2025 was another historic year-making headlines for disastrous wildfires in Los Angeles, catastrophic floods in Texas, and deadly heatwaves in Europe and Asia. But it was also a year of collaboration-with researchers, scientists, policymakers, students and others coming together to share ideas and plans to address the effects of climate change, during Climate Week NYC and COP30, among other initiatives.
South Africa has sought to preserve the integrity and stature of the Group of 20 (G20) top economies, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said in opening remarks to the historic summit in Johannesburg, the first on the African continent. Ramaphosa said on Saturday that South Africa is committed to ensuring that the development priorities of the Global South and Africa find expression in the group's agenda. list of 4 itemsend of list The president added there is an overwhelming consensus
Developing countries are looking at developed countries as countries that could be much more generous in supporting them to be more sustainable. They could offer more finance, and technology. This does not necessarily involve an increase in the headline amount of money to be provided directly from rich world coffers, set last year at $300bn (230bn) a year by 2035. It could also come from better use of existing finance, Correa do Lago added.
A decade on from the Paris Climate Agreement, countries are making uneven-but-visible climate progress as per capita emissions edge downward, renewable energy surges, and more than 100 countries adopt net-zero targets, the latest Climate Change Performance Index has found. But the report found that momentum still falls short of what's needed to meet the Paris goal of holding global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) and ideally 1.5 C above preindustrial levels.
Protesters blockaded the main entrance to the Cop30 climate conference for several hours early on Friday morning, demanding to speak to Brazil's president about the plight of the country's Indigenous peoples. About 50 people from the Munduruku people in the Amazon basin blocked the entrance with some assistance from international green groups, watched by a huge phalanx of riot police, soldiers and military vehicles.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
With the once-familiar pillars of the old world order crumbling and the US stepping away from action on climate crisis, it falls to others to assume global environmental leadership. Those leaders who understand the urgency should seize the opportunity afforded by Brazil hosting Cop30 this month to build a coalition of committed countries determined to turn back the climate deniers.
Richard Muyungi, the climate envoy and adviser to the president of Tanzania, said: Africa is ready to be part of [the global fight to stave off climate breakdown] provided we are supported with finance, technology and capacity-building. There has been an increase of investments in some areas but Africa still needs a lot of financing to be able to be part of the global solution, and to address the challenges we are facing.
Spending more on defence will be pointless unless western governments also tackle the climate crisis in poor countries, the UN's departing chief of international development has warned. The more you restrict your ability to act by simply focusing on what's happening inside your country, the more vulnerable you become, said Achim Steiner, who recently completed his second term as administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which works on overseas aid and lifting people out of poverty.
The cap-and-invest program, authorized by landmark legislation (Assembly Bill 32) in 2006, sets a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions from the state's largest polluters. Companies with large amounts of emissions must buy allowances through a carbon market, creating a financial incentive to pollute less and invest in cleaner technologies. The system works: it's driven emissions reductions, generated revenue and made California a model for climate action.
I was super happy when I received the news. It was so unexpected because I knew that so many people were applying since it was the first M.S. in Climate Finance in the U.S. It was good news, not only for me, but also for the nonprofit sector. We don't have these two topics together in many universities. I'm working for an NGO that does worldwide conservation.
