Climate and Environment

A camel stand in a windmill park on the outskirt of Nouakchott, Mauritania.
© UNDP Mauritania/Freya Morales

Throughout COVID-19 recovery, 'plummeting’ clean energy costs can help climate action

10 June 2020
Global

As COVID-19 hits the fossil fuel industry, a new UN report published on Wednesday shows that renewable energy is more cost-effective than ever – providing an opportunity to prioritize clean energy in national economic recovery packages and bring the world closer to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.
 

A school of Trevally fish in the Solomon Islands.
Coral Reef Image Bank/Tracey Jen

World Oceans Day: Don’t be colour blind, help blue oceans keep the planet green

8 June 2020
Global

The COVID-19 pandemic is a “sharp reminder” of how we are all intimately connected to each other and to nature, the UN chief said on Monday, World Oceans Day.

Coral reefs surround Coconut Island where a research centre of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology is based.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson

Bringing the coral reefs back to life

7 June 2020
Global

Coral reefs are being killed by the climate crisis, which is leading to rising sea temperatures. “Cryopreservation”, a pioneering scientific technique, could be one way to help save them.

A man in Kenya shops for produce as the coronavirus pandemic brings into focus the interdependence between humanity and biodiversity.
World Bank / Sambrian Mbaabu

World Environment Day: COVID-19 crisis demands fundamental rethink

5 June 2020
Global

The COVID-19 health crisis should be seen as a clarion call to “fundamentally rethink our relationship” with natural ecosystems and shrinking biodiversity, the UN cultural agency chief said on Friday, World Environment Day.

Late September sunrise as seen from Paalijärvi observation tower in Alajärvi, Finland. May 2020, was the warmest on record, UN weather agency WMO has confirmed.
WMO/Tapio Niemi

May confirmed as warmest on record, CO2 levels hit new high despite COVID economic slowdown

5 June 2020

Last month was the warmest May on record and carbon dioxide levels also hit a new high despite the economic slowdown from COVID-19, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday, in an urgent appeal for Member States to renew their efforts to tackle climate threats.

Conservation and sustainable use can work together to protect the plants and animals living in forests.
©UNEP/Jessica Kerr

Shrinking forests need bold action to safeguard their biodiversity

22 May 2020

Amidst alarming rates of deforestation and land degradation, urgent action is needed to safeguard the biodiversity of the world's forests, according to a new United Nations report, released on Friday.

Noel Dickinson is a research technician for the Breadfruit Institute at Hawaii's National Tropical Botanical Garden.
ILO Photo/John Isaac

Cultivating a taste for traditional crops in Hawaii

16 May 2020
Americas

Hundreds of millions of people go hungry around the world, and there are fears the COVID-19 pandemic could make matters worse. In Hawaii, researchers think that bringing back overlooked, traditional crops, could help feed many vulnerable people. As part of an ongoing series focusing on the Sustainable Development Goals and ahead of International Day of Biodiversity marked annually on 22 May, UN News travelled to Hawaii with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to see how researchers are trying to cultivate a taste for indigenous crops.

 

Niger is faced with a food-deficit and low-income levels.
WFP/Simon Pierre Diouf

Parallel threats of COVID-19, climate change, require ‘brave, visionary and collaborative leadership’: UN chief

28 April 2020
Global

To combat the COVID-19 pandemic and the “looming existential threat of climate disruption”, the only credible response is “brave, visionary and collaborative leadership” anchored in mutilateralism, the UN Secretary General António Guterres, said on Tuesday, during an international discussion focused on climate change.

The World Meteorological Organization says above average temperatures are expected in many parts of the world in the first months of 2020.
WMO/Kabelo Tamocha

Fall in COVID-linked carbon emissions won’t halt climate change - UN weather agency chief

22 April 2020

An expected drop in greenhouse gas emissions linked to the global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is only “short-term good news”, the head of the UN weather agency said on Wednesday. 

The Earth, an image created from photographs taken by the Suomi NPP satellite.
NASA

COVID-19 pandemic, an ‘unprecedented wake-up call’ for all inhabitants of Mother Earth

22 April 2020

In his message for International Mother Earth Day this Wednesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres acknowledged that all eyes are on the COVID-19 pandemic, which he flagged as “an unprecedented wake-up call”