Climate Change

Humanitarian Needs Grow as Nepal Recovers from Catastrophic Floods

By Shreya Komar
Two weeks after devastating floods struck Nepal, communities across the country are still struggling to meet basic needs as humanitarian efforts continue. The disaster, triggered by a glacial collapse, has become one of Nepal’s deadliest in recent years, leaving widespread destruction in its wake.

Lawmakers Need to Grapple With the ‘Human Story’ of the Aged, Youth, Women and Girls when Making Policy

By Cecilia Russell
"As parliamentarians, we should understand that behind every demographic indicator is a human story,” Kamikawa Yoko, MP Japan and Chair of AFPPD, reminded lawmakers in her opening address to the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) annual conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Development Goals Falter as Civil Society Is Shut Out

By Samuel King and Inés M. Pousadela
When the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) ended in New York in July, it took two recorded votes for states to pass a ministerial declaration that, until recently, would have been adopted without controversy. Uruguay, speaking for the Group of 77 developing countries plus China, pushed through the deletion of a reference to the agreement reached at the COP28 climate summit. Israel forced a vote on a paragraph about self-determination for people under occupation. Russia dissociated itself from the passage on peace and security. The wrangling revealed the extent to which the consensus that in 2015 saw all 193 UN states agree the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – a common blueprint to end poverty, tackle climate change and build accountable institutions by 2030 – has been eroded.

What 1.5°C Overshoot Means for Small Islands

By Alison Kentish
The world is now expected to breach the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit that small island states have spent years defending as a threshold for survival.

Africa’s Rangelands Are the Frontline of Resilience – COP17 Showed Why

By Samson Kuraru
Across the Kenya-Tanzania rangelands, communities have long understood a reality that the global community is increasingly recognising: healthy rangelands support livelihoods, wildlife, water resources and local economies. They are among Africa's most important natural assets and a foundation for resilience in a changing climate.

Nepalese Experts, Victims Contemplate the Future After the Flood

By Sunita Neupane
That day, Subash Tamang was mining sand along the banks of the Trishuli River near the Trishuli Hydropower Project, working alongside his wife, brother, sister-in-law, and two other family members. Suddenly, he noticed water gushing down from above the hydropower site. His first thought was that the dam had burst.

Between the Reef and the Stars
A reflection on humanity’s twin longings.

By James Alix Michel
There is an older wisdom, quieter than the noise of our times, that whispers a simple truth: we are not the architects of nature, only its guests. Long before there were nations, economies, or even language, there was the pulse of the tide, the patience of coral, the breath of forests exchanging air with the sky. Into that ancient conversation we arrived — late, curious, and forgetful — mistaking our cleverness for sovereignty and our tools for wings.

Strengthen Africa’s Seed Systems as El Niño Threat Becomes Reality Again

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
As climate disasters frequent across the African continent, governments have been promoting climate-smart innovations, including the development of drought-resistant crops.

Africa Has the Answers to Its Food Security Challenges. What It Needs Is the Architecture to Act on Them

By Ismahane Elouafi
As leaders gather in Kigali for the Africa Food Systems Forum, they face an urgent question: why do so many proven agricultural innovations still fail to reach the farmers and communities that need them most?

Families in Desperate Search for Victims of the ‘Himalayan Tsunami’ in Nepal

By Raman Paudel
On Sunday afternoon, Mingma Tamang, 29, rushed into the TU Teaching Hospital’s emergency ward, where a rescue team had just brought in an injured person in the Rasuwa flash flood – but she soon left grim-faced.

Deadly Flash Floods in Nepal Kill Hundreds and Leave Over 4,200 Missing

By Oritro Karim
On the morning of August 26, an unprecedented series of flash floods struck Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, causing immense destruction, killing hundreds of civilians and leaving thousands missing. Entire neighborhoods have been buried underwater and beneath mud as the Nepalese government and humanitarian organizations rush to provide emergency assistance.

The Drylands Dividend: The Smart Investment for Powering a Water-Scarce World

By Éliane Ubalijoro and Salina Abraham
Open a can of something fizzy and the reason the sugar doesn’t separate immediately is gum arabic, tapped by hand from acacia trees across the Sahel. Spray on perfume and the reason the scent is still there at dinner is frankincense, a resin cut from Boswellia trees on the dry escarpments of the Horn of Africa. The fat that gives a chocolate bar its snap may well be shea, gathered and pressed by women in the parkland belt of West Africa. The cashmere jumper came from goats that can only be raised on cold, dry rangelands.

Africa’s Pastoralists Need More Than COP17’s $1.2 billion Rangelands Pledge

By Kizito Makoye
When the rains fail across Tanzania’s northern Maasai Steppe, herders drive their cattle farther in search of pasture and water.

Beyond Resilience: Climate Change and the Rights of Char Dwellers in Bangladesh

By Mohammad Zaman
Bangladesh’s riverine and coastal chars have always been landscapes of movement, but climate change is making that movement more violent, frequent, and unequal. The shifting islands of the Jamuna, Brahmaputra, Padma, and other rivers now reveal how climate stress multiplies deprivation, weakens citizenship, and forces char dwellers to absorb the costs of a crisis they did little to create.

Family Planning and Population Dynamics Are Key to Water Security

By Céline Delacroix
This week is World Water Week, the annual conference of governments, business, and civil society on building a water-secure future as global population, climate disruptions, and water demand increase. In Washington, it’s also Water Resources Development Act season, when every two years the US Congress reauthorizes the legilslation that funds US drinking water, wastewater systems, and flood risk management projects.

The Indian Ocean Is Sounding the Alarm and Its Islands Are Among the First to Hear It

By James Alix Michel
Across this vast ocean, the latest monitoring by Mercator Ocean International shows marine heatwave conditions ranging from moderate to severe. At the same time, the World Meteorological Organization expects a strong El Niño to intensify through August to October, with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole also likely to develop. These are not distant scientific signals. They are an urgent warning that the ocean system on which millions depend is under mounting stress.

Beyond the Horizon: Raising a Generation to Protect the Blue Pacific

By Sera Sefeti
For generations, Pacific children have grown up with the ocean as part of everyday life. It is where families fish, where stories are passed down, where livelihoods begin and where cultures are rooted.

Grand Planetary Challenges Need a Grand Coalition to Solve Them

By Lulseged Tamene Desta and Cargele Masso
Several coalitions exist today to defend the territories in which people live and work. Global leaders have long understood the importance of shared responsibility for collective security and have invested significant time in establishing networks, partnerships and alliances. In 2025, global spending on defense reached a record $2.9 trillion.

GEF Proposes $140 Million Program to Strengthen Drought Resilience

By Kizito Makoye
For pastoralists in Arvaikheer — a village in Mongolia’s dry central plains — rain can determine whether there is enough grass for cattle to roam, whether waterholes are replenished and whether families make it through another dry season. But as climate change makes rainfall increasingly unpredictable, even a wet season may no longer provide water and pasture needed to sustain people and livestock.

Indigenous Peoples Call for Meaningful Influence in Climate Discussions — Nia Tero

By Naureen Hossain
Indigenous communities have long advocated for the environment through the lens of their traditional knowledge systems and cultures. But much more work needs to be done to translate their presence into influence.

Nairobi Biodiversity Talks Set the Stage for Key COP17 Decisions

By Stella Paul
Despite record participation in global biodiversity reporting and planning processes, countries remain off track to meet the world's 2030 biodiversity goals, according to discussions that concluded this month at two key meetings under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
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