Climate and Environment

A community COVID-19 awareness session takes place at the Abnaa Mhin IDP camp in northern Idlib Governorate, Syria.
© UNOCHA

Reduce risk to avert ‘era of pandemics’, experts warn in new report

29 October 2020
Global

Unless there is a “seismic shift” in how countries collectively deal with infectious diseases, future pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, cause greater damage to the global economy and kill more people than COVID-19, international experts warned in a UN-backed report published on Thursday. 

Cycling avenues aim to shift urban infrastructure to sustainable, zero-emission transport.
C40 Cities Finance Facility

2020 Climate Action Award winners shine ray of hope

27 October 2020
Global

In a year that has cast darkness upon many, the 2020 UN Global Climate Action Awards, announced on Tuesday, shone a light on the positive action that many across the globe are taking, to combat climate change.

A 10-year-old child helps her family look for water in southern Angola. Failed rains in the first three months of 2019 decimated crops and livestock, affecting about 2.3 million people.
UNICEF/Louzada

Shift needed from what weather will be, to ‘what the weather will do’

13 October 2020
Global

Extreme weather and climate events have increased in frequency, intensity and severity as a result of climate change, hitting vulnerable communities disproportionately hard, a new UN report has revealed, calling for greater investment in effective early warning systems.