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…
Staff Writer Zimbabwe requires a minimum of US$29.3 billion to adapt and mitigate the climate crisis through 2035, a new report shows. According to the country’s official position paper for the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Zimbabwe is framing the upcoming summit as a…
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…
Staff Writer Zimbabwe is set for another wet summer, with climate experts confirming a strong likelihood of La Niña conditions that are expected to drive normal to above-normal rainfall across most of the country for the 2025-2026 cropping season. The La Niña phenomenon is a natural climate cycle characterised by cooler-than-average Pacific Ocean temperatures, typically…
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…
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose by a record amount in 2024, reaching new highs and locking in further long-term warming and extreme weather, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The surge was driven by continued human emissions, more wildfire activity and weakened absorption by land and ocean “sinks” – a development that threatens to create a…
From 1970 until 2000, the costs of disasters averaged $70 to $80 billion. Those mainly preventable costs doubled this century to average $180 to $200 billion annually, according to a recent report published by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). Most of the exorbitant costs of disaster are preventable with proper funding and planning —one…
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