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Beekeeping relieves land degradation in Kyrgyzstan
Climate
To power up or power down? That is the question
Should we try to triple energy supply by 2100 or do we need to halve it? At the same time, how can we ensure that we produce zero carbon emissions?
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Ethiopia’s soleRebels handcraft eco shoes and win
Hand-crafted eco-sensible shoes spell success for an Ethiopian footwear maker whose 90 employees are paid four times the minimum wage.
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Climate
Canadian watershed facing climate and development threats
A new expert report highlights the threats faced by a fragile resource-rich river basin.
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Climate
French town makes environment everyone’s business
Citizens are part of the equation as Besançon sets its sights on reducing energy use and cutting greenhouse gases.
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Oil
IEA’s Didier Houssin: the world’s energy future is not hopeless
The International Energy Agency's director of sustainable energy policy has some gloomy predictions yet still a bit of hope.
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Food
World Environment Day: Sharing our common fruit
To mark World Environment Day's "Think, Eat, Save" theme, meet an online community that maps forgotten, abandoned, unused fruit.
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Food
Globalized agricultural trade and food security
New research decouples agricultural production and consumption to quantify countries' dependence on food imports.
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Climate
Peer-to-peer mobility and a physical internet
To celebrate Global Sharing Day, here is a look at how emerging solutions could see personal mobility and the transport of goods transformed by peer-to-peer thinking.
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Climate
Could radio help mitigate climate change in the Congo Basin?
Radio is educating Central Africa's hard-to-reach communities on climate change impacts and adaptation strategies.
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Informal recycling of e-waste a serious problem, expert says
An interview with UNU researcher Deepali Sinha Khetriwal about the hazards of informal e-waste recycling.
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More of less: Calling for a more conscious lifestyle
A Q&A with sociologist, economist and author Juliet Schor about creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale, high-satisfaction economy.
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Biodiversity
Urbanites help sustain Japan’s historic rice paddy terraces
Rural–urban cooperation and branding initiatives aim to reinvigorate a traditionally important rice-growing region.
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Climate
Climate change: Human disaster looms, claims new research
A new Oxford-led study forecasts a 4C rise in global temperature with catastrophic consequences.
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Climate
Climate research nearly unanimous on humans’ role, survey finds
Of 4,000+ academic papers published over 20 years, 97.1 percent agree that humans are impacting climate.
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Oil
Are smart grids an energy game changer?
Computerized “smart grids” could be a boon to the global deployment of decentralized renewable energy. But are they there yet?
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Climate
Climate change’s ‘evil twin’: Ocean acidification
A new comprehensive study outlines how the Arctic Ocean is rapidly acidifying, due to CO2 emissions.
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Protecting carbon to destroy forests? Land enclosures and REDD+
A new report argues that REDD+ gives forest destroyers a way to legitimize their actions and reinforces historical inequalities.
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Open Tech can empower local production
Worker-owned Open Tech Forever aims to enable locally-owned open source companies to out-compete big businesses that import unsustainable products.
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Monetising human waste and 101 (slightly) crazy other ideas
Grants of $100,000 to 102 outside-the-box ideas to improve global health could spell world-changing breakthroughs.
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Biodiversity
Farming with fire: Revaluing a Japanese agricultural tradition
Researchers are finding merit in a traditional practice that uses fire to prepare and enrich soil.
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Biodiversity
Bee-harming pesticides banned in Europe
In an effort to protect bee populations, Europe will implement a continent-wide ban on some commonly used insecticides.
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Social inclusion in Mexico’s PET plastic recycling
Mexico's PET recycling industry is working with waste pickers and showing how this can generate not just profit but social and environmental benefits.
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Closing the loop for those losing sleep about garbage
Tired of worries over trash, one enviro studies student has a vision that includes re-embracing frugality, anaerobic digestion and high-tech gasification.
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Fukushima faces long road to repair
As the IAEA concludes an initial review of cleanup efforts at the Fukushima nuclear plant, it is clear that its decommissioning will be a decades-long task.
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Female education: A solution for a crowded planet
Empirical evidence from around the developing world shows that educating women is key in curbing population growth.
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Climate
Desertification crisis affecting 168 countries worldwide, study shows
Severe land degradation is now affecting 168 countries across the world, says a new UN report.
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How to start a repair café
Is your this-or-that broken and you'd rather not buy a new one? Joining up with neighbours is a great way to discover local repair resources.
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Oil
Oil crunch and Eurozone crisis
The European Greens raise concerns about the possible impacts of peak oil.
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The ecozoic city
A growing global movement is seeing city dwellers tackling practical projects that reconnect them with the ecosystems and natural sources upon which life depends.
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Climate
Climate change will threaten wine production, study shows
Rising global temperatures will make it much harder to grow grapes in traditional wine regions.
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Assessing and improving China’s e-waste problem
A UNU-ISP study investigates the actors, policies and progress surrounding management of waste electrical and electronic equipment in China.
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Biodiversity
Hunting for a solution
For a growing number of people living in tropical forest regions, wild animal meat, also called bushmeat, is increasingly becoming a dietary staple.
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Climate
US unveils major new proposal to cut vehicle emissions
The US EPA has put forward a long-awaited plan to require cleaner gasoline and more effective vehicle technologies.
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Climate
Are cows climate killers?
Livestock farming is a major industry in many parts of the world, but scientists are still divided on how much it contributes to global warming.
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Biodiversity
The city as urban reef
In this contest-winning essay, a young scholar spotlights the dichotomy between city and reef. Need there be such a sharp division, when sea and shore actually share flows of resources?
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China’s exploitation of Latin American natural resources raises concern
Latin America's economy and environment are at odds due to China's swelling resource demands.
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The Gross Domestic Problem
Lorenzo Fioramonti talks to us about his book, which analyzes the politics behind (and aims to popularize critique of) Gross Domestic Product.
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Nations urged to combine environmental and development goals
Will the post-2015 SDGs expand beyond poverty alleviation to promote environmental governance, ecology and climate?
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Sustainable development goals and our fascination with mega-targets
Two UNUers dissect the occasionally contradictory rhetoric to see what is shaping the forthcoming SDGs.
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Food
Agricultural heritage across the millennia
Linking local history and traditions to modern agriculture can revitalize land management with community pride and sustainable practices.
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