The world needs a reset and to restart well intentioned cooperation projects from start. Because right now the UN and EU projects look like software built on code from the 80s, rickety, patched, slow to adapt, and prone to crashing under the weight of outdated assumptions.
Murat Kurum as President-Designate of COP31
Belém in Brazil may be remembered as the summit where nature moved from a side-event to system change. If you are there at the event, Look for bigger blended-finance vehicles for forests and watersheds, standardized biodiversity/ecosystem credit frameworks, clearer guidance on how trade tools like CBAM and deforestation-free rules interact with development and equity goals, and concrete deals in the Amazon and beyond that link restoration to export growth.
If we seize this moment, the 2026 review can catalyse a new wave of finance (see Green Finance mechanisms in the UAE), innovation and policy coherence — and move us closer to the vision of a nature-positive world by 2050. If not, the checkpoint risks becoming another missed opportunity while ecosystems, livelihoods and economies continue to degrade.
“Preventing tipping points requires ‘frontloaded’ mitigation pathways that minimise peak global temperature, the duration of the overshoot period above 1.5°C, and the return time below 1.5°C. Sustainable carbon dioxide removal approaches need to be rapidly scaled up to achieve this.”
With minimal investment and resources needed, Sakondry farming creates income opportunities, especially for rural women, who are taking the lead in managing production. The ambition is that in the future, Sakondry farming can be expanded, and the insects could be sold nearby, therefore providing additional income to families.
The UN COP events aren't only about climate change. There is a COP for the land and the meeting is happening now in Saudi Arabia.
Carbon is only one kind of greenhouse gas. Learn more about the dangers of nitrous oxide.
Millions of people were displaced during the Syrian civil war, a conflict created by drought. Hundreds of thousands died. In the best scenario the world won't move to Europe or America. People around the world will be able to adapt in place.
Many UN organizations are active in helping relieve hunger during conflict. The FAO is one of them and they are working in Gaza. Here is how.
Ethiopia has built a dam on the Nile to meet 60% of its power needs. Downstream countries Sudan and Egypt are furious as this threatens their water supply. They are asking for UN intervention.
A prairie university in Canada will be home to a new international water research hub run by the UN
Droughts, floods, storms and other disasters triggered by climate change have risen in frequency and severity over the last three decades, increasing the damage caused to the agricultural sectors of many developing countries and putting them at risk of growing food insecurity, the UN’s FAO warned in a new report released today ahead of the […]
It doesn’t take a genius or a position paper to figure out that air pollution in cities and near industrial zones is toxic to human health. But now that it’s got an officially bad status with the United Nations, up there with asbestos and 100 other killer chemicals, maybe governments and cities will listen.
Just when the weather was cooling down in the Middle East a little, we get woke up again with the usual alarm and this time from a United Nations panel: humankind is to blame for global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns in a new report just out.