The political tide has turned in the UK – and civil society will be hoping for an end to government hostility.
The 4 July general election ended 14 years of rule by the right-wing Conservative party. The centre-left Labour party has returned to power, winning 411 out of 650 parliamentary seats.
On June 4, Ram Das, a 65-year-old farmer from India’s northern state of Haryana, was anxiously waiting for the results of the country’s general elections. It was early morning when he left his home and, along with his fellow villagers, congregated near a tea stall that had a transistor set playing the election results.
Scientific assessments reveal that the Third Pole (TP), encompassing the vast glaciated mountain systems of Asia, is warming at an alarming rate of over 0.3 ºC per decade, surpassing the global average.
Each year the international community comes together at the UN’s headquarters in New York to take stock of progress on sustainable development. This year’s
High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) is being held between 8 and 18 July. Representatives from 36 countries,
as per the UN HLPF website, will showcase their achievements on commitments outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, presenting their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs).
Contrary to popular belief, artificial intelligence has been a cornerstone of technological progress for much longer than the past few years. Computer scientist Alan Turing brought forth the concept of computers solving complex human problems with his invention of the Turing Machine in 1936. This machine provided solutions to a seemingly infinite number of problems, yet the technological limitations of the early 1900s proved that this number was indeed very finite. Flash forward to the 2020s, artificial intelligence has become a widespread practice, impacting different fields such as music, art, science, forensics, finance, agriculture, and many others. Although artificial intelligence has been hailed as the future of human progress, it also poses a risk to this future due to its significant carbon footprint.
Cyclones and floods have become increasingly frequent across different parts of India, posing a significant threat to the country's population.
Climate-related disasters have battered Kenya for years.
Five failed rainy seasons resulted in a drought, the worst in 40 years, affecting at least 4,5 million people who require food assistance. Then came months of heavy rain, which led to riverine and flash flooding that impacted more than 306,520 (61,304 families) between March 1 and June 18, 2024, with an estimated 315 people killed, 188 injured, and 38 missing, while more than 293,200 people (about 58,641 families) were displaced, according to
Reliefweb and Kenya’s National Disaster Operations Centre (NDOC).
The summer of 2024 has shattered heat records, starkly illustrating the harsh realities of our warming planet. In India alone, the heatwave has claimed over 100 lives and caused more than 40,000 cases of heatstroke in recent months, according to data from India’s Health Ministry. This extreme weather event has further burdened the poor and vulnerable, exacerbating the social and economic toll of disasters.
In Zambia, over 6.5 million people need humanitarian assistance because of the drought. 3.5 million of them are children.
Despite the evident and increasing urgency of the climate crisis, the
June intersessional meeting of the UNFCCC closed with little to show for two full weeks of negotiation.
Smelling the toxic smoke coming from burned powder kegs and helplessly watching fields turn into smoke and ash is traumatic. Rushing to the government's safe houses and leaving your homes, belongings and cattle behind whenever the armies of India and Pakistan trade fire is inexplicable. Then came climate-change-induced weather unpredictability.
CIVICUS discusses the results and implications of recent elections to the European Parliament with Philipp Jäger, Policy Fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre, an independent, non-partisan think tank focused on European policy processes and outcomes.
As the school lunch bell goes off, 40 eager little bodies—41 if you count the school dog—burst out onto the veranda. Awaiting them are a stack of steel platters, into which will be ladled a nutritious and delicious lunch, all of it indigenous cuisine.
Germany’s State Secretary and Special Envoy on International Climate Action, Jennifer Morgan, has emphasized the need for urgent climate action and called on G20 nations to do more to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The G20 comprises 19 developed and developing nations, the European Union and, since 2023, the African Union. It represents the world’s biggest economies, totaling 85 percent of the global GDP.
After El Niño-induced floods and devastating drought, roughly
two in five people in Malawi – a country of some 20 million people – are now facing the looming prospect of acute hunger by the end of the year.
The global public opinion research on climate change reveals that 80 percent, or four out of five, of people globally want their governments to take stronger action to tackle the climate crisis.
Lami Kwasu, a farmer in the village of Kafanchan in Kaduna State, north-central Nigeria, was at home one evening in October 2020 when the sound of sporadic gunshots filled the air.
Gunmen, suspected to be Fulani nomadic herders, had surrounded the village, shooting from different angles.
Government and private initiatives and programmes to address the climate crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean are in fact a vast array of fake solutions, according to a new regional map made by environmental organisations in several of its countries.
Few will disagree with the nearly universal concern that we – the human family – are once more faced with an era of darkness. An era whose burdens are mainly carried on the tiny shoulders of crises-affected children and adolescents, their teachers and families, all left furthest behind.
There is a rapid realization that climate change is impacting health, which is why the recently adopted World Health Organization's Climate Change and Health Resolution is considered pivotal.
It's been 30 years since the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action (ICPD30) was adopted in Cairo, transforming policy and thinking on population and development issues.