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A recap of Monday’s stories: Guterres calls for ‘path of resolve, sustainable solutions’ in Madrid; Slavery today; Israeli occupation costs $48 billion; UN deputy chief says sustainable development, sustainable debt are “inseparable”; UN worker’s feat raises awareness of child sexual abuse link to HIV/AIDS.

The recycling of plastic waste in India is boosting the incomes of impoverished women and helping build roads and fire cement furnaces, thanks to support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 

A green economy is “not one to be feared but an opportunity to be embraced”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, in a keynote speech to delegates at the opening of the COP25 UN climate conference in Madrid on Monday.

The UN Secretary-General has outlined the “increased ambition and commitment” that the world needs from governments during the coming days of the COP25 UN climate change conference which opens in Madrid on Monday, calling for “accountability, responsibility and leadership” to end the global climate crisis. 

Access to electricity has transformed the world, helping countries to develop their economies, and lifting millions out of poverty. However, this success has come at a great cost: the energy sector, heavily reliant on fossil fuels, is responsible for some 40 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions – one of the so-called greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere and warm the Earth – and almost two-thirds of these emissions come from coal.

Attacks on communities in an Ebola outbreak hotspot in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have sparked a humanitarian crisis and threatened aid distribution, the UN said on Friday, amid reports of serious civil unrest.

Climate change is happening—the world is already 1.1°C warmer than it was at the onset of the industrial revolution, and it is already having a significant impact on the world, and on people’s lives. And if current trends persist, then global temperatures can be expected to rise by 3.4 to 3.9°C this century, which would bring wide-ranging and destructive climate impacts.

Man-made starvation is “slowly making its way into Zimbabwe” and most households in the country are unable to obtain enough food to meet their basic needs, Hilal Elver, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, declared on Thursday.

It is “critical” to prioritize technologies that are most needed for sustainable development, a high-level UN official told the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on Wednesday in Berlin.

The number of international migrants in 2019 is now estimated at 270 million and the top destination remains the United States, at nearly 51 million, the UN migration agency said on Wednesday.

A recap of Tuesday’s stories in brief: UNEP calls for emissions to be cut by more than half, AIDS down but thousands of children still missing out on treatment, UN chief warns of “digital divide”

Unless countries work together to address gaps in digital access, as well as related social and political divisions, this generation will be remembered as the one that “ruined the early promise of the Internet”, the UN Secretary-General has warned.

Even if countries meet commitments made under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world is heading for a 3.2 degrees Celsius global temperature rise over pre-industrial levels, leading to even wider-ranging and more destructive climate impacts, warns a report from the UN Environment Programme, released on Tuesday. 

Levels of the three main heat-trapping gases emitted into the atmosphere – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide – have reached yet another high, the UN meteorological agency, WMO, said on Monday.

You don’t have to be from New York or even the United States to be a Harlem Globetrotter. Yet in the team's 93-year history, less than two dozen players have been born overseas, UN News learned, during an impromptu visit by the legendary basketball role models to UN Headquarters this week.

The momentum to reach a political settlement in Yemen “has been building”, the United Nations Special Envoy to the country told the Security Council on Friday, attributing the positive development to compromises on “a range of issues”.

An alarming lack of exercise among adolescents across the world risks seriously compromising their health into adulthood, the UN said on Thursday.  

There is a clear link between the seedy underbelly of the seafood industry, and fishers’ safety, now ranked as the second deadliest profession in the world; and more must be done to ensure people dependent on this type of labour are working in safe conditions, UN partners urged on Thursday. 

Both positive and negative technological developments are jolting the world at “unprecedented speed”, the UN chief said on Thursday, underscoring the need to “maximize the benefits…whilst mitigating harms”.

Violence in Syria continues to kill and maim civilians with reports that missiles fired into settlements for people fleeing conflict in the country’s northwest on Wednesday night, killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens more, including children, UN humanitarians said on Thursday.

A recap of Wednesday’s stories: UN envoy reiterates position on illegality of Israeli settlements, World Children’s Day marked with calls for rights of children to be upheld, new report highlights major gap between use of fossil fuels and commitments to limit global warming.

As African countries gear up to implement an historic free trade agreement, the UN Secretary-General is urging leaders to pursue economic growth that benefits both people and the planet.

A recap of Tuesday’s stories in brief: UN ‘regret’ over US settlements reversal; Almost daily attacks plunge Sahel into ‘three-country crisis’;  live ammunition reportedly used against Iranian protesters; reconciliation helps ‘repair fractures’, promote peace; call for poorest countries to take leading role in their own development agendas; and World Toilet Day.

Violent attacks by extremists “almost every day” in the Sahel nations of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have displaced nearly one million people and caused emergency levels of malnutrition, UN humanitarians have said.

More people than ever rely on fisheries and aquaculture for food, and income, but the seafood industry is facing a “dangerous” sustainability divide when comparing trends in the developed world versus those in poorer regions, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) revealed on Monday.  

Over the last three months (August to October 2019), around one-third of the Afghan population required urgent humanitarian action, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Alert, released on Monday, which declares that some 10.23 million people are living in a state of “severe acute food insecurity”.

In the drive towards universal health coverage, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the African Union (AU) Commission cemented their mutual commitment to global health by signing on Monday an historic agreement.

Ending the practice of defecating in the open, rather than in a toilet, will have “transformational benefits” for some of the world’s most vulnerable people, says the UN’s partner sanitation body, the WSSCC (Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council). 

Saving lives by improving road safety is “one of the many objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, the United Nations chief said in his message for the global day set aside for remembering the victims of traffic accidents.

To help ensure the most-consumed foods don’t disappear in the face of the climate crisis, farmers must cultivate crops able to resist environmental shocks and other stresses, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) highlighted in a new set of conservation guidelines published on Thursday.