The last hurrah
“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net-zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called…
COVID-19
Explainer: How China could offer ‘debt swaps’ to help developing nations tackle climate change
With the Covid-19 pandemic driving up government debt across many nations, there are growing calls for “debt swaps” to be used to help developing nations…
City climate leadership a model for sustainability
The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a plan of action. There are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 169 targets and 231 indicators…
Climate change will be sudden and cataclysmic. We need to act fast
Tipping points could fundamentally disrupt the planet and produce abrupt change in the climate. A mass methane release could put us on an irreversible path…
How do climate change, migration and a deadly disease in sheep alter our understanding of pandemics?
A new framework for pathogen evolution exposes a world much more vulnerable to disease outbreaks than we previously believed, but it also reveals new insights…
What Joe Biden’s US election victory means for climate change
Joe Biden’s US election victory has been hailed as a significant turning point in US policy on everything from racial injustice to the Covid-19 pandemic. But there are few…
The Impact of the Coronavirus on the Renewable Energy Industry
Scientists and experts around the globe agree that to mitigate the worst consequences of climate change, the world must transition to a 100 percent clean future powered by clean…
In a Fight Over a Colombian Coal Mine, Covid-19 Raises the Stakes
The Indigenous Wayuu people have long battled the Cerrejón coal mine. Amid Covid-19, they’re now appealing to the U.N. Luz Ángela Uriana’s voice trembled as she…
Without sustainable cities, global development goals will fail
Cities have been the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic, with little discrimination between more and less developed urban environments. More than 95 per cent of…
Biden’s election is good news for the climate. But what comes next?
Few images captured the mood of climate activists last week more vividly than a video posted to Twitter of Christiana Figueres, one of the architects…
Without ‘Transformative Change’ to Global Economic Systems, Humans Risk Causing More Deadly Pandemics
“There is a single species that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic—us,” write the authors, who have previously published planetary status reports from IPBES. “As…
A novel idea: integrating urban and rural safety nets in Africa during the pandemic
In countries across Africa, the public health restrictions imposed to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic have thrown many people out of work. Cities face the…
Next Up: The Climate Emergency
My new book went to press just as the coronavirus pandemic was starting. If I were still working on The Green New Deal and Beyond:…