Photograph by: Enric Sala, National Geographic
December 3, 2019
Every year the UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP) is a hugely significant moment—two weeks in history upon which future generations will reflect, and judge, whether we succeeded in ensuring a climate-safe planet.
And the stakes in 2019 are higher than ever. We exist in a changed world compared to just one year ago, as the impacts of climate change continue to bite ever-more intensively.
December 1, 2019
The UN Secretary-General has outlined the “increased ambition and commitment” that the world needs from governments during the coming days of the COP25 UN climate change conference which opens in Madrid on Monday, calling for “accountability, responsibility and leadership” to end the global climate crisis.
December 2, 2019
Although most countries have acknowledged the threat posed by climate change and established targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, the international community still has not made the same level of commitment to environmental conservation. Yet it is our natural ecosystems that will save us from catastrophe – if we let them.
December 2, 2019
Protecting and restoring natural areas in Latin America, home to fifty percent of the planet’s biodiversity and over a quarter of its forests, is critical if the world is to avert a biodiversity and climate disaster.
November 27, 2019
[…] Ours is a bioclimatic world in which every organism, from bacterium to blue whale, inseparably contributes to the climate and surface conditions of Earth. This tapestry, of which we are a part, is unraveling, with its delicate patterns and motifs denigrated to near invisibility, disappearing at a rate and magnitude that rivals that of the great mass extinction events of the past. This fading to nonexistence is making us unfortunate witnesses to the accumulated consequences of human actions over the past 10,000 years. Happily, though, we are now increasingly empowered by science and can act to abate ongoing trends and protect planetary resources before the essential threads of life’s coherence become completely eroded.
November 27, 2019
The Arhuaco invite National Geographic to the upper reaches of their Colombian homeland to reveal threats we all face—and remind us of our roots in nature.
[…] Breaking with their rigidly isolationist past, they invited photographer Stephen Ferry and me to join them on a spiritual journey from the base of the massif all the way up to a sacred lake called Naboba, fed by glacial melt at nearly 16,000 feet. They want us to be their megaphone to the wider world about the threats to the Sierra Nevada, to their way of life—and to humanity.
November 27, 2019
Efforts to catalog the fast-declining biodiversity of tropical rainforests just got a $10 million boost via a new competition from XPRIZE, an organization that has more than a dozen competitions on topics ranging from spaceflight to oil cleanup over the past 25 years.
Last week, XPRIZE formally unveiled the $10 million Rainforest XPRIZE to catalyze development of “technology capable of identifying and cataloging rainforest biodiversity” that can underpin the emergence of new bioeconomy based on the value of standing forests as heathy and productive ecosystems.
November 26, 2019
The world's countries have to cut their greenhouse gas emissions well beyond current pledges to make up for lost time - or face catastrophic climate changes, says a United Nations report released on Tuesday.
November 22, 2019
About one in every three plant species in Africa is at the risk of extinction due to climate change, a study has revealed. Researchers classified about 7,000 out of more than 22,000 vascular plant species in Africa as "likely or potentially" threatened, the report said, pointing towards the losses of biodiversity, rapid human population growth, changes in land use, and the effects of changing the climate as reasons behind the disappearance.
November 22, 2019
With the negative effects of climate change becoming more evident, Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Hon. Daryl Vaz, is reiterating calls for Jamaicans to protect mangroves, as they help the nation to save millions during storms.
November 20, 2019
Gucci chief executive Marco Bizzarri has called on business leaders to sign up to a Carbon Neutral Challenge that sees businesses deliver greenhouse gas emissions reductions across their entire value chain in order to achieve net-zero emissions.
November 15, 2019
With homes under water in South Yorkshire, near record flooding in Venice, and burgeoning wildfires in Australia, many people are asking if and how climate change is connected to these extreme weather events.
November 14, 2019
Children born today will face a lifetime of climate change-related health problems, one of the world's oldest and most prestigious medical journals warns in a report released yesterday.
The Lancet's "Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change" says the new era of climate change will "define the health of an entire generation" — unless there is significant intervention.
November 14, 2019
The ocean hosts an inconceivable wealth of marine life and diverse habitats, most of which remains unknown and unseen. International plans to mine minerals from the deep seafloor threaten this largely unexplored biodiversity hotspot. States are currently seeking to develop a legal framework for deep seabed mining. In cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, an international team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) has published a new study warning against a rush to exploit deep seafloor resources and calling for coordinated efforts to develop alternative approaches.
November 14, 2019
As the world races to meet the goal of protecting 17 percent of Earth’s land surface, a new study looks at how effective protected areas are at reducing human pressures — and finds that there is considerable room for improvement.
