Map showing early warning hunger hotspots, June-November 2023. Hunger was set to worsen in 18 “hotspots” worldwide including Sudan, where fighting put people at risk of starvation, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a report published on Monday, 29 May 2023. Sudan, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Mali were elevated to the highest alert level, joining Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Graphic: UN FAO

UN agencies warn of rising hunger risk in 18 “hotspots” – “Not only are more people in more places around the world going hungry, but the severity of the hunger they face is worse than ever”

29 May 2023 (UN News) – Hunger is set to worsen in 18 “hotspots” worldwide including Sudan, where fighting is putting people at risk of starvation, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a report published on Monday. Sudan, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Mali have been elevated to the highest alert level, joining Afghanistan, Nigeria, […]

Houses abandoned at Al-Bouzayad village in Iraq’s Diwaniya province due to climate change-driven drought. Photo: AFP

Iraq’s climate migrants flee parched land for crowded cities – “Thousands of hectares have been abandoned”

KARBALA, Iraq, 9 May 2023 (AFP) – Mr Haydar Mohamed once grew wheat and barley, but Iraq’s relentless drought has forced him off the land and into the city where he now works in construction and drives a taxi. “The transition is difficult,” said Mr Mohamed, 42, who abandoned village life several years ago for […]

Global annual mean temperature anomalies with respect to pre-industrial conditions (1850-1900) for six global temperature data sets (1850-2022). Graphic: WMO

WMO annual report highlights continuous advance of climate change – “While greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the climate continues to change, populations worldwide continue to be gravely impacted by extreme weather and climate events”

Geneva, 21 April 2023 (WMO) – From mountain peaks to ocean depths, climate change continued its advance in 2022, according to the annual report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Droughts, floods, and heatwaves affected communities on every continent and cost many billions of dollars. Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record […]

Coastal anemones found side-by-side with pelagic (open ocean) gooseneck barnacles and pelagic bryozoans on a derelict fish crate recovered from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Photo: Linsey Haram / Smithsonian Institution

Ocean plastic pollution reaches “unprecedented” levels – The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now so huge and permanent that a coastal ecosystem is thriving on it – “The problem is getting bigger and bigger by the minute”

By Ivana Kottasová 18 April 2023 (CNN) – Scientists have found thriving communities of coastal creatures, including tiny crabs and anemones, living thousands of miles from their original home on plastic debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a 620,000 square mile swirl of trash in the ocean between California and Hawaii. In a new study published in the Nature […]

Ni-Vanuatu are continuing to rebuild after twin cyclones struck the island nation in February 2023. Photo: Trix Roberts

UN backs landmark Pacific-led resolution clearing way for International Court of Justice advisory opinion on climate obligations

By Prianka Srinivasan, Fred Hooper and Melissa Maykin 29 March 2023 (ABC) – The United Nations has adopted a landmark resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to deliver an opinion on climate change and the legal consequences countries face for harming the environment. It is the culmination of a four-year push led by […]

A graveyard that has been washed into the sea due to coastal erosion at Monkey River, a coastal village in south-east Belize. Photo: Andrea Ocampo / UN Video

Saving a Belize village from man-made erosion – “I don’t want to see more graves go to the sea”

8 January 2023 (UN News) – “My grandma and my grandfather are now washed out in the sea,” says Mario Muschamp, gazing out at the coast near his close-knit Creole community. “You know, their graves are gone. That really hurts.” This is the reality for the inhabitants of Monkey River, who have watched on, powerless, […]

The Doomsday Clock in 2023. In 2023, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the clock to 90 seconds from midnight, the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been. Graphic: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

2023 Doomsday Clock statement: A time of unprecedented danger – It is 90 seconds to midnight

By John Mecklin 24 January 2023 (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) – This year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward, largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine. The Clock now stands at 90 seconds […]

Network map showing followers for key amplifiers of climate disinformation during COP27, grouped by common traits or identifying factors. Network mapping around COP26 showed that, among accounts following key climate misinformers on Twitter, 7.5 percent were primarily focused on climate - for COP27 the cluster constitutes a mere 0.33 percent. The shift reveals how right-wing ‘culture war’ influencers are becoming the most prominent voices in spreading climate misinformation. Such content drives an ecosystem in which environmental issues, including COP summits, can more easily be framed and amplified as a polarising topic - a trend covered in depth by a recent peer-reviewed paper in Nature Climate Change. Overall, the audience for key misinformation influencers has a similar composition to last year’s COP26 network. Accounts in the ‘U.S. Conservative’ cluster comprise the largest portion of the map, including highly influential pundits like Dinesh D’Souza (2.9m followers) and Tom Fitton (1.9m followers) alongside elected officials like House Rep. Lauren Boebert (2m followers) who focus on broadly right-wing “culture war” issues. Taken together, the US, UK, and Canada Conservative clusters make up 72.25 percent of the overall network. While climate issues do not dominate their content strategy, these accounts do share related misinformation during key climate-related events, including COP, or as part of wider outputs. Climate content regularly features alongside other misleading, disproven and/or unsubstantiated claims on an array of topics, including around electoral fraud, vaccinations, the COVID-19 pandemic, migration, and child trafficking rings run by so-called ‘elites’ Graphic: Climate Action Against Disinformation / Graphika

Climate crisis misinformation is thriving on Elon Musk’s Twitter, research shows

By Beatrice Nolan 20 January 2023 (Insider) – Misinformation about the climate crisis is flourishing on Elon Musk’s Twitter, according to a study: Deny, Deceive, Delay Vol. 2: Exposing New Trends in Climate Mis- and Disinformation at COP27.[pdf]. The study, published on 19 January 2023 by Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), said Twitter was recommending the […]

Cyrille Honoré, head of the WMO Disaster Risk Reduction and Public Services Branch. Photo: Stanley Honoré

“Brutal” temperature changes are the new normal, says UN meteorological agency – Interview with Cyrille Honoré

6 January 2023 (UN News) – The rapid 10-degree Celsius rise in temperature across large parts of Europe before Christmas was “brutal” but it could be the shape of things to come, the UN Meteorological Organization WMO, said on Friday. In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Cyrille Honoré, head of the UN agency’s […]

FAO Food Price Index in real terms, 1961-2022. In 2022, the U.N. organization’s Food Price Index hit the highest level since its records began in 1961, according to FAO data. Data: UN FAO. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

Global food prices in 2022 hit record high amid drought, war

ROME, 6 January 2023 (AP) – Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oils were the highest on record last year even after falling for nine months in a row, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said, as Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors drove up inflation and worsened hunger worldwide. The FAO […]

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