Plastic Soup, Plastic Islands: How Small Island Developing States can end Plastic Pollution

Scattered over the vast area of our oceans, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are often pictured as blue, serene and beautiful paradises. However, we are risk losing the beauty of these islands, due to the triple threats of climate change, loss of biodiversity, and pollution, especially marine plastic debris.

South Suffering Due to Powerful Nations’ Policies

The World Bank expects the international economic slowdown to be at its worst in over four decades in 2024. This is mainly due to powerful Western nations’ contractionary macroeconomic and geopolitical policies.

To Tackle Climate Crisis, the World Bank Must Stop Financing Industrial Livestock

Last week, the World Bank Group released a new report that highlights the urgent need to drastically reduce GHG emissions to address the climate crisis and calls on countries to act. However, while the World Bank’s acknowledgment of the damaging climate impacts of industrial agriculture is a crucial step forward, it’s simply not enough.

Let the Dead Speak: Forgotten Workers

Immigration policies are among the most hotly debated topics in Europe. Xenophobia, combined with curbing immigration, have become the main reason to why ever-increasing large crowds of voters are supporting populist parties.

Explainer: Understanding Carbon Trading and its Rationale

Carbon trading has gained growing popularity on the African continent and is considered by many governments as a viable way to achieve their climate targets while building communities. IPS takes a look at what's behind the carbon market.

Lessons From Youth-Focused ‘Future Action Festival’ Ahead of UN Summit of the Future

The world has crossed the halfway point to the end of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) era amid multiple, unprecedented, and significantly destructive global shocks. Two of the most pressing global challenges are the climate crisis and the threat of nuclear armament. Of serious concern is a severe lack of youth engagement on issues of critical global importance. Speaking to IPS during the 2024 UN Civil Society Conference, the outcome of which will inform high-level discussions when the UN hosts hundreds of world leaders, policymakers, experts, and advocates in September at the Summit of the Future in New York, Tadashi Nagai stressed the importance of coalition and movement building and youth engagement to escalate progress towards attainment of the SDGs.

International Community Urged to End Impunity for Violence Against Healthcare in Conflicts

Governments and international agencies must do more to end impunity for violence against healthcare, campaigners have urged, as a new report shows that attacks on healthcare during conflicts reached a new high last year.

Small Island Developing States can be Nature-Positive Leaders for the World

Small island developing states (SIDS) are scattered across the globe, dotting the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean, the west and east coasts of Africa and the Indian Ocean.

ICC War Crimes Charges a Milestone but Falls Far Below Expectations

The ICC Prosecutor’s applications for arrest warrants regarding the Situation in Palestine represent a milestone. But they are of little credit to Prosecutor Karim Khan.

ICC Move to Seek Warrants for War Crimes in Gaza Triggers a Backlash from US

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to seek warrants on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has triggered a strong backlash both from the Biden administration and a group of pro-Israeli Senators in the US Congress. The names in the ICC arrest warrants also include Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (Deif) and Ismail Haniyeh—all leaders of Hamas.

Biodiversity Meet Suggests New Guidelines on Synthetic Biology Amid Persisting Questions

After a week-long discussion by delegates from 196 countries, the 26th meeting of the Subsidiary Body of Scientific, Technical, and Technological Advisors (SBSTTA) of UN Biodiversity has concluded with a set of recommendations on several issues, including living modified organisms (LMOs) and synthetic biology. All nations must consider the recommendations, discuss them, and possibly adopt them at the Biodiversity COP in October. However, many questions remain unanswered and unclear.

International Diplomat Erik Solheim on Politics, Climate Change, Much-Needed UN Reform and Trump

Erik Solheim, a senior internationally renowned politician and diplomat, has long been an advocate for combining development assistance with private investment and better taxation systems in recipient countries. 

Billions will Vote this Year – LGBTIQ+ People Must not be Excluded

This year has been called the ‘super election’ year, with 3.7 billion people potentially going to the polls. This historic political moment is also an opportunity to reflect on what these billions of voter experiences will look like. Who will vote, who can run for office and who might be excluded from the political process?

Solomon Islands: A Change More in Style than Substance

There’s change at the top in Solomon Islands – but civil society will be watching closely to see whether that means a government that’s grown hostile will start doing things differently.

The US a Direct Partner in the Israeli War

A major mistake we often commit in our analysis of the US political discourse on the Gaza war is that we assume that the US and Israel behave as if they are two political entities with separate agendas and sets of priorities.

US Senators Threaten Criminal Court & Advise Israel to Nuke Gaza

As the ancient Greek saying goes: those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first drive them mad. Perhaps destruction is too far-fetched here, but madness is closer home—in Washington DC With the 7-month-old Israeli-Gaza conflict showing no positive signs of a permanent solution, there is a lingering sense of growing political craziness in Capitol Hill, the seat of the US government, once described as Israeli-occupied territory.

From Dorms to Demonstrations

The campus protests that have spread to universities in every part of the United States are not about the war between Israel and Hamas, despite the heated rhetoric around this topic. Most of the students who are protesting know little about the conflict, its history and its ramifications for international politics.

Chronicle of a Catastrophe Foretold

The IMF warns of a decade ahead of ‘tepid growth’ and ‘popular discontent’, with the poorest economies worst off. But as with inaction on Gaza, little is being done multilaterally to avert the imminent catastrophe.

Ocean Action on Global Agenda as Negotiations to Save Biodiversity Deepen

The oceans are as fascinating as they are mysterious. Home to the largest animals to ever live on Earth and billions of the tiniest, the top 100 meters of the open oceans host the majority of sea life, such as fish, turtles, and marine mammals. But there is another world far below the surface. In the belly of the ocean, there are seamounts—underwater mountains that rise 1,000 meters or more from the seafloor.

Educating the Mind Without Educating the Heart is No Education at All

The words above, by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, serve as a reminder that we still have a long way to go to in educating ourselves. In doing so, we will naturally ensure that the young generation can access an inclusive quality education and use their knowledge to build a world of justice, equity, peace and security.

SBSTTA and SBI—Biodiversity Meetings Crucial for the Global South Begin

The 26th meeting of the Subsidiary Body of Scientific, Technical, and Technological Advisors (SBSTTA) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) started in Nairobi, Kenya, on Monday. Over 1,400 delegates, including 600 representing signatories or parties from over 150 countries, are present for the seven-day meeting at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). A large number of members from Indigenous Peoples and other observer organizations, including women’s groups, are also attending the meetings.