World leaders have renewed calls for a global moratorium on deep-sea mining at the 2025 U.N. Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice, France, as the U.S. moves to mine the deep sea in international waters under its own controversial authority.
Four additional countries have joined the coalition of nations calling for a moratorium, precautionary pause, or ban on deep-sea mining, bringing the total number to 37.
The U.S., which did not have an official delegation at UNOC, is pushing forward with its plans to mine in international waters — a decision that has drawn criticism from the international community.
Indonesia received the most funding from China over the last decade, according to a new report by Zero Carbon Analytics. But uncertainties caused by US-driven tariff plans could see Southeast Asian countries retract green investments, said an analyst.
China’s PowerChina Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited constructed the Cirata floating solar plant in West Java, Indonesia. Image: PLN Nusantara
China is the leading source of public clean energy investments in Southeast Asia over the last decade, channeling over US$ 2.7 billion into projects across the region, according to a report by international research organisation Zero Carbon Analytics.
A deep dive into the rationale behind some of Asia’s reclamation projects, the toll they take on our environment and communities, and the search for more sustainable alternatives.
Reclamation is seen as a solution for countries to deal with increasing land demands, by expanding their territory and rehabilitating previously uninhabitable lands or seas. Yet, the process guzzles an alarming amount of sand, causing massive environmental damage as well as a rise of transnational criminal syndicates trading in illegal sand.
Coastlines, ecosystems, and entire populations are now facing adverse impacts due to increased sand-mining activity, with one of the major driving forces being land reclamation. This practice of creating new land at sea is often touted as a solution to urban expansion and climate change.
The climate crisis is the single greatest global public health threat of this century, health professionals say. Human rights experts warn it poses an unprecedented risk to human rights. For the world’s poor and most vulnerable people and communities on the frontlines of climate impacts like rising seas, it is an existential crisis threatening their very survival.
Yet the global response to what scientists say is undoubtedly a global emergency has fallen woefully short, through a United Nations governance framework that essentially rests upon voluntary pledges that nations of the world submit – called Nationally Determined Contributions – to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, leading climate experts wrote to top UN officials calling for reform of the international climate negotiations, arguing that the “current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity.”
Southern China is facing a surge in agricultural pests migrating from neighboring Southeast Asian countries, including Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. This pest migration, driven by climate-related factors, poses a growing threat to regional food security.
A recent study highlights the role of extreme weather in this phenomenon. Researchers found that the ongoing El Niño event, marked by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific, is contributing to hotter and more humid conditions, which are ideal for pest breeding.
In addition to favorable breeding conditions, strong seasonal winds are carrying these pests into Southern China, facilitating their rapid spread and increasing the risk of crop damage.
While wind is a major factor in their movement, scientists note that insect migration is also influenced by environmental stressors such as extreme heat, drought, and the presence of predators.
Insects migrate in response to immediate environmental cues, the study explains. They may move to escape harsh conditions, find food, avoid overcrowding, or locate new habitats suitable for reproduction.
The problem isn’t confined to China. In Laos, climate change is also taking a toll. The country has experienced record-breaking heatwaves, reaching 43.2 degrees Celsius in 2024, along with persistent water shortages and weakened agricultural infrastructure.
These factors have led to crop failures, livestock losses, and growing food insecurity. An estimated 82 percent of households lack access to safe water, compounding the crisis for rural communities.
Globally, climate change is expected to worsen food insecurity. Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns are already making it more difficult to grow crops in traditional farming regions.
By 2100, nearly 30 percent of the world’s food crops may be exposed to climate conditions they have never encountered before. While much of the focus is on staple crops like rice and wheat, many other plants grown in equatorial regions could also suffer under the changing climate.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP): Cambodia and China have signed a US$1.2 billion deal to finance an ambitious canal project that aims to boost trade efficiency by linking a branch of the Mekong River near Phnom Penh to a port on the Gulf of Thailand, the Cambodian government agency heading the project has announced,
The deal to fund the Funan Techo Canal was signed Thursday during the state visit to Cambodia of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the agency said in a news release. Xi returned home Friday after a three-nation Southeast Asian tour that also included Vietnam and Malaysia.
