China's State Council has issued an action plan for carbon peaking during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), outlining key tasks and measures to achieve the goal. By 2030, China's carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP will be reduced by 17% from the 2025 level, and the share of non-fossil energy consumption will reach 25%, according to the plan.
MyOcean Health, a new public platform designed to make understanding the ocean as intuitive as checking the weather, has been launched. It combines Copernicus Marine data through interactive visualisations and six key indicators: sea surface temperature, ocean acidification, marine heatwaves, sea level, Arctic sea ice extent and Antarctic sea ice extent.
By 2030, AI's water use will match the needs of 1.3bn people while its power use triples that of 650m, a UN University investigation warns. It finds that AI is driving a surge in land, water and climate consequences cascading from the technology’s intense and fast-rising energy consumption. Consequently, the UN University scientists call for urgent, multi-stakeholder action in a new UNU-INWEH report.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released its latest financial outlook for the global airline industry showing a halving of profitability as a result of war-related Middle East disruptions and high fuel prices. The regional landscape, however, is highly differentiated. At the geographic centre of the Middle East war, airlines in the Middle East are expected to collectively fall into the red with weak demand and operational disruptions. All other regions are expected to deliver profits, but at reduced levels from previous projections.
The World Inequality Lab has launched the Global Justice Report: a Plan for Equality and Prosperity Within Planetary Boundaries, during the opening of the World Inequality Conference 2026. The report sets out a new vision for global progress in the 21st century: grounding human development and equality in planetary habitability. It explores the conditions under which the world could move toward this horizon and traces an economically and ecologically consistent transition path from 2026 to 2100.
Fuelled by unusually warm ocean waters in the tropical Pacific, El Niño conditions are developing and are set to influence global temperature and rainfall patterns, increasing the risk of extreme weather over the coming months, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
The Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD) has released the first draft version of its framework, marking an important milestone in efforts to improve how businesses and financial institutions understand and report impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities related to people.
An objective, globally consistent framework to measure decoupling between fossil fuel use and economic growth, either through reduced fuel use or shifts toward cleaner/more efficient combustion has been published. Analysing 5,435 cities globally over 2019–2024, the research has identified significant trends for 2,475 cities and classified them into four decoupling states.
New World Resources Institute (WRI) analysis, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, reveals that every $1 invested in preparing for climate-caused health risks can yield up to $68 in benefits for communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Research shows how tools and services like early warning systems and disease surveillance significantly reduce deaths and illness, helping more communities in low- and middle-income countries become more resilient.
Military spending has been increasing for more than a decade, reaching $2.7tr in 2024 and $2.88tr in 2025. Meanwhile, there is a $4tr dollar shortfall in funding needed to achieve the world’s Sustainable Development Goals and, of that, a $2tr funding gap for climate and energy transition action.
Because the conflict in the Middle East is heavily impacting global energy markets, with a knock-on effect on the economy, industry and households, the Commission is taking specific action with notable measures in relation to the transport sector. To ensure sufficient availability of transport fuels and preserve the effective functioning of the single market, the Commission will step up European coordination on the optimisation of fuel distribution across Member States.
The World Bank Group, in partnership with multilateral development banks, development finance institutions and key partners, has launched Water Forward, a global platform to help improve water security for 1bn people by 2030. The platform will align policy reforms, financing, and partnerships to expand reliable water services and strengthen systems against droughts and floods, essential conditions for job creation.
Climate decision-making requires acting on long-term scientific signals with imperfect estimates of financial and societal impact, sometimes well before markets fully price in the risks. Leaders make strategic choices under this uncertainty, which may only become visible to the broader market years later, writes Dr Sarah Kapnick, Global Head of Climate Advisory, Commercial & Investment Bank, J.P. Morgan.
To protect Canada’s lands and waters, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has launched 'A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature'. With an investment of C$3.8bn, Canada’s new nature strategy will protect and restore critical habitats, ensure industrial strategies complement our conservation efforts, and mobilise new capital for nature.
UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has released a rapid analysis – Strait of Hormuz disruptions: Implications for global trade and development – examining the implications of recent disruptions to maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical trade corridors.