Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon region are calling on climate negotiators to base climate initiatives on the recognition of the land rights of affected Indigenous communities. From the COP30 venue in Belém, these leaders are demanding full participation in the design and implementation of proposed projects.
A report by the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) and Earth Insight paints a stark picture of how extractive industries, deforestation, and climate change are converging to endanger the world’s last intact tropical forests and the Indigenous Peoples who protect them.
A decade has passed since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, and a United Nations synthesis report released ahead of COP30 in Belém shows that "Parties are bending their combined emission curve further downwards, but still not quickly enough."
In late October, Hurricane Melissa, a powerful Category 5 storm, made landfall in the Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage to civilian infrastructure and a devastating loss of life. Humanitarian agencies have mobilized on the ground to deliver urgent assistance to affected communities facing widespread destruction of homes, mass displacement, fatalities, and severe shortages of essential services, including food, water, medicine, shelter, and electricity.
Strengthening Indigenous land rights will protect more forest in Brazil’s Amazon and avoid large amounts of carbon emission, according to new research released ahead of COP30.
Water scarcity that relentlessly hits the rural communities in eastern Guatemala, located in the so-called Central American Dry Corridor, is a constant threat due to the challenges in producing food, year after year. But it is also an incentive to strive to overcome adversities.
In 2017, 45-year-old Jabiru Muhammed could hardly contain his excitement when the village head of Batu in Jigawa State, northwestern Nigeria, announced that their community would work with officials from the National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW) to plant trees across a large stretch of land in the village.
Quadrupling the production and use of sustainable fuels by 2035 is the goal of a new international initiative to drive energy transition and mitigate the climate crisis, which will be launched during Brazil's climate summit in November.
Desalination projects are booming in Chile, with 51 plants planned to process seawater and a combined investment of US$ 24.455 billion. However, these initiatives hardly benefit small-scale farmers, who are threatened by the prolonged drought, and cause environmental concerns.
The Forest Declaration Assessment 2025 warns that global forest loss remains alarmingly high, with little sign of improvement.
At 15 percent, Brazil’s monetary policy interest rate (called Selic) is one of the highest among major economies. Yet in 2024, bank credit grew by 11.5 percent and corporate bond issuance rose by 30 percent.
Maritime transport is key for Chile, which has 34 free trade agreements with countries and blocs of nations, one of the broadest trade networks in the world with access to over 86% of the global gross domestic product (GDP).
The Gambia's lead negotiator on mitigation believes that COP30 presents a unique opportunity to rebalance global climate leadership.
New figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (
UNICEF) show that displacement has surged significantly in Haiti, deepening existing security and humanitarian crises in a country where nearly 90 percent of the capital is controlled by armed gangs.
CIVICUS discusses enforced disappearances in Mexico with a member of the International Network of Associations of Missing Persons.
The crisis of disappearances in Mexico has reached alarming proportions, with
over 52,000 unidentified bodies in morgues and mass graves. On 1 July, the Mexican Congress approved controversial
changes to the General Law on Disappearances, which promise to modernise the search process through a national biometric system, but which human rights organisations and victims’ groups claim could establish an unprecedented system of mass surveillance.
Once a year, the COP presidency or the role held by the Minister of Environment from the host government at a Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting, sets out on an ambitious, year-long journey in hopes of delivering the climate deal of a lifetime.
The
port of San Antonio, Chile's main port, is promoting a historic and sustainable expansion with its own investment and that of international consortiums, aiming to improve its current ninth place among the largest and busiest ports in Latin America.
Just a few years ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of families in Latin America and the Caribbean did not know whether they would have enough food for the next day. The shutdown of economies, massive job losses, and the sharp rise in prices pushed food insecurity to levels not seen in decades.
Wind and solar power sources, essential for the energy transition to mitigate the climate crisis, have become a risk of power outages in Brazil.
The 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report shows a modest global decline in hunger since 2022, with 673 million people facing hunger in 2024, indicating a decrease of 22 million compared to 2022. While progress is seen in Asia and South America, hunger is rising in Africa and Western Asia.
CIVICUS discusses Peru's new amnesty law with Nadia Ramos Serrano, founder and researcher at the Leadership Centre for Women of the Americas, a civil society organisation working on democratic development and the role of women in politics.