News

The Caribbean island of Barbuda still bears the battle scars of its most brutal encounter with climate change. In 2017, Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 leviathan of unprecedented power, roared across its pristine turquoise waters.

The island’s only storm shelter collapsed, with 300 people hiding inside. Around 95 per cent of Barbuda’s buildings were wrecked, including homes, schools and critical infrastructure.

19 April 2023, Juba – The Government of South Sudan has launched a major USD 9 million-initiative to help communities adapt to climate change by strengthening climate early warning systems and restoring the country’s precious ecosystems in 2 of the 10 states.

As the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) came to a close, news agencies and bloggers ploughed through the Glasgow Climate Pact to make sense of the commitments made to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Mauritania’s battle against encroaching desertification, which has damaged ecosystems and endangered species, has received a timely boost with the news that 200,000 hectares will be turned into a protected area to support biodiversity in the country.

The Green Climate Fund has approved a USD 21.7 million project to support the establishment of end-to-end climate information services and multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS) in Timor-Leste 1.03 million people in Timor-Leste (80% of the population) are expected to directly benefit

Nairobi, 8 October 2021 – A major new project developed by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) will address the urg

Despite being responsible for only around 3 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, experts say that Africa will be the region hardest hit by climate change.

From record-breaking storms to floods and fires, perhaps more than any year before it, 2021 has underlined the position of our cities as frontlines in the global struggle to rebalance our relationship with nature.

For generations, people have combed the sponge-like cloud forests around the city of Xalapa, Mexico for edible mushrooms. But a combination of deforestation and climate-change-related drought have devastated mushroom crops, an important source of income in a region beset by poverty.

Near Omar Gona’s house in Djibouti’s Tadjourah city stands a wall three metres high and five metres thick. What might be an eyesore for some is a godsend for the city because the wall holds back the monsoon rains that have decimated people’s lives here for decades.

The United Nations Environment Programme is working with San Salvador city and its surrounding coffee farms to create a natural defence against floods. Known as CityAdapt, the project is restoring 1,150 hectares of forests and coffee plantations to revive San Salvador’s ability to absorb rainfall.

For World Cities Day on 31st October, we follow the story of how the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is working with San Salvador city and its surrounding coffee farms to create a ‘natural’ defence against floods.

As International Day of South-South Cooperation approaches on 12 September we interview Linxiu Zhang, Director of the United Nations Environment Programme-International Ecosystems Management Partnership, on moves to restore ecosystems and promote livelihoods along Africa’s Great Green Wall.

When Albert Pati moved closer to the sea to open a beach bar overlooking the Mediterranean in Albania, he never imagined that the sea would also be moving closer to him, now eroding the soil around his restaurant floor.

The Mexican city of Xalapa is surrounded by ecosystems that not only harbor stunning flora and fauna, but also provide crucial services to the city and its 580,000 people.

With the launch of a major report by the Global Commission on Adaptation on 10 September 2019, we follow the story of an environmental hero from the Seychelles and their quest to adapt by harnessing the power of trees. #AdaptOurWorld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dquMK9PR4CA

Wild mushroom picking in Eastern Europe is more than a tradition. It is a social event. Every year, in late summer and early fall, thousands of people roam the woods for the biggest, most perfect specimens. They take their children along to teach them which mushrooms are edible and which are poisonous, which are ripe and which should be left for another week or so, passing on generations-old teachings and care for the woods.

Edmond Prifti, a Project and Investment Specialist based in Kolonja, Albania, has been trying for years to grow specific tree species in his municipality. Although state-owned lands are ready to be used for this, his lack of expertise greatly hampered progress.

Local handicrafts and specialties are helping build a climate-resistant future for Madagascar’s coastal communities.

“When I was younger, everything was normal, even the rain,” Vivienne Rakotoarisoa reminisces. “But nowadays everything is irregular. When we start planting, the rain doesn’t come anymore.”

How improved weather forecasting and observation is helping the Comoros face a changing climate.

The children playing in the school grounds in Diboini, a hilly central area of the Comoros’ main island, pay no attention to the gated area housing unremarkable-looking metal structures.

Ali Omar remembers a time when the practically bare patch of desert in northern Djibouti he calls home was a bustling seaside resort and the waters around it were teeming with fish. “Lots of people lived here and they had shops all along the seaside,” says 75-year-old Omar, recalling his hometown Khor Angar’s 1970s heyday, before it was hot year-round and the village had dwindled to just a few huts in the desert.

Without knowing about the weather and why it was changing, the people in the village of Jappineh in The Gambia’s Lower River Region would plant the same seeds in the same soil and hope for the best.

As 63-year-old farmer Mahmoud Hamidoune shelters from the rain hammering down on the peaks of the southern tip of Anjouan island in the Comoros, he recalls a time when it got so cold that people would stay home, and heading up the mountain to farm was called ‘going to Paris’.