States Have a Duty to Prevent Significant Harm from Climate Change, ICJ Rules

23/07/2025 Disha Shetty

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Wednesday that states have a duty to prevent significant harm to the environment from climate change in a landmark advisory opinion. The court also ruled that the states have a duty to cooperate internationally and called on them to set national climate targets that are of the […] Continue reading ->

Billions Needed to Ensure Access to Clean Cooking Across Africa by 2040

21/07/2025 Disha Shetty

Achieving universal access to clean cooking across Africa will require $37 billion in cumulative investment to 2040, or roughly $2 billion per year, according to the roadmap laid out by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its latest report. The roadmap envisions that 60% of the energy for the newly connected households will come from […] Continue reading ->

Humanity Moves Into ‘Unknown” as Warming Earth Transgresses Planetary Boundaries

17/07/2025 Maayan Hoffman

After 2024 became the warmest year on record, with temperatures rising 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels for the first time ever, humanity is “moving into the unknown,” said Andy Haines, professor of environmental change and public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “We are now above the Paris Agreement’s preferred target […] Continue reading ->

Sand and Dust Storms are Taking a Rising Toll on Health and Economies

14/07/2025 Disha Shetty

In 2024, sand and dust storms affected 330 million people across 150 countries taking a toll on health and economies, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). While the annual mean dust surface concentrations was slightly lower in 2024 when compared to 2023, there were big regional variations. In the most […] Continue reading ->

The UN’s NCD Declaration Overlooks a Preventable Killer: Air Pollution

02/07/2025 Nina Renshaw & Alison Cox

Air pollution is barely acknowledged in the draft political declaration for the upcoming fourth UN High-Level Meeting on Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) and Mental Health. The omission of the world’s leading contributor to disease threatens global progress in tackling heart disease, respiratory diseases, stroke, cancer, and other chronic illnesses. Since the last UN General Assembly High-Level […] Continue reading ->

EXCLUSIVE: WHO Chief Names New Team of Directors – Mostly Familiar Faces

01/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher

World Health Organization Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced his new team of 36 directors at headquarters on Tuesday, according to an internal message to WHO staff, seen by Health Policy Watch. Nine of the appointments, including key positions heading the Departments of Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health, and the newly-combined Department of Environment, […] Continue reading ->

Animal Source Most Likely Origin of SARS-CoV2 but Missing Chinese Data Leave Findings Inconclusive: WHO Expert Group

27/06/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher & Stefan Anderson

A four year WHO-sponsored investigation of the origins of the COVID pandemic by an international group of experts has concluded that “most scientific data and accessible published scientific evidence” support the hypothesis that the novel SARS-CoV2 virus first entered the human population either directly from virus-carrying bats, or from bats to humans via intermediate hosts. […] Continue reading ->

World is Off Track to Achieve Universal Energy Access by 2030

25/06/2025 Kerry Cullinan

While almost 92% of the world’s population now has basic access to electricity – an improvement since 2022 – over 666 million people remain without access, and the world is off track to reach universal access by 2030, according to the Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2025 released on Wednesday. “Clean cooking access […] Continue reading ->

Asia is Warming Twice the Rate of Global Average, WMO Warns

23/06/2025 Disha Shetty

Asia, the world’s most populous continent, is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to the latest State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released on Monday. In 2024, Asia’s average temperature was about 1.04°C above the average for 1991 to 2020, ranking as […] Continue reading ->

Yellow Fever ‘Spillover’ from Animals in Amazon Basin is Fueling Cases in the Americas

16/06/2025 Sophia Samantaroy

The region of the Americas has seen eight times the number of yellow fever cases this year, compared to the same period in 2024. The vaccine-preventable, viral, mosquito-borne disease has surged as cases “spillover” from animals, according to a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) rapid risk assessment. Dense jungles in Colombia and Brazil have seen […] Continue reading ->