This archive collects stories in which the international community — nations, multilateral bodies, and coalitions acting collectively — plays a central role in driving positive change. Coverage spans diplomacy, global agreements, humanitarian efforts, and cross-border cooperation that produce measurable progress.
“This is a historic step forward towards transforming how we view and value nature. We will no longer be heedlessly allowing environmental destruction and degradation to be considered economic progress” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Hydrogen is on the rise as a green fuel source. Two-thirds of the global hydrogen production expected to be operational in 2030 has been announced in the last year.
That meant a rise from 2.5% market share in 2019 to 4.2% share of the global light-duty vehicle market in 2020.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries initially restricted food exports, raising concerns that poor consumers in net food-importing countries would face difficulties in accessing food.
The Great Green Wall project seeks to restore a massive strip of desert stretching 5,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Red Sea by planting trees and grasslands.
Carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 fell by 7%, the biggest drop ever, the Global Carbon Project said in its annual assessment.
Over the last 20 years, however, the number of people infected has dropped by 74%, from 199 million to 51.4 million, and last year three countries—Malawi, Kiribati, and Yemen—eliminated it altogether.
The Kigali HFC deal, signed in Rwanda’s capital on October 15, 2016, brought more than 170 nations together to phase down hydrofluorocarbons — coolants that trap heat roughly a thousand times more effectively than carbon dioxide. Analysts estimated the agreement could prevent up to half a degree Celsius of warming by 2100, a rare binding win for climate diplomacy.
Global life expectancy climbed past a decade between 1980 and 2015, with men reaching 69 years and women nearly 75, according to the Global Burden of Disease study. Childhood deaths halved since 1990, and malaria mortality dropped by roughly 60% after 2000. A quiet reminder that coordinated effort, over time, bends the curve.
The Paris climate agreement opened for signature on April 22, 2016, when 175 countries signed on a single day — more than any treaty had drawn at its opening ceremony. Ban Ki-moon chose Earth Day’s 46th anniversary deliberately, linking decades of grassroots activism to international law and marking a new phase in global climate cooperation.
