The demands detailed in the new "Five-Point Plan for Solidarity, Fairness, and Prosperity" paper include delivery of promised climate financing.Ahead of a key climate summit later this year, over 100 developing nations on Thursday released a set of demands calling on richer countries to "take responsibility" for their disproportionate role in the global crisis by, among other policies, swiftly and transparently delivering a promised $100 billion ...

Carbon dioxide, once emitted into the atmosphere, stays there for hundreds of years. When someone uses an offset to counteract emissions they need to make sure the offset they buy also lasts for centuries. For a company to claim that they are achieving net zero – balancing their emissions with an equivalent quantity of removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – it is essential that any offsets that they use are long-lasting, rather than temp...

From news reports, it might sound like the fossil fuel industry is on the defensive after a landmark court ruling and two shareholder votes challenging the industry's resistance to curbing its greenhouse gas emissions. But how much power do decisions like these really carry when it comes to pressuring the industry to change? As an academic who studies climate finance and is familiar with climate litigation, I think there's something else at work ...

Saturday was the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement – the commitment by almost every country to try to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. It's an ambitious goal, and the clock is ticking. The planet has already warmed by about 1 C since the start of the industrial era. That might not sound like much, but that first degree is changing the planet in profound ways, from more extreme heat waves that put human health ...

"Big polluters and rich governments should not only reduce emissions to Real Zero, they must pay reparations for the huge climate debt owed to the Global South." A new report published by a trio of progressive advocacy groups lifts the veil on so-called "net zero" climate pledges, which are often touted by corporations and governments as solutions to the climate emergency, but which the paper's authors argue are merely a dangerous form of greenwa...

A new public-private initiative will provide $1 billion in financing to countries that protect their tropical forests.The US, UK and Norwegian governments have teamed up with global businesses such as Amazon, GSK and Nestlé in an attempt to end deforestation.Destruction of primary rainforests increased by 12% from 2019 to 2020, with the world losing over 4.2 million hectares of forest cover last year.The LEAF Coalition will also benefit billions ...

A new short film featuring climate action leader Greta Thunberg highlights the connections between the climate crisis, ecological emergency, and the Covid-19 pandemic as well as other public health crises that are likely to arise from humans' exploitation of animals—and explains how communities and policymakers can repair people's relationship to wildlife while radically changing our food systems. "For Nature," conceived of by Thunberg and produc...

Emissions from shipping could grow by 250% by 2050 if no action is taken.Halving shipping's emissions by 2050 could require $1.4 trillion in investment.But the scale of this challenge could be big enough to spur decarbonization across other sectors, too. Climate change requires urgent action in all sectors of the economy - including maritime shipping, which carries close to 80% of global trade and accounts for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissi...

The tropical water at the equator is renowned for having the richest diversity of marine life on Earth, with vibrant coral reefs and large aggregations of tunas, sea turtles, manta rays and whale sharks. The number of marine species naturally tapers off as you head towards the poles. Ecologists have assumed this global pattern has remained stable over recent centuries — until now. Our recent study found the ocean around the equator has already be...

Food security is a growing concern globally, with two billion people being subject to moderate to severe food insecurity in 2019 according to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation. Food security consists of four interconnected pillars: food availability (how much is produced), food access (can people afford food), food use (how is food prepared and consumed) and stability (how stable is the food supply and consumption). Large-scal...