The report “Land Degradation Neutrality for Biodiversity Conservation: How Healthy Land Safeguards Nature” highlights how LDN can address the priorities of both the CBD and the UNCCD in an effective and complementary manner. According to the report, LDN and the CBD’s 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for…

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has laid out ten priority areas that require more action to keep warming below 1.5°C in his report on the 2019 Climate Action Summit. Titled, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the 2019 Climate Action Summit and the Way Forward in 2020,’ the publication details…

Monitoring progress towards the 2030 Development Agenda requires the combination of traditional and new data sources in innovative workflows to maximize the generation of relevant information. We present the results of a participatory and data-driven land degradation assessment process at a national…

FAO offers novel assessment of trees and forests in the world’s drylands Geospatial data and global network of partnerships produces new insights on more than 40 percent of the earth’s surface

n the desertification setting, remote sensing provides critical support to help gain insight into the mechanisms involved in this phenomenon. The vast amount of local to global information produced enables scientists to analyse the effects of desertification and measure the stabilization or…

The Brown to Green Report 2019 is the world’s most comprehensive review of G20 climate action. It provides concise and comparable information on G20 country mitigation action, finance and adaptation. Developed by experts from 14 research organisations and NGOs from the majority of the G20 countries…

2019 Human Development Report says business as usual will not solve new generation of inequalities The demonstrations sweeping across the world signal that, despite unprecedented progress against poverty, hunger and disease, many societies are not working as they should. The connecting thread…

This commentary explores the social and economic benefits that climate action can deliver and uses real world examples to show how these benefits can be used to further equity and ensure a just transition to a new climate economy.

The Paris Agreement introduced an ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Here we combine a review of modelled pathways and literature on mitigation strategies, and develop a land-sector roadmap of priority measures and regions that can help to achieve the 1.5 °C…

In honor of World Soil Day, Food Tank is highlighting 15 organizations around the globe working to use soil to reverse the damaging effects of climate change, stop soil from disappearing due to erosion, and improve farmers’ well-being and connection to their land.

Droughts are one of the starkest consequences of climate change and are becoming increasingly frequent, prolonged and intense. The extent of the short-, medium- and long-term damage they cause depends on the degree of vulnerability of the ecosystems, societies and economies affected. Those that are…

A new study has analysed how to reduce the environmental footprint of EU trade by preferentially importing goods from countries that have greener production processes. The study concludes that the environmental impacts of 200 product groups imported into the EU could be considerably reduced in this…

Resilience to climate change? Using The EIU’s new Climate Change Resilience Index, this special report looks at the long-term impact of climate change on some of the world's largest economies. A new report from The Economist Intelligence Unit is making some dire predictions about the effects of…

This new OECD platform for environmental indicators gives access to recent data through interactive graphics and provides trends on major environmental issues. The indicators help track environmental performance and compare country progress.

Climate Box is an interactive learning programme targeting school children to teach them about the science behind climate change, including practical tips on how to reduce their carbon footprint and adapt to impacts of climate change. It was developed by a multidisciplinary team of authors -…

The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) define an ambitious action plan for the future we want but say little about implementation. For advanced countries such as Australia, rapid progress towards the SDGs is there for the taking and greater gains will be made by addressing all…

There is a clear need for transformative change in the land management and food production sectors to address the global land challenges of climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, combatting land‐degradation and desertification, and delivering food security (referred to hereafter as…

A publication by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) identifies four building blocks for innovative and inclusive national data systems for SDGs. The recommendations respond to main data challenges identified in the…

Achieving global restoration goals will require increasing enthusiasm and funding, as well as a common understanding of how to design and implement successful restoration projects that proactively and collaboratively engage local communities. SER’s International Standards provide essential tools and…

Many countries already have ambitious goals to plant trees. In Africa, a group of countries have pledged to restore 100 million hectares of forest. In Latin America, countries plan to restore another 20 million hectares. China deployed thousands of soldiers last year to plant trees covering an area…

In the dry stretch between Africa’s Sahara Desert and tropical forests, the landscape has been slowly changing, giving new signs of life in places where there was previously none, or where there once was before the effects of climate change took hold. These are the building blocks of the Great Green…

Restoration needs along Africa's drylands have been mapped and quantified for the first time. A groundbreaking map of restoration opportunities along Africa's Great Green Wall has been launched at the UN climate change conference, based on collection and analysis of crucial land-use information to…

Immediate measures on agriculture, forestry, wetlands and bioenergy can cut down a third of the emissions to keep temperatures below 1.5°C

In the report “Towards our common digital future”, the WBGU makes it clear that sustainability strategies and concepts need to be fundamentally further developed in the age of digitalization. Only if digital change and the Transformation towards Sustainability are synchronized can we succeed in…

A huge tension exists between recognizing sustainable development (SD) as a meta-discourse and accepting a limitless interpretational width. We analyse the impacts of diversity of worldviews on the interpretation of SD—as a knowledge-based concept—through a critical literature review, resulting in…