Restoring Indigenous Trees: New Mission to Combat Climate Change in Rwanda

With the ongoing national tree-planting campaign, Rwanda seeks to replace its degraded forest resulting from charcoal production and firewood and increase the need for construction materials with new indigenous trees to combat climate change. By using the power of carbon markets to fight climate change, Rwanda aims to reduce 4.6 million metric tons of carbon emissions across different key sectors, including forest, through its ambitious climate action agenda that features a 38 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to business-as-usual by 2030.

Rich Distort Climate Problems, Offer Self-Serving Solutions

Many in the wealthy West have misrepresented the causes of global warming, offering false solutions while claiming the high moral ground. This distracts attention from how they became wealthy while emitting greenhouse gases.

Oceans: Our First Line of Defense Against the Impacts of Climate Change

Just a few weeks ago, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres opened the Climate Ambition Summit with a warning that by failing to act on the climate crisis, he said “humanity has opened the gates of hell.” Could not say it more strongly. And he also said, as you may recall, we’re moving “toward a dangerous and unstable world.”

Latin America Heads to COP28 with Insufficiently Ambitious Goals

Throughout 2023, Latin America has suffered heat waves, long, intense droughts, destructive floods and devastating hurricanes - phenomena related to the effects of a climate crisis derived mostly from the burning of fossil fuels.

Dear World Leaders, Are You Listening Now?

Another year and another UN climate change conference. As our ‘world leaders’ prepare for two air-conditioned weeks of wrangling at COP28 in Dubai later this month, forgive us for sounding underwhelmed, despairing, and even cynical about these annual jamborees where actions rarely match promises.

U.S.-China Climate Agreement: A Leap Forward in Global Climate Cooperation

The recent U.S.-China summit on November 15 in San Francisco, against a backdrop of low expectations, surprisingly made significant strides with the unveiling of the “Sunnylands Statement on Enhancing Cooperation to Address the Climate Crisis.” This agreement, the result of two years of negotiations between climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, represents a considerable advancement following the 2021 joint declaration at the Glasgow Climate Summit.

Africa Will Not Cope with Climate Change Without a Just, Inclusive Energy Transition

A just transition should be viewed as an opportunity to rectify some of the wrongs where women are not prioritised in the energy mix, yet their experience of the impact of climate change is massive, says Thandile Chinyavanhu, a young South African-based climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Africa.

COP28: Strengthen Climate Resilience in Small and Vulnerable Countries

With a focus on strengthening the resilience of small and vulnerable member countries, Unnikrishnan Nair says the Commonwealth Secretariat is working to align development and climate finance for maximum impact.

Improving Livestock Health Is a Net Positive Move Towards Net Zero

The recent downturn in sales of alternative meat products is only the latest evidence that the world is unlikely to give up animal protein completely in the long run.

Australia: Reconciliation Back to Square One?

Australia had the chance to take a step forward in redressing the exclusion of its Indigenous people – and chose not to. In a referendum held in October, voters rejected a constitutional amendment to establish an institution for Indigenous people to have a say on matters that concern them.

COP28: Climate Summit in Closed Civic Space

The need to act on the climate crisis has never been clearer. In 2023, heat records have been shattered around the world. Seemingly every day brings news of extreme weather, imperilling lives. In July, UN Secretary-General António Guterres grimly announced that ‘the era of global boiling has arrived’.

Smallholder Farmers Gain Least from International Climate Funding

Smallholder farmers from the Global South benefit from a grossly disproportionate 0.3% of international climate finance despite producing a third of the world's food and despite holding the key to climate-proofing food systems.

Time to Convert Climate Change Rhetoric into Action, Says WFP’s Gernot Laganda

It is crucial to narrow the gaps and ensure that climate finance goes to where people are most vulnerable, says Gernot Laganda, Director of Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)—especially as the most fragile states only receive USD 2.1 per capita while non-fragile states receive USD 161.

Carbon Market Greenwashing Systems Deepen Inequalities in Global South – Experts

Somalia, Syria, DRC Congo, Afghanistan, Yemen, Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Ethiopia are the 10 countries at greatest risk of climate disaster globally despite collectively contributing just 0.28 percent of global CO2 emissions. A climate-induced humanitarian crisis continues to unfold across these countries and many others in the global South, including Kenya, which declared drought a national disaster in September 2021.

Fast-Track Climate Resilience Building of Small and Vulnerable Nations Ahead of COP28

As the countdown to COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, continues, IPS caught up with Dr Oldman Koboto, Mauritius-based Manager for the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH).

The Relentless Struggles of India’s Seawall Mammas

The sun is high in the noon sky—humidity unrelenting at 95 percent in this Indian sea-coast village. The monsoon has been deficient; rice paddies are yellowing on the edges from the salty surf misting in on them. Waves now break barely 200 metres from the farms and homes.

Communities Taking a Sting Out of Poaching With Alternative Livelihoods

As we approach the forest in the village to appreciate Andrew Mbewe’s beekeeping enterprise, a bee from a hive close to the edge of the natural woodland stings him on the cheek.

Women Correct Historical Injustices, Build Climate Resilience Through Cash Pooling

Although women account for more than three-quarters of the agricultural labour force and manage 40 percent of small-scale farms, historically, they neither owned nor controlled the land because land rights were passed down to male relatives. It is a historic gender injustice whereby women could only access land through close male relatives.

Back to Nature to Avoid Water Collapse in the Capital of Chile

A return to nature is the main solution being promoted by communities and municipalities to avoid the water shortage that threatens to leave Santiago, the capital of Chile, home to more than 40 percent of the 19.5 million inhabitants of this South American country, without water.

Human Action Pushing the World Closer to Environmental Tipping Points, UN University Warns

Melting mountain glaciers. Unbearable heat. An uninsurable future. Space debris. Groundwater depletion. Accelerating extinctions. The United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security said this week that these six environmental "tipping points" can have "irreversible, catastrophic impacts for people and the planet."

Uganda: When Climate Justice Becomes Climate Justice Denied

On December 4, 2019, landslides in the Bududa region of Uganda killed 20. The landslides occurred after heavy rains, and a Red Cross report estimated that 96 households were affected, with 49 houses destroyed. It displaced many, while others continued to live in high-risk areas that could "slide at any moment."