Biodiversity losses continue to upend the lives of billions of people whose future prosperity depends on countries taking urgent action to protect our planet, the top UN official leading talks at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Yerevan, said on Monday.

The UN Secretary-General has called for an end to the “war on nature”. On Monday, governments gathering in Yerevan, Armenia, will have to confront a more practical question: are they doing enough to win the peace and put the world’s biodiversity goals back on track?

Less than a month before the UN climate conference COP31 opens in Antalya, Türkiye, representatives of three successive summit presidencies gathered to address a pressing question: How can the world restore trust in climate action when the consequences of a warming planet are already being felt?

The United Nations Secretary-General appealed on Friday for governments, businesses and communities to accelerate efforts to protect biodiversity for future generations and all life on Earth.

Fewer than half of the national targets set to protect the world’s plants, animals and ecosystems are on track, the UN warns in a new report, days before countries gather in Yerevan, Armenia, for the COP17 biodiversity conference.

$228 billion is a staggering amount of money to find, but that’s exactly what communities around the world are faced with every year, to rebuild housing after disaster strikes.

For generations, farming in Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta has depended on a delicate bargain. The river flooded, retreated and flooded again, carrying freshwater and sediment across a flat landscape whose vast fields helped turn the country into one of the world’s leading rice exporters. 

Six weeks after Nepal’s deadly flooding disaster, communities are still struggling to rebuild their lives, but they will need sustained help as global warming increases the risk of another Himalayan catastrophe, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday. 

As world leaders prepare for November’s major COP31 climate summit in Türkiye, record-breaking heat, devastating floods and an unprecedented El Niño climate pattern are making global climate action ever more urgent.

Across Papua New Guinea, water sources are drying up, crops are failing and food prices are rising months before the worst agricultural impacts are expected. Behind those warning signs is an El Niño whose Pacific Ocean temperatures have already surpassed the equivalent measurements during the historic 1997 and 2015 events – part of an unfolding climate pattern being dubbed a “Super El Niño” by some climate watchers.

Should the world move away sharply from fossil fuels, or manage a slower, more careful retreat? 

Pregnancy and childbirth have become a “new fault line in the global climate crisis” as extreme heat worsens, the head of the UN climate action body (UNFCCC) warned on Monday, calling for maternal and newborn health to be built into countries’ climate plans. 

A documentary drawn from United Nations University research was screened at the COP30 climate conference and film festivals across Europe. Its most important journey, though, was the one back to the Mexico City canals where it was filmed.

Rotting food waste is causing up to 10 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions – five times more than the entire aviation sector, the UN’s environment agency warned this week.

The package originated in Entebbe, Uganda, bound for Cairo, containing 10 kilograms of thumb-sized pieces that could have been either bone or elephant ivory.

The continuing conflict in the Middle East is disrupting global energy markets and pushing up fuel prices, with knock-on effects far beyond the region.

World leaders approved the UN Declaration on Sea Level Rise by consensus on Thursday as the UN chief warned that encroaching waters are already threatening the future of coastal communities worldwide.

Sea level rise is among the most visible consequences of global warming, but for some countries, it is an imminent existential threat. World leaders approved a new declaration on Thursday while debating the best ways to strengthen international cooperation and support vulnerable low-lying nations most at risk.

“We are the first generation with the tools to end the fossil fuel age – and the last who can avert climate catastrophe,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday, calling on countries to draw up credible roadmaps with clear timelines to transition away from fossil fuels.

From deadly floods in the Himalayas to wildfires and extreme heat across Europe, 2026 has brought a succession of stark reminders of a changing climate. The task is immediate: Protect people from the impacts already unfolding while rapidly cutting the emissions of harmful gasses driving climate change. World leaders have been meeting on Wednesday to discuss how to turn those priorities into action.