Nature has responded to this “suicide war” many times, “as we have seen through hurricanes, fires, and severe drought in various regions of the world,” Mr. Guterres told the ceremony, at which the European Commision honoured Lisbon’s push for a green transformation that could serve as a role-model for other European cities. But the UN chief stressed that no matter how much harm we do to the Earth,...Read More

‘A much deeper, faster and more ambitious response is needed’ There are 10 years left to achieve the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an ambitious plan to create a better future for people and the planet. However, at the first Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit, which took place at UN Headquarters in New...Read More

It is a truism in investing that if you want to generate higher returns, you need to take more risk. But that truism is a myth, according to Ed Easterling, a contributor to the book, “Just One Thing: Twelve of the World’s Best Investors Reveal the One Strategy You Can’t Overlook.” Easterling is one of...Read More

A move towards a more sustainable bio-based economy has been given a new boost by researchers who have been able to simplify a process to transform waste materials into high value chemicals. A collaboration between the UK and Brazil has shown that waste sugar cane and wheat straw from agricultural processes can be made directly...Read More

That’s the general consensus among some of Europe’s leading plastic industry commentators — the very people working to reshape the industry. While plastic in its myriad forms is ingrained in every aspect of our life, ‘plastiphobia’ has entered the vernacular as a condition, and regulators are cracking down hard on an industry that already faces...Read More

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee released an ambitious rule book for online governance — a bill of rights and obligations for the internet — designed to counteract the growing prevalence of such anti-democratic poisons as misinformation, mass surveillance and censorship. The product of a year’s work by the World Wide Web Foundation where Berners-Lee...Read More

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire delivers a speech during the Pledging Conference of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for the First Replenishment in Paris, France, October 25, 2019. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol PARIS (Reuters) – Donor governments pledged $9.8 billion in fresh financing for the Green Climate Fund, set up to help developing nations tackle global...Read More

Full Report (PDF-7MB) African governments have made impressive progress in fostering development and improving people’s lives. The continent’s spending on infrastructure has doubled to around $80 billion a year in the past decade, investments in health systems have helped to halve infant mortality rates since 1990, and the average time African children spend in school...Read More

In his opening remarks to the C40 World Mayors Summit – a forum for member cities to present innovative actions to slow global warming – the Secretary-General noted that cities, which contain more than half the world’s population, and have an “enormous climate footprint”, are “on the frontlines of sustainable and inclusive development”. Urban citizens,...Read More

With 18 countries and the European Union now having ratified the amended treaty, from a total of 51 who have signed, including many of the countries which are part of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the official entry into force marks an important step to curb pollutants closely-linked to climate change, ecosystem degeneration, and potentially life-threatening human health. The Gothenburg Protocol, established back in 1999, sets forth legally-binding emissions reduction commitments for...Read More