Issues & Trends

First published in UNEP’s Our Planet magazine.

Did you ever wonder what happens to your old laptop or cellphone when you throw it away?

Chances are some of your old electronic junk will end up in China.

In February 2011, an international summit in Bonn, Germany officially approved the building of a pan-African Great Green Wall (GGW) in support of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, welcomed efforts by Asian countries at a United Nations-backed regional forum this week in addressing the role of transportation in the effort to fight climate change and achieve sustainable development.

Just in case you needed more reasons to be concerned about the stability of the Middle East, new research using data from NASA’s gravity-sensing Grace satellites shows a substantial decline in the volume of groundwater reserves in

Call it the new normal. Last year was the ninth warmest on record across the globe, according to NASA's annual analysis of surface temperatures. But by recent standards, it was nothing special: all but one of the hottest 10 years have happened since 2000.

HONG KONG — Air pollution has worsened markedly in Asian cities in recent years and presents a growing threat to human health, according to experts at a conference that began on Wednesday.

Short on arable land? One solution would be to plant…up. Singapore, a small country that imports most of its food, has now begun selling vegetables from its first vertical farm. And even while they’re more expensive the vegetables are already selling faster than they can be grown.

Ban Ki-moon has warned the world is on course to run out of freshwater unless greater efforts are made to improve water security.

Speaking on the UN’s International Day of Biological Diversity, Ban said there was a “mutually reinforcing” relationship between biodiversity and water that should be harnessed.

Just over two years since Egypt's dictator President Hosni Mubarak resigned , little has changed. Cairo's infamous Tahrir Square has remained a continual site of clashes between demonstrators and security forces, despite a newly elected president.