NAIROBI: Nineteenth-century European explorers called Africa the “Dark Continent,” because to them it was vast and largely unknown. Today, Africa may still be dark, but for a very different reason: it is chronically short of electricity. Indeed, (...)
NAIROBI: Many people know that oceans cover more than 70 percent of the world's surface, and that marine fisheries provide food for billions of people. What is less known is that the high seas — the areas of the world's oceans that lie beyond the (...)
NAIROBI: Renewable energy triggers sharply polarized views. For some, it is a costly white elephant; for others, it is humanity's savior, promising to emancipate us (and our environment) from the “folly” of fossil fuels. So a hardheaded, credible, (...)
NAIROBI: The last two years have been a roller coaster ride in respect to securing a new global treaty to combat climate change. Some even despair that the window for action is closing fast.
But giving up is not an option. The latest round of (...)
BOSTON: Biodiversity is essential for the functioning of ecosystems – from forests and fresh waters to coral reefs, soils, and even the atmosphere — that sustain all life on Earth. The ongoing and escalating disappearance of that diversity will harm (...)
NAIROBI: The G-20 summit in Toronto offers an opportunity for a long, hard look at how green investments are assisting economic recovery and job growth in many countries, while generating environmental gains as well, including on climate (...)
NAIROBI: The science of climate change has been on the defensive in recent weeks, owing to an error that dramatically overstated the rate at which the Himalayan glaciers could disappear. Some in the media, and those who are skeptical about climate (...)
Twenty years ago, governments adopted the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to protect the Earth's ozone layer from emissions of destructive chemicals. Few could have foreseen how far-reaching that decision would prove to be.
The Protocol explicitly (...)
NAIROBI: With unemployment soaring, bankruptcies climbing, and stock markets in free-fall, it may at first glance seem sensible to ditch the fight against climate change and put environmental investments on hold. But this would be a devastating (...)
Images of the Beijing skyline seemingly bathed in a soup of smog and haze have been a common sight on the world's TV screens in recent days and weeks. Foreign journalists with hand-held air pollution detectors have been popping up on street corners (...)
Farmers across Africa are currently engaged in an unequal struggle against a pestilent fruit fly whose natural home is in Asia. The fly, first detected in 2004 in Mombasa on the Kenyan coast, has since swept across the continent, decimating mangoes (...)
Children on one of southern Africa's mightiest rivers are playing the Limpopo board game, literally for their lives. Piloted in places like Zimbabwe s Matabeleland and Mozambique s Gaza Province, it uses the power of play to teach ways of reducing (...)