Bolivia’s second largest lake has been completely dried out since 2015. This is due to global warming, which is accelerating evaporation – already very high at 4,000 metres altitude – as well as the mining industry, which consumes a significant amount of water. The Uru Murato people are trying to [...]Read the full article
The global digital and energy transition is increasing the demand for minerals. At the same time, resistance against projects is rising, support networks are being woven and initiatives to guarantee the rights of communities and decent working conditions are being [...]Read the full article
After a 16-year legal battle, a court has ruled to dismiss the case of chlordecone poisoning in the French Antilles. This pesticide, used in the banana plantations from 1972 to 1993, despite its proven toxicity, continues to claim lives. But, be it in Paris or the French overseas departments, [...]Read the full article
The electrification of transport in Latin America is seeking to impact positively on the environment, equality and inclusiveness, but it also entails losses for workers, especially informal transport workers. The changes and the impact in terms of awareness are already being [...]Read the full article
“The fact that Turkey continues to buy plastic waste from the EU while producing so much plastic itself is due to the growth of the recycling sector. But there’s also another problem here. Research shows that only nine per cent of the plastic produced to date can be [...]Read the full article
Every year, thousands of ships around the world reach the end of their lives. The vast majority meet their end in South Asia, where, every year, almost 70 per cent of the vessels are dismantled on just three beaches, often with no regard for the workers’ health and [...]Read the full article
Unions and many environmentalists want to see all waste workers – including waste pickers – in decent working conditions, while ensuring that upstream workers are not left behind.Read the full article
Seven decades of exploitation by the world’s leading space agencies have left the Earth’s orbit cluttered with debris, which has been causing problems for the planet. These problems have been exacerbated by the private sector’s entry into the space race over the last five [...]Read the full article
In Brazil, the ecosystem of the Maricá restinga, a nature reserve 60 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro, could be disrupted by plans to develop a luxury resort, the environmental impact of which has been denounced by several researchers.Read the full article
The use of solid fuels is damaging to health and the environment. Despite the availability of clean cooking solutions and technologies, the prospects for improvement are compromised by successive crises, Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, and a lack of structural investment. In many countries, [...]Read the full article
In Montenegro, a single coal-fired power plant provides almost half the country’s electricity needs, but it may be forced to close if the country wants to meet its climate commitments.Read the full article
While some governments, development funders and business groups in South and South-East Asia are pushing for the increased use of incinerators to manage waste, informal workers are making their objections known – not only for environmental reasons but also because of the negative impact on waste [...]Read the full article
Fisherfolk in eastern Thailand have taken up the role of citizen scientists to document the long-lasting impacts of what is believed to be the biggest oil spill in the history of the country, and to obtain compensation from those [...]Read the full article
The country’s economic collapse has left four out of five Lebanese living below the poverty line. With power outages and shortages of essential goods commonplace, access to drinking water has become a daily emergency.Read the full article
Nea Pakarinen:If planned with care and co-created with citizens, nature-based solutions can be a revolutionary way to change our urban environments to be more sustainable and inclusive.Read the full article
The degradation of soil, water and air is accelerating across the globe. Do we have the time, resources and will to stem the tide of plastics and to protect biodiversity, air quality and even the alteration of light and darkness, on which virtually all forms of life are [...]Read the full article
Venezuela, an oil-producing power for many decades, is faced with the challenge of transitioning to green energy like the rest of the region. Its main obstacles are the lack of investment in technology and the absence of a national policy on the [...]Read the full article
In Europe, growing awareness of the social inequalities in exposure to air pollution is as yet to be translated into public policy, despite the work being done by scientists and citizens to analyse and raise consciousness about the impact on the most exposed [...]Read the full article
Tara Peel, political advisor at the Canadian Labour Congress, and John Mark Mwanika, programmes officer at Uganda’s Amalgamated Transport and General Workers’ Union, discuss the impacts of the climate crisis on workers in Uganda and [...]Read the full article
Waste pickers call for their voices to be heard in negotiations for a global treaty on plastics that some compare to the Paris climate agreement.Read the full article
Being an environmental activist in Russia has never been easy. Industrial pollution, environmental degradation and health problems are truths that the Russian government has always tried to hide. Recently, however, the repression of activists has become increasingly [...]Read the full article
The form of night lighting that humankind has adopted on a massive scale is not only excessive and inefficient but is also doing far more damage than we, from the comfort of our urban environments, tend to realise.Read the full article
Pressure is mounting on the maritime sector to reduce its environmental impact. With approximately 80 per cent of all goods transported by sea, the industry is looking to find viable solutions whilst sustaining global trade.Read the full article
