Refresher and Context The 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11 to November 22, 2024. A UN "Convention" is an international treaty or agreement among countries to tackle a...
The annual Conference of Parties (COP) on climate change has grown into a bloated international meeting where thousands of lobbyists, non-profit advocates and representatives from most of the 195 countries in the world vie for attention and influence. There are estimated to be 40-50,000 people...
Multiple organizations, including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), are actively monitoring and documenting the increase in climate-related legal cases in the 21st century. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, established in 2009, maintains a global database of climate litigation. It...
On Monday, June 17, 2024, 20 out of the 27 countries in the European Union (EU) voted to adopt the world's first Nature Restoration Law. The law passed with a slim majority, as Leonore Gewessler, the Austrian Minister for Climate Action, decided at the last...
Impact of Climate on Human HealthOn April 5, 2024, the World Bank released a brief on the impact of climate change on human health. According to the report, a warmer climate could result in at least 21 million additional deaths by 2025 due to five...
On December 19, 2022, representatives from 188 countries adopted a new agreement on biodiversity, now known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The 2022 GBF aims to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by adopting four overarching global goals and 23 targets, including conserving 30%...
As a graduate student at Yale University School of Forestry, Thomas Crowther was intrigued by a question his roommate was asked: how many trees were on Earth? While his roommate didn't see the significance of the question, Crowther took up the challenge of using a...
April 22, 2024, will be the 54th anniversary of the first Earth Day.The 1960s decade in the USA was a time of widespread citizen protests and demonstrations. Citizens used protest marches and sit-ins to campaign for civil rights. Women demanded equality in the labor market...
As the world processes the outcomes of COP28 in the Persian Gulf, there is no shortage of claims and counter-claims regarding the success or failure of COP28. The tremendous interest in the matter was demonstrated by the 100,000 individuals who registered to attend COP28 (compared...
Methane is the smallest hydrocarbon – a chemical compound containing only carbon and hydrogen molecules – and has the chemical formula CH4. It is the main component (70-90%) of natural gas, and when burned, one molecule of methane produces one molecule of carbon dioxide and...
