Zimbabwe is poised for a shift to normal-to-above-normal rainfall for the 2025-2026 season after surviving a record-breaking mid-season dry spell during the last agricultural cycle. However, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has issued a warning that the return of La Niña conditions brings heightened risks of flooding and tropical cyclones that could threaten…
The UN World Food Programme warns that just a 1°C increase in global temperature threatens to push an additional 70 million people into food insecurity across its 45 operational countries. Extreme weather is exacerbating a global hunger crisis, as seen in recent disasters Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and Typhoon Fung-Wong in the Philippines. Storms,…
Global investments in the energy transition reached a new record of US$2.4 trillion in 2024 – a 20% increase from the average annual levels of 2022/23. About one-third was directed towards renewable energy technologies, pushing renewable energy investment to US$807 billion. Despite this milestone, year-on-year growth of renewables slowed significantly, with annual investments increasing by…
The last week of COP30 has begun in Belém with a palpable sense of urgency. Ministers and senior officials are now stepping into the spotlight, as negotiations move from technical wrangling to political decision-making. The stakes? Nothing less than charting a credible path to climate justice in a world running out of time. UN climate…
As world leaders gather in Brazil for the COP30 climate summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday called for urgent action to drive down global temperatures and keep the 1.5°C goal within reach. “Every fraction of a degree means more hunger, displacement, and loss – especially for those least responsible. It could push ecosystems past irreversible tipping…
Rising temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall have reshaped Zimbabwe’s climate, with droughts now striking every two to three years instead of once a decade. This has resulted in 2.7 million rural Zimbabweans facing recurrent food insecurity. As the global climate crisis accelerates, hitting the South earliest and hardest, humanitarian responses are evolving from short-term relief…
Current climate pledges by governments have resulted in only a marginal reduction of the projected global temperature increase this century, leaving the world on a path to a serious escalation of climate risks and damages, a new report shows. The warning comes in the latest Emissions Gap Report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), issued on Tuesday ahead of the COP30 climate conference which opens…
Heat-related deaths are skyrocketing, increasing by 23% since the 1990s and reaching an annual average of 546,000 deaths, a new report shows. The 2025 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report, released in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), says climate change is directly to blame for the escalating crisis. The report states…
Zimbabwe launched the Biodiversity Finance Initiative aimed at strengthening conservation funding and promoting sustainable natural resource use. Minister of Environment, Climate and Wildlife, Evelyn Ndlovu, said the initiative comes as Zimbabwe continues to bear financial burdens in managing elephant populations that exceed ecological carrying capacity. “Zimbabwe is endowed with exceptional natural capital, from our diverse…
Nearly 80% of the world’s poor, 887 million people, live in regions that are exposed to extreme heat, flooding and other climate hazards, a new report shows, highlighting the urgent need for global action to address the issue. The report released on Friday by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Oxford University ahead of the COP30 climate…