With legislators and investors in the same boat, the wind is blowing in favour of insect farmers in Europe. The question now is: how far can they go?Read the full article
An estimated one in three products purchased online is returned within three months of purchase. This is the flip side of mass consumption: mass returns. It is easy and mostly free. But someone always pays.Read the full article
Although Costa Rica is widely applauded for its environmental policies, it is lagging behind in other areas linked to the environment, such as just transition.Read the full article
With an economy based on banking and tourism, Lebanon produces very little and therefore has to import 80 per cent of its consumer goods, including fertilisers, seeds and animal feed. To get by, farmers are developing ecological alternatives, but their options are [...]Read the full article
Environmental campaigners say that the new airport plan is at odds with the government’s commitment to reduce emissions and become carbon neutral by 2050.Read the full article
Ma Jun is the father of environmental activism in China. The degradation of the landscapes of his childhood led him to embark on an unexplored path: transparency in industrial data.Read the full article
Mexico is reluctant to part with fossil fuels. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s energy strategy is firmly committed to new hydrocarbon projects and the generation of dirty energy, to the detriment of renewable sources such as wind and solar [...]Read the full article
A new crop of professionals in the region are developing and engaging in new projects to help communities, the environment, and to make a difference.Read the full article
“Calls to take action on sustainable fuels and climate change are increasing, destinations are taking steps to ban cruises or regulate access, and the effects of mass tourism are becoming increasingly visible.”Read the full article
Argentina’s trade unions are faced with the challenge of putting a just energy transition on the agenda, a transition combining sustainability with the principles of social and environmental justice.Read the full article
The Murcian lagoon is one of the most striking examples of the clash between the European Union’s environmental and agricultural policies: the intensive agriculture it promotes is a clear threat to the sustainability of watercourses and aquatic [...]Read the full article
Bert De Wel:“While just transition is a concept that is often associated with workers in fossil fuel industries that are in decline or expected to decline, the concept goes well beyond this.”Read the full article
In a yet-to-be-signed memorandum of understanding, Argentina and China have laid out plans to set up 25 macro pig farms in the South American country, which would multiply by 14 the number of pigs there. The province of Chaco is already moving ahead with the signature of an agreement with a [...]Read the full article
Ernestas Oldyrevas :While producers need to take responsibility for the products they put on the market, only legislation can make sure that repairable devices become the new normal. And right to repair for all is how we get there.Read the full article
Annick Berger:The international community gave itself ten years to protect biodiversity effectively. In 2020, the situation is catastrophic. The year 2021 must be the turning point in the fight to protect species and to combat climate change, with the adoption of a new global [...]Read the full article
Despite having shut down the majority of its reactors following the fatal accident in Fukushima, Japan’s commitment to nuclear energy remains firm. The government is now being urged to construct a nuclear disposal site and the top contenders for its location are villages with ageing populations [...]Read the full article
“I feel that we can do more than go on strike…but in the end, we have the same goal as Greta: changing students’ behaviour and society’s mindset when it comes to climate change.”Read the full article
Burning the wires and cables of end-of-life electrical goods and electronics is incredibly toxic and completely unregulated, with workers at Agbogbloshie suffering burns and the dangerous effects of air, soil and water pollution.Read the full article
In 2013, year zero of the ethical awakening in the fashion industry, absolutely everyone – brands, states, consumers – came to know about the dismal and perilous conditions in the factories that dress our shop windows. The current health emergency is exposing the seams of inadequate [...]Read the full article
We have developed a world that serves the interests of present generations at the expense of future generations and although intergenerational justice is making gradual progress, it is still faced with major obstacles.Read the full article
The coronavirus pandemic, and our concerns about contact with people and things, has reopened the debate about single-use plastic. Even the most well-meaning consumers have gone back to it, following the reinvigorated campaign led by the plastics [...]Read the full article
Lebanon, in the throes of a banking, monetary and financial crisis, is looking for a ray of light at the bottom of the sea. In February, it began exploring potential oil and gas deposits beneath the seafloor. But given the complex web of geostrategic interests, among other issues, ensuring the [...]Read the full article
Nazaret Castro:In the mid-20th century, the so-called Green Revolution changed humanity’s relationship with agriculture. Three decades later, the model adapted to the financialisation of the economy and agribusiness was born. This went on to take root across the [...]Read the full article
In Sundarbans (in Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, as well as one of the country’s worst affected by climate change) a combination of a rising sea level and river erosion is submerging entire villages and causing the forced displacement of millions of [...]Read the full article