United Nations News

Coal truck in western China. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Governments, NGOs, and others fighting climate change should consider buying coal and oil deposits—not to exploit them, but to keep…

An as yet unidentified species of gecko on the island of Java, Indonesia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. World leaders need to do much more to protect the Earth's millions…

Children in Dani village in West Papua, Indonesia. The Indonesian constitution gives the government ownership over all land and natural resources. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In the last twenty…

Deforestation in the Amazon for cattle pasture. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Twenty-two conservation, indigenous, health and science groups have called on U.S. President Barack Obama to attend the up-coming…

Suburban sprawl in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The average American's ecological footprint is the fifth highest in the world. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Human society is consuming natural resources as if…

A new video by Pew Environment Group and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) hopes to convince policy-makers attending the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development this summer that urgent action…

Livestock lay dead during the East Africa famine last year. Photo by: Oxfam East Africa. The UN warns that a million children in Africa's Sahel region face malnutrition due to…

Observations of planet Earth from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on July 11, 2005. Photo by: NASA. Seventeen top scientists and four acclaimed conservation organizations have called for radical…

Butterflies feeding on minerals in Uganda. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. If done well, REDD+ projects (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) may not only save carbon rich forests,…

Access to clean water is most difficult in Africa. Here a woman in Tanzania gathers water from a hole in a riverbed. Photo by: Bob Metcalf. Over the past two…

Burning in the Peruvian Amazon. Such burning produces significant soot (as well as carbon), which disrupts rainfall, poses health hazards, and warms the Earth. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Photo…

UNFF Director Jan McAlpine with winners Paulo Adario, Rhiannon Tomtishen, Madison Vorva, Paul Nzegha Mzeka, Shigeatsu Hatakeyama, and Anatoly Lebedev. Courtesy of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) The…

A village in South Sudan. Photo by: Steve Evans. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) have warned that South Sudan is facing a food…

Children in Madagascar. Seventy percent of Malagasy people suffer from malnutrition. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last year saw the highest average food prices since recording began in 1990, according…

Victories won by activists around the world tops our list of the big environmental stories of the year. In this photo: a young woman is placed in handcuffs and arrested…

Drought and erratic rains could lead to further food scarcities in Africa warns the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The WFP singles out South Sudan, the world's newest nation,…

A program proposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and degradation made mixed progress during climate talks in Durban. Significant questions remain about financing and safeguards to protect against…

Less than two days after signing on to a "road map" agreement at the UN Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa, Canada has announced it is formally withdrawing from the…

Click to enlarge. Early Sunday morning over 190 of the world's countries signed on to a new climate agreement at the 17th UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in…

New research announced at the 17th UN Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa finds that under current pledges for reducing emissions the global temperature will rise by 3.5 degrees Celsius…

Total carbon emissions for the first time hit 10 billion metric tons (36.7 billion tons of CO2) in 2010, according to new analysis published by the Global Carbon Project (GCP)…

View Larger Map The tar sands as seen from Google Earth near Fort McMurray, Alberta. Purchasing a full page ad in the Canadian paper the Globe and Mail, a group…

A new report from civil and environmental organizations highlights the top 20 banks that spend the most money on coal, the world's most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Released as officials from…

The Turkana tribe of northern Kenya in East Africa are buffeted by constant drought and food insecurity, which recent research says may be worsening due to climate change. Photo by:…

An effort to decrease emissions of the super greenhouse gas HFC-23 has led to a largely-false carbon market that should be eliminated, says the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). HFC-23 is…

In opening the 17th UN Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa yesterday, Jacob Zuma, president of the host country said that delegates must remember what is at stake. "For most…

Deforested peatlands in Indonesian Borneo. Indonesia has one of the world's highest rates of deforestation currently. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler . If governments commit to an international program to…

Sometime at the end of this month, the seventh billion person on Earth will be born: that's seven billions mouths to feed, seven billion throats to water, and seven billion…

Editor's note: the following statement was presented by Almir Surui Narayamoga of the Surui tribe to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on September 21, 2011. Translation by Rhett…

Reversing global forest decline will require private sector engagement and finance, argues a new report published by the United Nations and a coalition of more than 200 financial institutions. The…