UN News

Insurance Regulators: Mitigation, Solvency Are Keys to Surviving Climate Change

The United States will not be able to insure its way out of coming climate disasters, but must focus on mitigation and resiliency – along with insurer solvency — to reduce risk and exposure, insurance regulators said Wednesday. Insurance commissioners …

UN Climate Chief Calls For ‘Urgent Transformation’ of Oil, Gas to Green Energy

The U.N.’s climate chief called on the oil and gas industry on Thursday to make a drastic shift to a clean, low-carbon future or risk having to leave three-quarters of fossil fuel reserves in the ground. “The time for experimentation, …

Extreme Weather is New Normal, U.N.’s Ban Tells Climate Change Talks

Extreme weather is the new normal and poses a threat to the human race, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday as he sought to revive deadlocked global climate change talks. Ban’s intervention came as efforts to agree a symbolic …

UN Report: Melting Permafrost Seen as New Peril in Global Warming

Permafrost lands across Siberia and Alaska that contain vast stores of carbon are beginning to thaw, bringing with it the threat of a big increase in global warming by 2100, a U.N. report said on Tuesday. A thaw of the …

Global Investors Call for Action on Serious Climate Danger

A coalition of the world’s largest investors called on governments on Tuesday to ramp up action on climate change and boost clean-energy investment or risk trillions of dollars in investments and disruption to economies. In an open letter, the alliance …

UN Security Council Debates Spread of Piracy

Centuries after piracy was recognized as the first international crime against humanity, its spread around the world has prompted the U.N. Security Council’s first debate Monday on piracy’s rise as a threat to world peace and security. In the past, …

New SARS-like Virus Detected in Middle East

British health authorities have alerted the U.N. of a new respiratory virus that resembles SARS in a severely ill patient who recently traveled to Saudi Arabia, where another man died of a similar illness earlier this year. The man in …

Re/insurers Join Efforts to Support UN’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance

A number of insurers and reinsurers have agreed to join the UN-backed set of Principles for Sustainable Insurance. The initiative aims to provide insurance tools for risk management in support of environmental, social and economic sustainability. A bulletin from UK-based …

Main Points of Agreement from Rio+20 Summit Show Little Progress

Global leaders on Friday wrapped up a United Nations development summit with little to show but a lackluster agreement, as critics scorned governments for showing no urgency to tackle climate change as well as food and water scarcity. Nearly 100 …

U.N. Sounds Environment Alarm Ahead of Rio Summit

Population growth, urbanization and consumption are set to inflict irreversible damage on the planet, the United Nations said on Wednesday, and called for urgent agreement on new environmental targets at an Earth summit this month. The U.N. Environment Program sounded …