All publications and documents

LISBON, May 10 (Reuters) - Drought spread across almost all of mainland Portugal during an unusually hot and dry April, the meteorology agency IPMA said on Wednesday, and officials have requested aid from Brussels for the struggling farming sector. Around 90% of mainland Portugal is suffering from drought, with severe drought alone affecting one-fifth of its territory, twice as much…

In the years it strikes, the band of warm ocean water known as El Niño that spans from South America to Asia triggers far-reaching weather changes resulting in devastating floods, crop-killing droughts, plummeting fish populations, and an uptick in tropical diseases. With El Niño projected to return this year, Dartmouth researchers report in the journal Science that the financial…

A host of charities have joined forces with UK farmers to urge businesses and policymakers to tackle the nature and climate crises, warning that without a nature-positive mindset, “you can’t be profit positive”. Charities including the WWF, RSPB and the National Trust are partnering with a host of farmers and a selection of business leaders to raise awareness of the need to improve nature…

The European Union is one of the largest importers of commodities linked to deforestation, with more than 60% of the world’s cocoa and about 50% of its coffee going to Europe alone in 2016. Cocoa and coffee are two of seven agricultural commodities that resulted in over a quarter of global tree cover loss from 2001 to 2015. A draft regulation can help prevent products that cause…

The global food system is failing to deliver sufficient and nutritious food to all, while damaging the earth and unsustainably drawing down its resources. We argue that trees and forests are essential to solving these challenges. We outline the current contributions of trees and forests to the global food system and present recommendations to leverage these contributions as part of the efforts to…

Geneva, 17 May 2023 (WMO) – Global temperatures are likely to surge to record levels in the next five years, fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño event, according to a new update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). There is a 66% likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be…