Global Environmental Crisis News

Life can’t function without insects. At least, not for long. Dutifully, they pollinate, break down waste, cycle nutrients, move seeds, and touch every node in the web of life, filling…

A letter from 200 top scientists to congressional leaders strongly urges lawmakers to reject a new draft policy which researchers say would destroy U.S. forests while adding dangerously to carbon emissions.

Scientists are already warning of gradual permafrost CO2 releases; but future abrupt thaws could send huge amounts of methane skyward, causing a surge in global temperatures.

‘Multinationals have cut the veins of our mother Earth,’ warned Pope Francis, urging conservation of the rapidly vanishing Amazon — but the world’s media barely took notice.

An intensification in fires, coupled with increasing deforestation and worsening climate change, could rapidly shift the Amazon toward being a carbon source by 2050.

The Amazon worst-case scenario has arrived, say leading researchers, as predicted signs of a shift from rainforest-to-savanna begin to be seen in real time on the ground.

Scientists warn that escalating deforestation due to mining, agribusiness and other human disturbance is reducing the ability of intact tropical forests to sequester carbon.

Analysts are calling the COP25 climate summit in Madrid a colossal failure — undermining the carbon reduction goals set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, leaving the world in mortal danger.

Two top officials have announced that after 2020 the EU will look at closing the biomass carbon neutrality loophole that has created a boom in emission-producing wood pellets.

Interviewed in Madrid, Will Gardiner, CEO of the UK’s largest biomass plant, said his firm leads way in energy decarbonization, despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

Even as delegates to COP25, the Madrid climate summit, sidestep the environmental and human rights goals of the Paris Agreement, a godly 71-year-old woman steps up.

Negotiators drafting Paris Agreement Article 6 rules appear to be assuring loopholes to up carbon emissions, turn forests into plantations, and failing to protect human rights.

Madrid negotiators plan to create rules for a global carbon market, but a failure so far to include forest incentives, and a silence on a biomass carbon accounting loophole could hinder progress.

Starting October 6, the Catholic Church will hold its first ever synod focused on an ecological biome. Bishops, indigenous leaders and activists will meet and set plans to help save the Amazon.

NEW YORK — Against the fitting backdrop of a hotter-than-average late September day in New York City, world leaders gathered at the United Nations yesterday to share what they were…

Research and recent events demonstrate that climate change is intensifying and destabilizing the annual monsoon, with impacts not just for India but the world.

During Climate Week, starting September 22 at the UN in New York City, interfaith leaders will unveil the Faiths for Forests Declaration, with a call to political action by global congregations.

Subsidizing burning wood for energy as having zero emissions puts us at risk of overshooting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target.

After two years of severe drought, lacking electricity and water, with a $500 annual budget, the Botanical Garden of Caracas struggles valiantly to protect its precious collection.

The climate crisis is bringing extreme storms, drought and temperatures to the High Plains, even as U.S. administrations from Clinton to Trump have withdrawn aid to reservations.

Near consensus found among 24 entomologists and scientists working on 6 continents: Insects are likely in serious global decline, but much more data needed.

The UK and EU say they plan to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, even as both pursue plans to burn massive amounts of carbon-producing wood pellets.

In the fourth and final story of this exclusive Mongabay series, entomologists around the world offer far ranging solutions to curb and reverse the great insect die-off.

Tropical insects are wildly diverse, but most species are unstudied or unknown, even as they’re heavily impacted by deforestation, climate change and pesticides.

The insects of the EU and US are the best studied in the world, and it is here that a strengthening case can be made for an alarming insect abundance decline.

Recent surveys hint at an insect apocalypse. But are insects at risk globally? Mongabay talks with 24 scientists on 6 continents to find out in an exclusive new series.

In a suit filed Monday, accusers say European nations burning wood pellets and chips for energy are putting the world at risk with carbon emissions greater than from coal burning.

Poland climate meeting addressed some issues, including Paris rulebook, but fell far short. UN’s António Guterres to convene special September climate action meeting in New York.

Jair Bolsonaro pledged to leave the Paris accord during his presidential run. But his Amazon agribusiness and mining expansion plans may pose a far bigger threat to forests and global climate.

Burning wood pellets, once deemed as carbon neutral, produces big CO2 emissions instead. But developed nations are cooking the books on bioenergy, toying with climate disaster.