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Women took the global stage on Tuesday to show that climate change isn’t gender neutral, and that climate action needs them: investing in women and girls creates ripple effects felt throughout entire communities and the frontline knowledge they possess is needed now more than ever, especially as new analysis has revealed that the announcements by world leaders at COP26 still leave our planet on the path to catastrophic global warming. 

With significant travel restrictions and large portions of personnel working from home in 2020, the UN system generated approximately 25 per cent fewer greenhouse emissions than in the year before. 

Written by Nadine Abi Zeid Daou

Although policies and planning for climate change adaptation are increasing, financing and implementation lag behind, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new report launched on Thursday. 

The Adaptation Gap Report 2021: The Gathering Storm calls for ramping up funding and action to address the growing impacts of climate change. 

Fittingly, the sun broke through the clouds over Glasgow on Thursday as delegations and participants prepared for ‘energy day’ at COP26, one of the key thematic sessions taking place during the UN climate summit.

Traveling from the city centre in the special electric bus provided by the organizers, the UN News team arrived at the venue to find activists outside the gates urging countries to end their dependence on coal, gas and oil. 

New vaccines are urgently needed against a common bacterium which is a major cause of preterm births, disability and babies’ deaths globally, according to a UN-backed report published on Wednesday. 

Group B streptococcus (GBS), which can be transmitted in the womb, is linked to around 150,000 deaths of babies each year, more than half a million preterm births and significant long-term disability. 

Effective action and strong leadership are essential to end child labour by 2025, the head of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Tuesday.

With world leaders expressing hope that the goal of supplying $100 billion a year in climate finance support for developing countries is within reach, the UN Secretary-General warned on Tuesday that the target would likely not be met until 2023 and would require additional funding after that. 

A pivotal pledge to save and restore our planet’s forests was officially announced on the second day of the COP26 World Leaders Summit, and with that deal came a long list of commitments from public and private sector actors to combat climate change, curb biodiversity destruction and hunger, and to protect indigenous peoples’ rights.

As the World Leaders Summit opened on day two of COP26, UN chief António Guterres sent a stark message to the international community. “We are digging our own graves”, he said, referring to the addiction to fossil fuels which threatens to push humanity and the planet, to the brink, through unsustainable global heating.

It was a grey and windy morning, as dozens of world leaders arrived at the Scottish Event Campus, of the key United Nations climate conference, in the city of Glasgow.