United Nations

Representatives from a small group of nations providing absolutely essential, increasingly scarce ecosystems services met in Paramaribo, Suriname Feb. 12-15. Swimming against the rising tide of tech-driven industrialization and globalization, deforestation, and a Sixth Great Extinction, the efforts of High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation (HFLD) countries go largely unacknowledged and little valued. Identifying and elaborating ways to increase international awareness regarding the growing …

by  David Waskow, Joe Thwaites and Yamide Dagnet, courtesy of the World Resources Institute Next month’s UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland (COP24) is seen by many as the most important climate negotiation since 2015, when 196 countries created a vision for a zero-carbon future by adopting the landmark Paris Agreement. This year’s summit is the critical juncture for countries to agree on the rules for turning this vision …

More than 75 percent of the Earth's land surface had suffered severely as a result of human land degradation as of 2014, IPBES highlights. Experts estimate that less than one-tenth of the Earth's land surface will have escaped substantial impacts of human activity come 2050.

Pres. Trump's energy and climate policies will put the US further behind in the global drive to reduce emissions and isolate the country internationally, according to the World Resources Institute.

Easier said than done Last week, Taryn Fransen and Kelly Levin of the World Resources Institute published an informative analysis on the “Trump Effect” on the Paris Agreement, signed in Paris at COP21 in  December 2015. It was historic in many respects, not least of which was that it was the first time the whole world agreed on anything so ambitious. Even so, it …

Back in 2015 at the COP21 climate conference in Paris, the U.S. delegation presented numerous side events in the Blue Zone, from EPA, NASA, NOAA, the Department of Energy and more. The United States clearly embraced its role as a world leader at a historic global inflection point. Fast forward two years, to the end of President Donald Trump’s first year in office, and what …

More than 1,200 high-level representatives across the government, public and private sector business world met in Austria May 11-12 to discuss the nuts and bolts, and ways to achieve, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Specifically, those related to the twin issues of climate change and energy. During the Vienna Energy Forum, the UN International Development Organization (UNIDO), the event’s organizer, announced it was …