The IPCC’s stark warning that we have only 12 years to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius seems to have fallen on deaf ears, which will have dire consequences and trigger climate crises in vulnerable regions like Africa.

With thousands of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean in 2018, successfully identifying victims requires practical steps towards a coordinated regional response that overcomes bureaucratic ambiguity and administrative inaction.

As part of a pattern of recent international agreements which tend to be high on ambition and low on hard law, the Global Compact on Migration could be both a warning for future diplomacy and a conceptual framework for those who would like to see a rational approach to migration emerge over time.

Spurred on by a mandate given to the United Nations University in the UN Secretary-General’s Strategy on New Technologies, the UNU Centre for Policy Research has created the “AI and Global Governance Platform” as an inclusive space for researchers, policy actors, corporate and thought leaders to explore where artificial intelligence fits into global governance.

To better prepare for extreme floods and droughts, scalable “nature-based-solutions” for water management may be especially relevant in developing countries, where water-related disaster vulnerability has risen to unprecedented levels and impacts will be most acutely felt.

A water, sanitation, and hygiene initiative with an indigenous community in Malaysia shows the power of active and responsive community engagement and demonstrates how a shift in mentality must take place to bridge the gap between bottom-up initiatives and top-down policies.

As long as we accept that more roads are an easy answer for issues of urban congestion and economic growth, we will ignore the long-term land use, social equity, and mobility problems we are creating.

To tackle the water quality data gap, extensive government water monitoring networks could shift to additionally gather project data through citizen-led monitoring activities.

If governments do not embrace unconventional water resources, achieving SDG 6 will be as difficult as getting water from a stone — and the consequences for water-scarce regions will be dire.

World Water Day 2018 is a reminder that global water security will not be achieved through business-as-usual approaches, and will depend on efforts to use and expand nature-based solutions.

The potential to achieve Sustainable Development Goal water targets will depend on a hybrid of technologies that improve water measurements and data underpinning indicators of progress.

For decades, China has successfully implemented afforestation programmes to counter desertification. But, while planting more trees will reduce erosion, it is also worsening China’s water crisis.

At the two-year mark of the Sustainable Development Goals, a new policy support system provides authoritative evidence to help governments set clear paths to achieving water-related targets.

The Sendai Framework, while falling short of expectations on many fronts, took some important steps towards integrating lessons from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Experiences from Fukushima show that providing channels for public participation and dialogue is a crucial first step towards ensuring a sustainable recovery for communities impacted by complex disasters.

Knowing how key resilience is following a disaster, small-scale fishers of Japan’s Tohoku region offer support to Chile’s artisanal fishers impacted by a recent tsunami.

The Ministry of the Environment of Japan and UNU collaborate to produce a video documentary about the decontamination efforts in areas affected by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Documentary filmmaker Kaori Brand reflects on the experience of producing this 30-minute video on the recovery efforts of the fishing communities hit by the March 2011 tsunami.

The resilience demonstrated by communities in Japan’s Tohoku region may be one of the best modern-day lessons on what the rest of the world can do to prepare for disasters and the consequences of climate change.