Climate Change

Civil Society’s Reform Vision Gains Urgency as the USA Abandons UN Institutions

By Andrew Firmin
Today’s multiple and connected crises – including conflicts, climate breakdown and democratic regression – are overwhelming the capabilities of the international institutions designed to address problems states can’t or won’t solve. Now US withdrawal from global bodies threatens to worsen a crisis in international cooperation.

Global Climate Action Progressing, but Speed and Scale Still Lacking

By Alison Kentish
2025 marks the tenth anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement. One of its chief architects, Christiana Figueres, says the world is heading in the right direction but warns that urgent action is needed to close critical gaps. The pact, adopted in 2015 by 195 nations, set out to limit global warming to "well below 2°C" above pre-industrial levels, striving for 1.5°C. But in 2024, the world shattered records as the hottest year ever, surpassing that crucial threshold.

Water and Food Security in Europe and Central Asia: A Shared Challenge for a Sustainable and Just Future

By Viorel Gutu
Degrading soil, air pollution, vanishing biodiversity, emerging plant and animal health issues and more are coming together in the current situation of multiple crisis. Ensuring water security is just one, among the many challenges individuals, countries, and the world faces. Yet, we shouldn’t forget that water makes up the largest percentage of our bodies and the same applies to animals, plants and the planet’s surface. The threat of water insecurity is, as we all see, not a petty problem, but one of the greatest challenges of our century.

Latin America & the Caribbean in 2024: Renewable Energy and Early Warning Systems Offer Hope Amid Climate Extremes

By Alison Kentish
Hope in the face of climate extremes. That is the overarching message about the State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024.

The Giant Plastic Tap: How art fights plastic pollution

By Diwash Gahatraj
"The size of the faucet highlights the magnitude of the problem. It makes the problem impossible to ignore. We're used to throwing things 'away'—but when we're confronted with what happens when 'away' is not an option, I think it creates an emotional wake-up call," says Benjamin Von Wong.

UNICEF Report Warns of Rising Rates of Child Mortality without Proper Funding

By Oritro Karim
Despite levels of child mortality and stillbirths having significantly decreased since 2000, increasingly unequal and limited access to basic services around the world endangers millions of children around the world, a new report finds.

Building Resilience in Least Developed Countries – A Pathway to Sustainable Transformation

By Rabab Fatima
As the world grapples with overlapping crises—climate change, economic instability, and food insecurity—the 44 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) face existential threats that demand urgent, collective action.

Strengthening Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities’ Knowledge and Access Opens up Opportunities for Climate, Biodiversity and Desertification Action

By Michael Stanley-Jones
The central role Indigenous Peoples and local communities in addressing climate change, biodiversity loss and desertification has gained widespread recognition over the past decade. Indigenous Peoples’ close dependence on resources and ecosystems, exceptional tradition, and ancestral knowledge are invaluable assets for the sustainable management of our planet’s natural resources.

The Ocean Creeps In: Tanzanian Coastal Communities Fight a Losing Battle

By Kizito Makoye
The first time Jumanne Waziri tasted salt in his morning tea, he thought his wife had made a mistake. “Why did you put salt instead of sugar?” he asked, setting his cup down in their home in Ununio, a quiet suburb north of Dar es Salaam.

A Test of Humanity: Migrants’ Rights in a World Turning Inward

By Inés M. Pousadela
The United Nations Refugee Agency faces devastating cuts that may eliminate 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, with potentially catastrophic consequences for millions of people fleeing war, repression, hunger and climate disasters. This 75-year-old institution, established to help Europeans displaced by the Second World War, now confronts an unprecedented financial crisis, primarily due to the US foreign aid freeze – and the timing couldn’t be worse.

World Meteorological Day
Closing the Early Warning Gap to Save Lives

By Alison Kentish
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is urging nations to increase investments in their meteorological and hydrological services and build robust early warning systems (EWS) to safeguard communities from the mounting threats posed by climate-related disasters.

World Day for Glaciers
Glaciers Are in Threat, May Not Survive the 21st Century

By Tanka Dhakal
Many glaciers in the world will not survive the 21st century, according to reports published by the United Nations. Five of the past six years have experienced the most rapid glacier retreat on record; 2022-24 was the largest three-year loss of glacier mass.

Civil Society: The Last Line of Defence in a World of Cascading Crises

By Inés M. Pousadela and Andrew Firmin
In a world of overlapping crises, from brutal conflicts and democratic regression to climate breakdown and astronomic levels of economic inequality, one vital force stands as a shield and solution: civil society. This is the sobering but ultimately hopeful message of CIVICUS’s 14th annual State of Civil Society Report, which provides a wide-ranging civil society perspective on the state of the world as it stands in early 2025.

Women and Girls in Afghanistan Bear the Brunt of the Country’s Crisis

By Oritro Karim
Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan nearly four years ago, human rights have begun diminishing for over 14 million women. Heightened gender inequality has exacerbated the pre-existing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, which has been marked by conflict, displacement, climate change, food insecurity, and economic instability. In 2025, widespread cuts in humanitarian funding look to further strain the crisis.

Western Climate Hypocrisy Exposed by NATO Energy Policy

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
NATO geopolitical strategy has now joined the ‘coalition’ of Western geoeconomic forces accelerating planetary heating, now led again by re-elected US President Donald Trump.

Bangladesh Economy: Turning Demographic Challenges into Opportunities

By Anis Chowdhury and Khalid Saifullah
Speaking at the recent annual conference of the Bangladesh Administrative Service Association, Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus has emphasised the need to create opportunities for young people, asserting that Bangladesh’s large population is not a burden but a valuable resource.

Not Seen in Living Memory: Kashmir’s Rivers Run Dry, Snow Disappears, and Hope Dissipates

By Umar Manzoor Shah
The picturesque Kashmir Valley is battling nature’s fury. This time of year, its majestic mountains would typically be capped with thick snow, and its emerald streams would gush with fresh waters. However, none of these scenes are visible this year.

COP 16 Conference made Key Steps Towards a More Just Transition for Indigenous Peoples & Peasant Communities

By Caroline Delgado
With global temperatures continuing to break records and every global indicator of the health of the natural world showing decline, the need to quickly move away from fossil fuels and environmentally destructive practices has never been more apparent. But as has often been pointed out, how this ‘green transition’ is achieved matters.

African Leaders Challenged To Unite Against Energy Transition Mineral Oppressors

By Isaiah Esipisu
Renewable energy and climate change activists have challenged African heads of state to take a united stance to safeguard essential mineral resources, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and other parts of the continent, which are selfishly exploited by foreign miners with disregard for poverty-stricken local communities.

Outlook for 2025: Strengthening the Foundations of Children’s Futures

By Jasmina Byrne
In 2025, the world is facing a new and intensifying era of crisis for children. Climate change, economic instability, and conflict are hitting harder and more often, intersecting in ways that make the challenges of addressing them even more severe.

Civil Society at the Finance in Common Summit Calls for Community-led, Equitable, and Human Rights-based Development

By Lorena Cotza
As public development banks gather for the Finance in Common Summit (FiCS) in Cape Town, South Africa, civil society and community activists from across the world are demanding a shift to a community-led, equitable, and human rights-based development approach, that prioritise people and planet over profit, and a reform of the global financial architecture.
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