Environment

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Richard Black and other analysts at the Ember energy consultancy find that all new electricity demand in the first three quarters of 2025 was met by solar and wind, mainly solar. That statistic requires us to conclude that there was no growth in fossil fuels globally during that period. Ember […]

Climate Crisis

Iran’s Capital, Tehran, Faces Zero Day without Water: Climate Change and Bad Policy

The Conversation

By Ali Mirchi, Oklahoma State University; Amir AghaKouchak, University of California, Irvine; Kaveh Madani, United Nations University, and Mojtaba Sadegh, Boise State University; United Nations University (The Conversation) – Fall marks the start of Iran’s rainy season, but large parts of the country have barely seen a drop as the nation faces one of its […]

Arab World

Vanishing Future? The Arab World Faces 2x Global Heating, Corruption and High Tech Divide

Middle East Monitor

By Jasim Al-Azzawi ( Middle East Monitor ) – The Arab world is standing at a precipice. Climate change is accelerating at twice the global average across the region. Water scarcity threatens to erase up to 14 per cent of GDP by 2050. Illiteracy and failing education systems leave millions unprepared for the AI revolution […]

Brazil

Accelerating Climate Change and Global Inequality: Indigenous People were the Heroes of COP30

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Contradictions pervaded the latest UN climate conference (COP30) held in Belem, Brazil. Progressive President Lula da Silva of Brazil proclaimed it would a positive turning point in progress, while he authorized his state-owned oil producer to do exploratory drilling for oil near the Great Amazon Reef System. […]

Climate Crisis

The Hot Tub of Death? Bill Gates, Hurricane Melissa, and a Civilization Under Threat

Juan Cole

Here is my essay for this week’s Tomdispatch.com. Don’t miss Tom Engelhardt’s canny introduction, in which he points to Donald Trump’s climate denialism as a context for that of his “billionaire buddies.” And by the way, it has now been shown that Hurricane Melissa clocked a wind gust of a mind-boggling 252 mph shortly before […]

Brazil

COP30: 5 Reasons the UN Climate Conference wasn’t the Promised “People’s Summit”

The Conversation

By Simon Chin-Yee, UCL; Mark Maslin, UCL, and Priti Parikh, UCL (The Conversation) – As the sun set on the Amazon, the promise of a “people’s Cop” faded with it. The latest UN climate summit – known as Cop30, hosted in the Brazilian city of Belém – came with the usual geopolitics and the added […]

Climate Crisis

The COP30 Climate Meet had One Job, and Totally Crashed and Burned

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – COP30 in Belém, Brazil, has ended without an agreement by member states to reaffirm the phasing out of fossil fuels, which is the only way to avert rolling climate catastrophes. COP28 at Dubai had included such language. The vague advice to countries to cut down on their carbon dioxide emissions […]

Climate Crisis

India Plans 2.45 Gig Solar Park + 5 GWh Battery in Rajasthan, so why drag its Feet at COP30?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The paradox of India’s unhelpful stance at COP30, which has gone into extra innings over the obstacles the “like-minded developing countries” have placed in the way of a renewed pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, lies in New Delhi’s impressive investments in renewables. That is, even the right wing […]

Climate Crisis

Environment and health: a connection that remains unseen in the Climate Change Conferences

The Conversation

By Sandra de Souza Hacon, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) (The Conversation) – In a conversation with Luciana Julião, environment editor at The Conversation Brasil, during COP30 in Belém, Fiocruz researcher and environmental health specialist Sandra Hacon explained why the integration of climate, environment and health has guided her research for two decades. Hacon has a […]