In 2024, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) recorded 393 natural hazard-related disasters. These events caused 16,753 fatalities and affected 167.2 million people. Economic losses totaled US$241.95 billion. The year 2024 was marked by extreme temperature events in Asia that caused thousands of deaths, severe droughts in Africa affecting over 25 …
GGGI launched an Insight Brief titled ‘Mind the Gap: Bridging the Climate Financing Gap with Innovative Financial Mechanisms’. This report aims to advance the public sector’s understanding of innovative financial mechanisms by examining their function, characteristics, and use. Compared with the total investment required over the next fifteen years to …
Latin America hosts some of the world’s most dynamic renewable energy markets, with more than a quarter of primary energy coming from renewables, twice the global average. In addition to the historical role of hydropower and pioneering moves with biofuels, countries in the region are significantly scaling up other renewable …
Two South American metropolises are enlisting bacterium-infected mosquitoes to fight Zika. The effort is the world’s biggest test yet of an unconventional but promising approach to quell mosquito-borne diseases. Original Source
Mayaro virus has been associated with small outbreaks in northern South America. We isolated this virus from a child with acute febrile illness in rural Haiti, confirming its role as a cause of mosquitoborne illness in the Caribbean region. The clinical presentation can mimic that of chikungunya, dengue, and Zika …
Non-fatal outcomes of disease and injury increasingly detract from the ability of the world’s population to live in full health, a trend largely attributable to an epidemiological transition in many countries from causes aff ecting children, to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) more common in adults. For the Global Burden of Diseases, …
Infrastructure projects designed to open the western Amazon for investment are to blame for deforestation in parts of Peru, Colombia and Bolivia - rather than coca production, researchers said on Wednesday. Policymakers and U.N. anti-drugs officials have blamed coca farming for destroying forests in the western Amazon, but a study …
International land deals, often for giant agriculture projects, now cover an area the size of Germany and a growing share are getting up and running, fuelling fears that local residents will be displaced, the anti-poverty group Oxfam said on Monday. More than 1,500 large-scale land deals have been signed in …
China is protecting itself against future food supply problems caused by climate change by buying or leasing large tracts of land in Africa and South America, a leading UK climate scientist says. Professor Peter Wadhams, an expert on the disappearing Arctic ice, says that while countries in North America and …
A key ingredient in junk food is vegetable oil, and 60 percent of edible vegetable oil is produced from oil palm and soybeans — crops that are currently associated with massive deforestation in Southeast Asia and South America, respectively. A team of researchers from Princeton University, Adelaide University in Australia, …
Industry-led Global Agri-Business Alliance aims to tackle food security, supply chain issues and sustainable agriculture A group of 36 leading agricultural businesses have joined together to launch the Global Agri-business Alliance (GAA) to tackle environmental challenges in farming supply chains and communities around the world. Launched yesterday in Singapore, the …
A scorecard released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) graded 13 global fast food, retail, and food manufacturing companies based on a variety of criteria, including whether or not they have adopted deforestation-free purchasing commitments and and have established sufficient systems to monitor their supply chains for beef …
Some of the world's leading conservation groups are violating the rights of indigenous people by backing projects that oust them from their ancestral homes in the name of environmental preservation, a top UN expert said this week, according to AFP. UN special rapporteur Victoria Tauli-Corpuz's latest report documents killings, evictions …
Volcanic mudflows, called 'lahars', can cause large amounts of damage to buildings. In this research we have developed a method to estimate lahar induced building damage based on the height, speed and amount of volcanic material in the lahar. This method was applied to a small region in Arequipa, Peru, …
More than 300 million people in Asia, Africa and Latin America are at risk of life-threatening diseases like cholera and typhoid due to the increasing pollution of water in rivers and lakes, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said. Between 1990 and 2010, pollution caused by viruses, bacteria and other …
Zika virus disease is caused by a ribonucleic acid (RNA) virus, which is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes of the Aedes aegypti species. Around 80% of infections are asymptomatic. Symptomatic infections are characterized by mild fever lasting from four to seven days, associated with maculopapular rash, arthralgia, conjunctivitis, muscle pain …
Recent findings of paradoxically high endemicity of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) among populations living in the Group of 20 (G20) countries could portend high rates of these diseases among patients with underlying non-communicable diseases (NCDs), with resultant co-morbidities. Original Source
With global youth unemployment expected to rise in 2016 for the first time in three years and the equally disturbing high levels of young people who work but still live in poverty, the United Nations labour agency today called for greater efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth and decent work. …
Most countries in the world have little capacity to deal effectively with invasive species, a study suggests. The spread of non-native species threatens livelihoods and biodiversity, but the issue is worsened by global trade, travel and climate change. Writing in Nature Communications journal, and international team forecast how the spread …
Much has been written recently regarding Zika virus in pregnancy and the increased risk of microcephaly in fetuses exposed to the virus. The outbreak of infection in Brazil, especially in the northeast part of the country, has been of particular concern. The virus has been found in the fluids of …
Geographers at the University of Southampton have completed a large scale data and mapping project to track the flow of internal human migration in low and middle income countries. Researchers from the WorldPop project at the University have, for the first time, mapped estimated internal migration in countries across three …
