Through our global network of local writers, we are continuing our award-winning coverage of global and local environmental challenges, with a focus on the people for whom the ecosphere matters in a direct way: rural dwellers who have little means to protect themselves against adverse conditions; communities that need to switch to sustainable development in order to survive; poor women and children, who are the most vulnerable in natural disasters.Sponsored by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and The World Bank (WB), IPS also maintains the award-winning Tierramérica, a specialised information service on environment and development.
ENVIRONMENT
Bangladesh has the answer to polythene menace
Polythene bags are everywhere – literally – and the world is not sure how to deal with them. Shopping bags made from polythene have become ubiquitous, showing up everywhere from the summit of Mount Everest to the deep ocean floors to polar ice caps.
Quenching Humanity’s Freshwater Thirst Creates a Salty Threat
Starting from a few, mostly Middle Eastern facilities in the 1960s, today almost 16,000 desalination plants are in operation in 177 countries, producing 95 million cubic meters of freshwater every day - equal to about half the flow over Niagara Falls.
Q&A: 17 Percent of the Problem, but 30 Percent of the Solution
From expansive evergreen forests to lush tropical forests, the Earth’s forests are disappearing on a massive scale. While deforestation poses a significant problem to the environment and climate, trees also offer a solution.
Wasting & Dining: the New Water Dilemma
Concerns about the supply side of food systems are shifting from insufficient production and supply, to issues likely to affect food production in the medium and long term, such as water risks, global warming and environmental consequences.
Climate Change Threatens Mexico’s Atlantic Coast
"I couldn't plant my cornfield in May, because it rained too early. I lost everything," lamented Marcos Canté, an indigenous farmer, as he recounted the ravages that climate change is wreaking on this municipality on Mexico's Caribbean coast.
A Salty Dilemma
As the threat of water scarcity increasingly grows, many have turned to the Earth’s plentiful oceans for a solution. However, this has created a new risk threatening public and environmental health: brine.
Why We Should Care about Vulnerable Coastal Communities
According to UN statistics, approximately 40 per cent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of the coast, and overall the world’s coastal population is increasing faster than the total global population. At the same time, global warming is causing sea levels to rise and increasing extreme weather incidents on coastlines.
Bangladesh starts its journey towards climate resilience
At the beginning of January 2019 Bangladesh started to take the required steps to become a climate resilient country by 2030 by achieving transformational adaptation to climate change impacts.
Climate Change-Induced Salinity Affecting Soil Across Coastal Bangladesh
As a country with a large coastline, the adverse impacts of saltwater intrusion are significant in Bangladesh. Salinity mainly affects land and water in the coastal areas.
Building Mongolia’s Green Future
The landlocked country of Mongolia sparks certain images in the mind—rolling hills with horses against a picturesque backdrop.However, the East Asian country is facing a threat that will change its landscape: climate change.
Argentina’s Indigenous People Fight for Land Rights
Nancy López lives in a house made of clay, wood and corrugated metal sheets, on private land dedicated to agriculture. She is part of an indigenous community of 12 families in northern Argentina that, like almost all such communities, has no title to the land it occupies and lives under the constant threat of eviction.
Q&A: ‘There’s a Lot More Climate Finance Available than People Think’
While growth in the green economy looks promising, government regulation and a business-as-usual approach are among the hurdles inhibiting cleaner energy production.
Oceans heating up at quickening pace: Study
The world's oceans are heating up at an accelerating pace as global warming threatens a diverse range of marine life and a major food supply for the planet, researchers said yesterday.
We Are All DukDukDiya: Humming Bird with One Drop of Water at a Time
There is a Quechan fable about a hummingbird named Dukdukdiya. During a fierce forest fire, while all other animals stood in stunned fear, Dukdukdiya alone took action by repeatedly carrying a single drop of water in her beak to the flames. When asked why she bothered with such paltry efforts, she replied that she was simply doing everything in her power to stop the fire.
A Closer Look at the World Bank’s Sizable China Portfolio
China continues to borrow an average of $2 billion a year from the World Bank, making it one of the Bank’s top borrowers—despite being the world’s second-largest economy and itself a major global lender, according to our study released today.
Climate Change: Complex Challenges for Agriculture
The unusually hot summer of 2018 showed that climate change affects a central part of our lives: agriculture. The severe drought in Liechtenstein led to large losses in the hay harvest.
Time for a new Paradigm
The person most qualified to write the foreword for the latest work by Riccardo Petrella, In the Name of Humanity, would actually be Pope Francis, who, using other words but speaking of values and making denouncements, has often argued what the reader will find in its pages.
Local Innovation Facilitates Solidarity-Based Biogas Networks in Cuba
Black plastic pipes, readily available on the mainly empty shelves of Cuba’s shops, distribute biogas to homes in the rural town of La Macuca, buried under the ground or running through the grass and stones in people’s yards.
Turning Mangrove Trees into Sustainable Assets for Myanmar
In 2015, Worldview International Foundation began a mangrove restoration project, planting saplings of the trees on about 121 hectares of land in Myanmar’s Ayyerwady region.
‘Slaves of the sea’
Employment in fisheries and aquaculture around the globe has grown faster than the world's population. The sector provides jobs to tens of millions and supports the livelihoods of hundreds of millions.
Solar Energy Crowns Social Housing Programme in Brazil
"Solar energy makes my happiness complete," said Divina Cardoso dos Santos, owner of one of 740 houses with photovoltaic panels on the rooftops in a settlement on the outskirts of this central Brazilian city.
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