The world has failed to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) declared on Wednesday. In a sprawling 141-page report, UNEP found there is no realistic pathway to prevent warming from exceeding the threshold. “The most stringent emission reduction pathways that were available around the […] Continue reading ->
The lung capacity of thousands of children stunted by traffic fumes on London’s streets recovered fully in the five years after the city imposed limits on its most polluting vehicles, a landmark study has found. The research, published Tuesday in The Lancet Public Health, tracked more than 3,400 children in London and Luton, a commuter […] Continue reading ->
When 175 countries unanimously voted in Nairobi in March 2022 to negotiate a legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution, the move was hailed as the most significant step in global environmental negotiations since the Paris climate accord. Now, a year to the day after two weeks of talks and a 24-hour final negotiating marathon […] Continue reading ->
As wildfires rage across continents, heatwaves claim thousands of lives and ocean temperatures shatter records, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Friday that the climate crisis has entered “overdrive.” “This is only a warm-up act,” he said. “El Niño is strengthening, adding fuel to a planet already on fire with scorching heat domes, apocalyptic wildfires […] Continue reading ->
Nine miles south of the picturesque French city of Bordeaux, firefighters are at war with a phenomenon straight out of an apocalyptic epic. Scientists call them pyrocumulonimbus, or PyroCbs. NASA calls them the “fire-breathing dragon of clouds”. The port capital of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, normally bustling with tourists at peak season, is instead drowned in smog, so […] Continue reading ->
Record-breaking dust storms sent pollution levels soaring in China and the US-Mexico border region in 2025, disrupting transport, shutting schools and airports, and sending thousands to emergency rooms, according to a new World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report. Overall, average dust concentrations in 2025 were similar to the previous year, but the regional extremes were severe, […] Continue reading ->
The explosive growth of artificial intelligence is siphoning off water and electricity supplies used by communities around the globe, and creating new sources of air pollution and climate emissions from additional power generation. Yet, experts and industry representatives claim that the technology holds the key to mitigating the very crises it compounds. Advanced algorithms are […] Continue reading ->
After years of stonewalling, the city is finally acknowledging the public health risks of air pollution – launching a major initiative to clean up emissions from the capital’s 10 million vehicles, along with stricter curbs on waste, construction and traffic during winter-time pollution peaks. The most radical measures include: banning new fossil fuel–powered 2 & […] Continue reading ->
On the day France recorded its hottest temperature on record, a coalition of health ministers, officials and advocates huddled in a sweaty, half-full auditorium in Paris to take stock of a campaign they have spent a decade waging: the fight to put human health at the centre of the world’s response to climate change. The […] Continue reading ->
A landmark UNICEF report that maps children’s exposure to overlapping climate hazards finds that almost half the world’s children – 1.1 billion kids – now contend with at least three threats at once. To reach school each morning, 15-year-old Lorna first has to swim across the Kemp Welch River, known to locals for its strong […] Continue reading ->