Healthcare systems often face an additional burden during heatwaves, heightening the need for mitigation methods to help urban populations safely navigate the summer.

Unchecked human interaction with natural ecosystems can lead to a loss of biodiversity and increase the risk of infectious disease, yet proper management of green spaces can support sustainable development and human well-being.

The increased need for peacekeeping as a result of conditions created by COVID-19 presents the UN an opportunity to adapt peace operations and models to meet the conflicts of the future.

While COP 26 has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments must continue climate action efforts with adjusted milestones and alternative collaboration methods.

While regulations and policies to combat the growing e-waste problem have been steadily increasing, the amount of e-waste generated annually continues to increase at a rapid pace.

Current data on the interlinkages between water, climate change, conflict, and migration can help inform policymaking to improve the well-being of migrants and populations in vulnerable settings.

Rather than strictly duplicating lockdown policies from higher income contexts, developing countries will need to adapt their COVID-19 response to local socio-economic circumstances. 

Despite expert consensus that high inequality destabilises societies and undermines democracy, not enough is being done to curtail this growing, global issue.

By heightening risks for those already exploited, increasing the risks of exploitation, and disrupting response efforts, the COVID-19 pandemic could greatly impact the fight against modern slavery.

By prioritising a global crisis coordination mechanism, response-critical people and goods transportation, a global fiscal stimulus, and commitment by global leaders, the G20 can help lead a path out of the COVID-19 crisis.

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.