By Jonathan Watts 10 March 2020 (The Guardian) – Even large ecosystems the size of the Amazon rainforest can collapse in a few decades, according to a study that shows bigger biomes break up relatively faster than small ones. The research reveals that once a tipping point has been passed, breakdowns do not occur gradually […]
By Raphael Minder 24 February 2020 MADRID – Winds from the Sahara continued to send streams of sand drifting over the Canary Islands on Monday, creating chaos as the swirling sands forced planes to be grounded, disrupted traffic and exacerbated wildfires. Ángel Víctor Torres, the regional president of the islands, a Spanish archipelago, told Spanish […]
By Rodney Muhumuza 25 February 2020 KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – A small group of desert locusts has entered Congo, marking the first time the voracious insects have been seen in the Central African country since 1944, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency said Tuesday as U.N. agencies warned of a “major hunger threat” in East […]
By Madeleine Stone 14 February 2020 (National Geographic) – East Africa is in the midst of a crisis that sounds like something out of the Book of Exodus: A plague of locusts is spreading across the region, threatening the food supply of tens of millions. City-sized swarms of the dreaded pests are wreaking havoc as […]
6 February 2020 (Global Witness) – We are at the beginning of a year of climate spin by the British Government. This year, the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. While the Government claims to be a ‘climate leader’, we reveal how a little-known investment group funded by the […]
By Dharna Noor 3 February 2020 (Gizmodo) – East Africa is currently plagued with locust swarms of biblical proportions, but these swarms aren’t the act of an angry god. According to UN scientists, they may be a result of the human-caused climate crisis. Hundreds of millions of these spooky creatures are flying across East Africa. […]
By Valentina Romei 13 January 2020 LONDON (Financial Times) – With its low birth rate and fast-ageing population, Europe is facing a demographic crisis, one that economists fear could hit growth and public finances. While the global population overall is getting older, Europe is an extreme example of this trend, particularly in the continent’s south and […]
8 January 2020 (Munich RE) – 820 natural catastrophes caused overall losses of US$ 150bn, which is broadly in line with the inflation-adjusted average of the past 30 years. A smaller portion of losses was insured compared with 2018: about US$ 52bn. This was due, among other things, to the high share of flood losses, which are […]
ROME, 1 January 2020 (WFP) – Escalating hunger needs in sub-Saharan Africa dominate a World Food Programme (WFP) analysis of global hunger hotspots in the first half of 2020 with millions of people requiring life-saving food assistance in Zimbabwe, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central Sahel region in the coming months. […]
By Michael Carlowicz 17 December 2019 (NASA) – Southern Africa is suffering through its worst drought in several decades and perhaps a century. Diminished and late rainfall, combined with long-term increases in temperatures, have jeopardized the food security and energy supplies of millions of people in the region, most acutely in Zambia and Zimbabwe. According […]
