Climate and Environment

Plastic bottles and garbage waste from a village in Timor-Leste wash on the shores of a river and then spill into the sea.
UN Photo/Martine Perret

Plastic-busting fungi may help tackle pollution, climate change: UN Environment

31 October 2018
Global

When it comes to helping green our world, organic mushrooms from the local market may be just the tip of the iceberg. A new United Nations-backed report reveals that fungi could help ween the world off its plastic addiction, by degrading polyurethane in just a matter of weeks.

Cities in developing countries like Nairobi in Kenya continue to grow rapidly.
UN-Habitat/Julius Mwelu

Weekly migration of 1.4m to cities can contribute to ‘disasters’

30 October 2018
Global

The migration of some 1.4 million people every week to cities around the world “can strain local capacities, contributing to increased risk from natural and human made disasters’” according to the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

At dawn, parents and children cross the road on their way to school in the Songinokhairkhan district, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where the air pollution level is the highest in the city.
© UNICEF/Mungunkhishig Batbaatar

More than nine in ten children exposed to deadly air pollution

29 October 2018
Global

Air pollution is “stunting children’s brains” and affecting their health in more ways than was previously suspected, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
UN Photo/Mark Garten

Jordan flash flooding: UN chief ‘saddened’ by loss of life

26 October 2018
Middle East

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday that he was “deeply saddened by the loss of life and extensive damage” that occurred from large-scale flash flooding near the Dead Sea, in Jordan, which reportedly swept away a bus carrying pupils and staff on a school trip.

Thirty-one-year-old earthquake survivor, Mega (left) and her husband, search through the wreckage of her childhood home in Petobo village, Palu, in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. 16 October 2018.
© UNHCR/Fauzan Ijazah

Sulawesi devastation ‘beyond imagination’ as massive aid operation continues: UN relief agencies

19 October 2018
Asia Pacific

More emergency shelter supplies and relief for thousands of victims of Indonesia’s recent earthquake and tsunami is set to arrive on the island of Sulawesi in the coming days, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday, amid reports from staff that the devastation is “beyond imagination”.

Burundian refugees collect water at Lusenda camp, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
UNHCR/Colin Delfosse

Conflict diamonds and climate change: Cooperate, don’t compete over natural resources urges Guterres

16 October 2018

The struggle over natural resources often lies at the heart of violent conflicts, fuelling strife in many parts of the world, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday, urging governments and everyone with a stake in valuable resources, to think hard about how they are managed and exploited.

Wide shot of Havana, Cuba, in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, which wrought terrible destruction across the Caribbean in 2017.
OCHA EFE/Rolando Pujol

With rapid, far-reaching changes, world can prevent climate change worst-case scenarios – UN chief

13 October 2018
Global

Checking global warming and preventing some of the worst-case scenarios of runaway climate change “is still possible,” the United Nations Secretary-General said on Saturday, urging greater action and ambitions.

A mother and child attempt to escape the flood water in Niger State, Nigeria, following torrential rains which have hit the region since mid-July 2018.
UNDAC/Pierre Trouche

Nigeria floods: Guterres ‘deeply saddened’ by loss of life and rising need

11 October 2018
Africa

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday he is “deeply saddened”, as the Government of Nigeria announced that some 200 people have died, and a further 1,310 injured, due to flooding across a dozen states. Overall, around two million have been affected.

View of damaged cars and houses at Balaroa National Park, West Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia after the earthquake and tsunami that struck there on September 28, 2018.
© UNICEF/Arimacs Wilander

Disasters: UN report shows climate change causing ‘dramatic rise’ in economic losses

10 October 2018

Climate-related and geophysical disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis have killed 1.3 million people over the last 20 years and left a further 4.4 billion injured, homeless or in need of emergency assistance, UN experts said on Wednesday.

Women carry wood from the forests of Anjouan island, where UN Environment and partners are helping communities restore forests to stop soil erosion and failing harvests in the Comoros archipelago. (May, 2018)
UN Environment/Hannah McNeish

FROM THE FIELD: Comoros farmers battle climate change

8 October 2018
Africa

Farmers in the Comoros islands are learning, with the support of the UN, to adapt to dramatic shifts in the climate which have contributed to the deterioration of agriculture across the Indian Ocean archipelago.