Transition and international trade: China’s role at COP30
From Belém - At COP30 in Belém, global trade was for the first time explicitly included in climate negotiations. It was inevitable: the transition is no longer just a matter of climate...
Cúpula dos Povos: a no to Mercosur from the heart of the Amazon
The 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place in a location that is at once symbol and battleground of the ongoing crisis: the Amazon. The forest, a treasure trove of biodiversit...
Startup, SurplusMap: Making Electric Charging in Europe More Sustainable
SurplusMap designs smarter, more sustainable charging infrastructure. Founded by Luis de Ita Maubant and Reiner van Gageldonk, the Norwegian startup has developed a platform that combines big data, ...
Ukraine demands $43 billion from Russia for environmental damage caused by the war
No silence is more haunting than the one following an explosion. It does not only concern what war takes away from human life, but also what it takes away from nature: forests turned to ash, fields ...
Ukraine, a Top-Secret Reconstruction
The pot is large. In fact, huge: 524 billion dollars. Roughly equivalent to the GDP of the United Arab Emirates. According to the World Bank, this is the cost of rebuilding Ukraine over the next dec...
Building a Net-Zero Nation: A Look at the Current State of Malaysia's Greenest Structures
As Malaysia charts its course towards an ambitious net-zero emissions target by 2050, the nation's buildings have been thrust into the spotlight. Accounting for over half of the country's electricit...
Animal testing: Nearly 400,000 fish used in EU chemical tests
A total of 382,000 fish have been used in completed, ongoing and pending tests required under the European REACH regulation (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) to ...
The importance of social determinants: How inequality makes pandemics more deadly
“The paradox is that a risk that makes us all equal reveals, at the same time, how unequal we are,” reads the book Pandemocracy: A Philosophy of the Coronavirus by Spanish philosoph...
Omnibus I, green light from the European Parliament: EU sustainability and democracy at risk
From Brussels - On Thursday 13 November, the European Parliament green-lit Omnibus I, the legislative package pushed by the European Commission with the avowed purpose of “simplifying” t...
EIB and Gruppo CAP sign €100 million deal to modernise Lombardy’s water systems
The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Gruppo CAP have signed a €100 million finance agreement to support the company’s 2025–2030 investment plan. The announcement was made by EIB D...
Water crisis: the subtle rise of managed aquifer recharge
They allow water to be stored in its most precious reservoir, the subsoil, with lower environmental impacts and costs than surface aquifers. Yet, for decades, managed aquifer recharge (MAR) tec...
Elizabeth A. Koch: “Who is missing from the rooms of water diplomacy?”
For much of modern history, water diplomacy has been a predominantly male domain. From engineers, hydrologists, and agronomists designing irrigation systems to the “hydro-bureaucrats” ma...
UNEP: “Recognising ecocide as war crime or crime against humanity”
Dead lands do not forget. They record each bomb, each contaminant, each burned hectare like a new geological layer of violence. They are the most accurate archives of war, much more reliable than mi...
COP30, climate change and forced migration in Latin America
Climate change not only destroys territories and ecosystems — it deepens historical inequalities and forces millions of people to move. In Latin America and the Caribbean, where structural pov...
Turning water from a problem into a resource: the challenge of sustainable cities
To counter climate change, we must rethink the way we design and experience our cities: public health, the environment, urban planning and innovation must converge in a single “One Health&rdqu...
COP30, how does the future look for the negotiations?
Climate negotiations are celebrating their 30th anniversary, with the start of the COP in Belém, Brazil, today, Monday 10 November. For the first time in years, I will be following a UNF...
Tropical Forest Forever Fund: the controversial Brazilian project at the core of COP30
It is Lula's crowning achievement, his political legacy for the Amazon: a mega forest fund, the first of its kind, superior to any previous initiative, including the REDD+ carbon credit mechanism. I...
From promises to action: COP30 must deliver where others have fallen short
When world leaders meet this November in Belém, deep in the heart of the Amazon, for the 30th UN Climate Conference (COP30), they will stand at a crossroads. Ten years after the Paris Agreeme...
Water at the heart of COP30: what to expect after the Baku turning point
Within the global debate on the climate crisis, water represents a central paradox. According to experts, it is the element through which approximately 70% of the impacts of climate change manifest ...
BRICS at a crossroads: mutual recognition or Article 6?
Relatively little attention was paid in the Western media to the BRICS summit held in Kazan, Russia, in 2024. Within the course of that summit, the BRICS Partnership on Carbon Markets was launc...