Businesses Impact Nature on Which They Depend — IPBES Report Finds

Nature is a double-edged sword for global business. A groundbreaking report will reveal how businesses profit from exploiting natural resources while simultaneously impacting biodiversity.

Fresh Lens For Nuanced Multifaceted Climate Solutions Needed

“I see more philanthropic support aligning with systems thinking, linking climate stability, biodiversity protection, Indigenous leadership, and community resilience,” says Michael Northrop, Program Director at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Why the UN Environment Assembly is Essential to a Safer, More Resilient Planet

As geopolitical challenges and tensions escalate globally, one thing is clear: fragmented politics will not fix a fractured planet. This is why the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) – the world’s highest decision-making body on the environment – is so critical to address our shared and emerging environmental threats.

Africa’s Critical Minerals Poised to Power Global Green Energy Transition

Although Africa holds more than 30 per cent of the world’s critical green minerals—including cobalt, lithium, manganese, and rare earth elements vital for building batteries, wind turbines and solar panels— this has not translated into prosperity for the continent.

Continued Inaction Despite G20 Report on Worsening Inequality

Although inequality among countries still accounts for a far greater share of income inequality worldwide than national-level inequalities, discussions of inequality continue to focus on the latter.

Beyond Buzzwords: COP30’s Opportunity to Deliver on Sustainable Food Systems

The language of agricultural sustainability changes like the seasons—from “climate-smart” to “regenerative,” “agroecological,” and “nature-positive.” Each term reflects good intentions, but the growing list risks duplication, confusion and delays.

Cold or Heat, A Disputed Roadmap to Leave Fossil Fuels Behind in COP30

The heat in the Hangar Convention Center of the Amazonia, in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belém, has reached the negotiation rooms of the climate summit. Over the past 72 hours, one of the most delicate and significant discussions of this climate meeting has been taking place: the path to progressively abandon the production and use of coal, gas, and oil.

Rising Heat, Rising Risk: Regional Policy Actions

The year 2024 was the hottest on record globally. In Asia and the Pacific, Bangladesh was the worst-hit country, with about 33 million people affected by lower crop yields that destabilized food systems, along with extensive school closures and many cases of heatstroke and related diseases. Children, the elderly and outdoor low-wage earners in poor and densely populated urban areas suffered the most, as they generally had less access to cooling systems or to water supplies and adequate healthcare. India, too, was badly affected, with around 700 heat-related deaths mostly in informal settlements.

Hollow Promises or Hope?
COP30 Brazil – Moment of Truth for the Planet

COP30 Brazil, though shadowed by the absence of many world leaders, remains a pivotal milestone in the global fight against climate change, tasked with building on the Paris Agreement’s momentum. Yet the glaring lack of commitment, coupled with withdrawals from the accord, casts a grim shadow over the future. The planet continues to warm, and scientists warn that current targets may not prevent a catastrophic temperature spike. While the summit’s focus on implementation not just new promises—is a welcome shift, it’s clear: words alone won’t cool the Earth.

Indigenous Knowledge Holders Want to Be Acknowledged

Generational lived experiences are key to confronting and living with a changing climate, say Indigenous knowledge holders and activists at the UN Climate Conference (COP30). As the first COP to be held in the Amazon region, in Belém, representatives of Indigenous communities reiterated the importance of generationally transferred knowledge and skills to adapt to and mitigate the threats posed by climate change.

A Tale of Two Cities – Belém, Nairobi and Why Global Tax Justice Must be at Center of Climate Crisis Response

The climate crisis is getting worse and requires fundamental changes to societies, economies, and our global financial architecture in response. While extreme economic inequality is on the rise – the world's billionaires now hold more wealth in the world than every country except the U.S. and China – the impacts of climate change are also unequally felt, with the poor in the Global South and North most at risk.

The Top Climate Leaders Are Now in The Global South

When world leaders now gather in Belém, Brazil for the UN climate conference, expectations will be modest. Few believe the meeting will produce any breakthroughs. The United States is retreating from climate engagement. Europe is distracted. The UN is struggling to keep relevant in the 21st century.

COP30: The Age of Irrationality in Climate Policy

I have been working on climate policy since the late 1990s. I was in the room when Europe’s early carbon market discussions were shaping the architecture that would eventually underpin the Kyoto Protocol.

In the Heart of the Amazon: COP 30 and the Fate of the Planet

My recent visit to Brazil coincided partly with the Conference of the Parties (COP) 30, the 30th United Nations Climate Conference in Belém. Although I did not attend COP 30, I was very fortunate to visit the Amazon.

Brazil’s Biofuels Push Undermines Environmental Integrity at COP30

President Prabowo Subianto welcomed his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil to Jakarta recently to strengthen ties between the fast-growing economies.

US Skips High-Level Presence at COP30 Climate Summit

“Has the world given up fighting climate change?” was a rhetorical question posed recently by the New York Times, perhaps with a degree of sarcasm. It might look that way, says Christiana Figueres, a founding partner of the nongovernmental organization Global Optimism, “as US president Donald Trump blusters about fossil fuel, Bill Gates prioritizes children’s health over climate protection, and oil and gas companies plan decades of higher production.”

The World’s Forests Cannot Wait: Why COP30 Must Center Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Leadership

As world leaders prepare to gather in Brazil for COP30 next week, they will convene in the heart of the Amazon -- a fitting location for what must become a turning point in how the world addresses the intertwined crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

COP30: New Faces, Old Issues: What Must Change if Global Climate Talks Are to Deliver Justice for Africa

Three decades after the first Climate COP, the multilateral climate process – which was intended to serve as an instrument of justice and a guardian of the planet’s atmosphere – has fallen far short of its goals.

COP30: The Real Solution to Climate Change Could be Through International Law

At COP15, the developing countries were calling for the temperature to not rise above 1.5 degrees and they ignored the Copenhagen Accord which agreed to 2.0 degrees

A Unified Oceanic Commitment to Tsunami Preparedness

On a quiet July morning in Severo-Kurilsk, a coastal town in the East of the Russian Federation, the sea began to retreat unnaturally fast. Within minutes, tsunami sirens blared and 2,700 residents evacuated to higher ground. Waves up to five meters inundated the port and fish factory, but no lives were lost. The town’s survival reflected years of investment in early warning systems, community drills, and resilient infrastructure. The 2025 Kamchatka tsunami demonstrated what preparedness can achieve when science, governance, and community action align.

As COP30 Nears, We Need All Effective Climate Solutions

A new global study has challenged a key assumption in climate planning: that the planet’s geological “carbon vault” is vast enough to hold all the carbon dioxide (CO₂) we might one day choose to bury underground after we remove it from the atmosphere. It isn’t.