Along with climate shocks, conflict and acute food insecurity, the East Africa region now faces a hunger threat from desert locusts, top UN relief officials warned on Tuesday, saying action now, will avert a major food crisis later.
Alongside the human population, Africa’s animals are suffering greatly from the effects of climate change, which United Nations Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed saw first-hand on Sunday in Zimbabwe.
Many animals – including birds, fish and mammals – migrate along set routes in search of food or breeding grounds. How best to protect them in a rapidly changing world is the focus of a major UN wildlife meeting which opened in Gandhinagar, India, on Monday.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday began a three-day visit to Pakistan, recognizing the country’s decades of “outstanding generosity and solidarity” as one of the world’s largest hosts of refugees, and highlighting its commitment to climate action.
Millions of people worldwide will get to share their views on climate action through a UN campaign launched on Thursday aimed at connecting them with Governments and policy makers.
Fresh fears of accelerating damage to the planet’s ice sheets and sea level rise have been fuelled by confirmation from the UN’s weather agency that the Antarctic likely saw a new temperature record of more than 18°C on Thursday.
With the ocean in deep crisis, members of civil society and philanthropic organisations are urging governments and corporations to take bold action to safeguard the ocean. After a two-day preparatory meeting in New York ahead of June’s UN Ocean Conference in Portugal, activists handed over what they termed “A Blue Call to Action” to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on Wednesday.
The second global Ocean Conference taking place in Portugal in a few months’ time promises to be “a critical moment” for the health of life under water and on land, the President of the UN General Assembly said on Tuesday, as preparations got underway.
Climate action will be both a priority and a driver of world affairs through the coming decade, United Nations Secretary-General chief António Guterres announced on Monday, during a speech at UN Headquarters in New York, in which he declared that the next ten years will be “crucial for achieving a fair globalization, boosting economic growth and building peaceful societies”.
