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.
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).
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.
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.
As the technical session of the global climate negotiations enters the final stretch in Bonn, Germany, climate activists from Africa have expressed fears that negotiators from the developed world are dragging their feet in a way to avoid paying their fair share to tackle the climate crisis.
“I think we will be unfair to the snail if we say that the Bonn talks have all along moved at a snail pace,” quipped Mohammed Adow, the Director, Power Shift Africa.
As the planet groans under record-breaking temperatures and extreme weather events, Africa, which is responsible for only two to three percent of global emissions, stands out disproportionately as the most vulnerable region in the world.
António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General’s special address on climate action titled ‘A Moment of Truth’ said 2024 was the hottest May in recorded history, and that this marks twelve straight months of the hottest months ever. For the past year, every turn of the calendar has turned up the heat.
The area where land meets the sea, known as coastal ecosystems, could be the key to reducing the effects of climate change.
What is blue carbon?
Blue carbon refers to the carbon dioxide (CO2) stored within marine or coastal ecosystems
worldwide. These ecosystems include coastal plants such as mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes, which trap CO2 in their seabeds.
Coming at a time of record-breaking global temperatures over the last twelve months, the UN chief calls on world leaders, including the G20 and G7 members, to commit to their climate action goals as laid out in the Paris Agreement. Experts across multiple industries are also encouraged to do their part to mitigate the impact of the climate crisis.
As India's 968.8 million voters were gripped by election fever, the worst-ever heat wave held the country in its clutches.
Commonwealth Secretary-General Baroness Patricia Scotland is calling for concrete commitments to climate finance that will acknowledge the multi-dimensional vulnerability faced by the world’s small island developing states (SIDS).
Venezuela is one of the few countries outside the Escazú Agreement, a treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean ratified by 16 member countries that guarantees access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decisions, and environmental justice.
As leaders of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) meet for the 4th International Conference on SIDS in Antigua this week, top United Nations and World Bank officials are calling for urgent action to help SIDS tackle their unique challenges and plan for the next decade.
Phu Chhettar Sherpa, who worked as an icefall doctor (a Sherpa who fixes ropes for climbers) for seven years from 2015 to 2021 on Mt. Everest, vividly recalls his fear of possible flash floods after the huge earthquake in Nepal in 2015.
“This year has been the hottest in history in practically every corner of the globe, foretelling severe impacts on our ecosystems and starkly underscoring the urgency of our predicament. We are gathered here not merely to reiterate our challenges, but to demand and enact solutions,” declared Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Brown at the opening of the
Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States on May 27.
Carbon trading has gained growing popularity on the African continent and is considered by many governments as a viable way to achieve their climate targets while building communities. IPS takes a look at what's behind the carbon market.
Delegates from small island developing states (SIDS) worldwide are meeting in Antigua and Barbuda to strategize for the next decade.
Olaide Bankole was born and raised in Nigeria, and he observed how climate change was evident in the country with temperature rises and rainfall variability and how drought, desertification, and sea level rises have been affecting its people.
He is also aware of how rising sea levels threaten southern Nigerian cities like Lagos and coastal areas, increasing their vulnerability to flooding and waterborne diseases.
Lack of water threatens the very existence of family farming in Chile, forcing farmers to adopt new techniques or to leave their land.
The shortage is caused by a 15-year drought and exacerbated by the unequal distribution arising from the Water Code decreed in 1981 by the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, which turned water into a tradable commodity and gave its owners rights in perpetuity.
For the last three years, Sambhunath Guragain has been waking up every morning to a view he doesn't want to see: discarded agricultural land where he and his family used to grow food, including rice, but the flood in 2021 changed everything.
“We don’t have any crops now, but we are farmers,” Guragain said in November 2021, while looking towards a quietly flowing Melamchi river. This was six months after the massive flash flood in Helambu-Melamchi in Sindhupalchowk district in Nepal. After three years, the situation hasn’t changed.
Rich nations’ climate hypocrisy is accelerating global heating, pushing the planet closer to irreversible catastrophe, with its worst consequences borne by the poorest, both countries and peoples.