houses Keep People Warm in Peru’s Highlands

Thirty families from a rural community more than 4,300 meters above sea level will have warm houses that will protect them from the freezing temperatures that each year cause deaths and diseases among children and older adults in this region of the southeastern Peruvian Andes.

Conserving Canada’s Diverse Marine Life

Despite the deep, cold waters, newly discovered undersea mountains off Canada’s west coast are home to a rich diversity of life.

Watering the Paris Agreement at COP24

Most people will experience climate change in the form of water – higher frequency and intensity of floods and droughts, an increase in waterborne diseases, and overloaded sewage systems that are unable to cope with new demands.

Q&A: Creating an African Bamboo Industry as Large as China’s

The bamboo industry in China currently comprises up to 10 million people who make a living out of production of the grass. But while the Asian nation has significant resources of bamboo — three million hectares of plantation and three million hectares of natural forests — the continent of Africa is recorded to have an estimated three and a half million hectares of plantations, excluding conservation areas.

Will Member States Help Offset US Funding Cuts to UN?

The speculation that the Trump administration plans to reduce its mandatory assessed financial contributions to the UN’s regular budget was implicitly confirmed when the US president told delegates last September that Washington “is working to shift more of our funding, from assessed contributions to voluntary contributions, so that we can target American resources to the programs with the best record of success.”

Why Bother about World War I

Why do we still need to be concerned about a war that ended a hundred years ago? Sure, it caused the death of at least 37 million people, but why bother about that now? Anyhow France´s president Emmanuel Macron believed it was worthwhile to commemorate the end of World War I and seventy world leaders were invited to attend the centennial ceremony by Paris´s Arc de Triomphe.

Call for a Win-Win Framework at COP24

An African delegation is in the Polish city of Katowice to join 30,000 delegates and thousands others from almost 200 countries attending the 4th edition of what has come to be known as annual climate change negotiation conferences organised under the auspices of the United Nations.

‘Antimicrobial Resistance Knows No Boundaries’

European Union officials and global health bodies have called for help for poorer countries as growing resistance to antibiotics threatens to become a ‘global health tragedy’ and jeopardises Sustainable Development Goals in some parts of the world.

African Countries Deserve an Enhanced Climate Ambition

African countries have been at the climate-change negotiating table for more than 20 years. The continent faces some of the most severe impacts of climate change, but questions remain over its adaptive capacity despite this engagement.

Havana Charter’s Progressive Trade Vision Subverted

In criticizing the ‘free trade delusion’, UNCTAD’s 2018 Trade and Development Report proposes an alternative to both reactionary nationalism, recently revived by President Trump, and the corporate cosmopolitanism of neoliberal multilateral discourse in recent decades by revisiting the Havana Charter on its 70th anniversary.

Climate Action Should be a Global Priority for World Leaders

The IPCC report says that it is not impossible to limit climate change to 1.5͒C? Do you think we can realistically achieve that? Politically, what needs to happen? History shows that when the human race decides to pursue a challenging goal, we can achieve great things. From ridding the world of smallpox to prohibiting slavery and other ancient abuses through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we have proven that by joining together we can create a better world.

Get Ready for COP24: Transition to a Sustainable Future

COP24 is the time for governments to act and increase their pledges to prevent global warming ensuring a just transition that leaves no one behind.

Limiting Climate Change to 1.5 C is not Impossible, Says IPCC Chair

When governments set a target in December 2015 of limiting global warming to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to hold it at 1.5ºC, they invited the IPCC to prepare a report to provide information on this Goal.

Blue Fashion Steals the Show at Nairobi Conference

The fashion industry is the second largest polluting industry in the world. Pesticides and insecticides used on crops grown for fabrics together with the chemicals used in the production of fabrics cause enormous damage to the environment.

Fish Farming Takes on Crime in Papua New Guinea

In the rugged mountainous highlands of Papua New Guinea in the southwest Pacific Islands fish farming has transformed the lives of former prisoners and helped reduce notorious levels of crime along the highlands highway, the only main road which links the highly populated inland provinces with the east coast port of Lae.

Q&A: How Political Will can Accelerate Green Growth in Africa

While the African Green Growth Forum 2018 was taking place for the first time ever in Kigali, Rwanda last week, IPS sat down with Okechukwu Daniel Ogbonnaya, the Acting Country Representative and Lead Advisor for the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) to talk about the new forum, working with Rwanda and green growth integration in Africa. GGGI organised the forum with the Government of Rwanda.

Rwanda to Build Ecotourism Park in Kigali

Rwanda’s capital city Kigali will be home to a 134 hectare urban park in the city’s biggest valley in 2020. The Nyandungu Urban Wetland Eco-Tourism Park will conserve wetlands and habitat for wildlife while providing walking and cycling trails, fish ponds and botanical gardens for residents and tourists.

The Bond that is Educating Girls Across India

Barely five months into the start of Sneha's year at a government school in Bhilwara, a town in India's desert state of Rajasthan, the bubbly 15-year-old was pulled out by her parents. They wanted her to stay at home instead, to look after her four younger siblings and to cook and clean for the family as her parents worked on their farm.