Africa’s Great Green Wall effort gets $14 billion cash injection
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.
International community
Global carbon emissions fall by record 7% in 2020
Carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 fell by 7%, the biggest drop ever, the Global Carbon Project said in its annual assessment.
Elephantiasis cases cut by 150 million worldwide since 2000
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.
170 countries agree to ban HFCs in landmark climate change agreement
The agreement was seven years in the making. HFCs became common after ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) were phased out by the 1987 Montreal Protocol. Though the amount of HFCs released by humans into the atmosphere is small, HFCs are known as a “super greenhouse gas.” The chemical compound traps heat 1,000 times quicker than carbon dioxide.
Nations, fighting powerful refrigerant that warms planet, reach landmark deal
Negotiators from more than 170 countries on Saturday reached a legally binding accord to counter climate change by cutting the worldwide use of a powerful planet-warming chemical used in air-conditioners and refrigerators.
Global life expectancy and health improving
The Global Burden of Disease study, which shows the key drivers of ill health, disability and death in individual countries, found that by 2015, the world population had gained more than a decade of life expectancy since 1980 – rising to 69.0 years in men and 74.8 years in women.
Dozens of countries poised to drive out malaria by 2020
Success in Sri Lanka raises hopes that at least 30 other nations could follow suit, marking beginning of the end for disease that kills 400,000 every year
175 nations sign historic Paris climate deal on Earth Day
World leaders from 175 countries signed the historic Paris climate accord Friday, using Earth Day as a backdrop for the ceremonial inking of a long-fought deal that aims to slow the rise of harmful greenhouse gases.
“We are in a race against time.” U.N. secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the gathering at the United Nations headquarters in New York. “The era of consumption without consequences is over.”
World leaders adopt Sustainable Development Goals
At the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September 2015, more than 150 world leaders adopted the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
U.N. resolves to develop marine biodiversity treaty for the high seas
A landmark resolution was adopted earlier today by a consensus of UN member states, to develop a legally-binding treaty for the conservation of marine life beyond national territorial waters — that area of the ocean shared by all.