As they ate catered meals, COP30 negotiators had no appetite for fixing broken food systems, a major source of climate pollution, experts warn.
Food systems are the complete journey food takes—from the farm to fork—which means its growing, processing, distribution, trade and consumption and even the waste.
The Trump Administration’s sweeping executive order to withdraw the United States from dozens of United Nations bodies and international organizations, as well as a treaty ratified by the United States with the advice and consent of the US Senate, is a targeted assault on multilateralism, international law, and global institutions critical to safeguarding human rights, peace, and climate justice.
President Donald Trump's executive order to stop United States support for 66 international organizations, including 31 United Nations (UN) groups, has faced strong opposition from these organizations, the global community, humanitarian experts, and climate advocates, who are concerned about the negative effects on global cooperation, sustainable development, and international peace and security.
“The work of collecting seeds saved me from depression,” caused by her daughter's suicide at the age of 29, said Maria do Desterro Soares, 64, who lives in the poor rural community of Jatobá in northeastern Brazil.
"We moved from a context of socio-environmental exclusion to one of environmental justice," said Dionê Castro, coordinator of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program which led Brazil's largest nature-based solutions project.
CIVICUS discusses environmental accountability in Zambia with Christian-Geraud Neema, Africa editor at the China Global South Project, an independent journalism initiative that covers and follows China’s activities in global south countries.
CIVICUS discusses Generation Z-led protests in Bulgaria with Zahari Iankov, senior legal expert at the Bulgarian Centre for Not-for-Profit Law, a civil society organisation that advocates for participation and human rights.
Izete dos Santos Costa, also known as Dona Nena among locals in Combu Island, welcomed hundreds of people from around the world during the recent climate conference in Belém.
Her team showcased local crafts and chocolate-making processes in the land of the Amazon rainforest—far from the deafening air conditioner sounds at the Parque da Cidade, where the COP30 negotiations were ongoing.
2025 has been a terrible year for democracy. Just over 7 per cent of the world’s population now live in places where the rights to organise, protest and speak out are generally respected, according to the
CIVICUS Monitor, a civil society research partnership that measures civic freedoms around the world. This is a sharp drop from over 14 per cent this time last year.
For the past two years, Samuel Ndungu, a smallholder farmer, has been growing organic food and supplying it to the local market in Githunguri, just outside Nairobi.
In my more than 30 years with the United Nations, I’ve seen enormous change, collaboration and progress towards improving human development. But I’ve also seen how history has a way of repeating itself to entrench some of the most intractable global challenges.
Opinions have been divided over the annual UN climate conferences. While some see COP30 in Belém, Brazil, as confirming their irrelevance, others see it as a turning point in the struggle for climate justice.
Multiple shocks defined 2025: conflict, climate breakdown and shrinking democracy.
Multilateral institutions were tested as never before.
Our traditional “year-ender” usually kicks off with a grim litany of world disasters and crises over the past 12 months, highlights IPS partners and contributors and culminates in a more positive-sounding finale. This time I’d like to begin on a more personal note intended also as a metaphor.
2025 marked a notable year of progress in reducing global hunger; yet climate pressures, economic instability, and ongoing conflicts continue to push agri-food systems to their limits, undermining food availability. In a new report, UN agencies raise the alarm on how these factors are particularly pronounced in the Asia-Pacific region, which accounts for 40 percent of the world’s undernourished.
CIVICUS discusses climate displacement and Tuvalu’s future with Kiali Molu, a former civil servant at Tuvalu’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and currently a PhD candidate at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and the University of Bergen in Norway. His research focuses on state sovereignty and climate change in the Pacific.
Farmers can now know and benefit from their contribution to climate change thanks to a formula that can be used to calculate the amount of carbon stored in fruit trees.
Today, society is rightly concerned about the rising prevalence of autism among children worldwide; affecting up to 1% of children, it has a profound impact on families. Neuroinflammation and environmental origins are increasingly implicated. But what causes them?
For years, smallholder farmers across Kenya have been engaged in a legal battle with the government over a law that criminalizes the practice of saving, sharing and exchanging indigenous seeds.
Efforts to combat climate change too often sideline the very communities hit hardest by the crisis and who have contributed the least to it. This injustice was the core idea of the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) program. Now that VCA has concluded after five years, Job Muriithi and Winny Nyanwira from
Hivos reflect on its achievements and share recommendations for governments and donors to ensure fair and equitable climate action.
On the Pacific Islands, where the ocean horizon is both a lifeline and a warning, communities have long interpreted environmental change through traditional knowledge, lived experiences, stories, and practice. Their observations echo those across the Pacific region, where traditional knowledge remains central to understanding shifting environments and responsible stewardship.