Author Mehebub SahanaLeverhulme Early Career Fellow, Geography, University of Manchester
China recently approved the construction of the world’s largest hydropower dam, across the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet. When fully up and running, it will be the world’s largest power plant – by some distance.
Yet many are worried the dam will displace local people and cause huge environmental disruption. This is particularly the case in the downstream nations of India and Bangladesh, where that same river is known as the Brahmaputra.
The proposed dam highlights some of the geopolitical issues raised by rivers that cross international borders. Who owns the river itself, and who has the right to use its water? Do countries have obligations not to pollute shared rivers, or to keep their shipping lanes open? And when a drop of rain falls on a mountain, do farmers in a different country thousands of miles downstream have a claim to use it? Ultimately, we still don’t know enough about these questions of river rights and ownership to settle disputes easily.
The Yarlung Tsangpo begins on the Tibetan Plateau, in a region sometimes referred to as the world’s third pole as its glaciers contain the largest stores of ice outside of the Arctic and Antarctica. A series of huge rivers tumble down from the plateau and spread across south and south-east Asia. Well over a billion people depend on them, from Pakistan to Vietnam.
The world is warming despite natural fluctuations from the El Niño cycle.
In 2024, the world was around 1.5°C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times.1 You can see this in the chart below, which shows average warming relative to average temperatures from 1861 to 1890.2
Temperatures, as defined by “climate”, are based on temperatures over longer periods of time — typically 20-to-30-year averages — rather than single-year data points. But even when based on longer-term averages, the world has still warmed by around 1.3°C.3
But you’ll also notice, in the chart, that temperatures haven’t increased linearly. There are spikes and dips along the long-run trend.
Many of these short-term fluctuations are caused by “ENSO” — the El Niño-Southern Oscillation — a natural climate cycle caused by changes in wind patterns and sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.
While it’s caused by patterns in the Pacific Ocean and most strongly affects countries in the tropics, it also impacts global temperatures and climate.
There are two key phases of this cycle: the La Niña phase, which tends to cause cooler global temperatures, and the El Niño phase, which brings hotter conditions. The world cycles between El Niño and La Niña phases every two to seven years.4 There are also “neutral” periods between these phases where the world is not in either extreme.
The zig-zag trend of global temperatures becomes understandable when you are taking the phases of the ENSO cycles into account. In the chart below, we see the data on global temperatures5, but the line is now colored by the ENSO phase at that time.6
The El Niño (warm phase) is shown in orange and red, and the La Niña (cold phase) is shown in blue.
You can see that temperatures often reach a short-term peak during warm El Niño years before falling back slightly as the world moves into La Niña years, shown in blue.
Interviews with former workers by ICIJ partner The Gecko Project reveal new links between First Resources, the billionaire family that owns it, and a trio of companies that have reportedly cleared more forest for palm oil than any other firm in Southeast Asia.
Deforested land in a New Borneo Agri company’s concession in East Kalimantan province, in September 2023.
In public statements, First Resources says it is committed to producing the palm oil that ends up in major Western brands’ cosmetics, foods and biofuel in a manner that doesn’t deplete natural resources and protects wildlife and the environment.
But an investigation by nonprofit newsroom The Gecko Project reveals how First Resources’ majority shareholders, the billionaire Fangiono family, have breached their company’s pledge of “sustainable” production by secretly controlling companies that environmental analysts found had cleared large areas of rainforest in Indonesia.
The investigation in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists also spotlights a loophole in the Singapore Exchange’s reporting rules that allows listed companies to publish so-called sustainability reports, without requiring that an independent firm audits the company’s green claims.
The findings are part of Deforestation Inc., a cross-border investigation led by ICIJ that exposed how a lightly regulated sustainability industry overlooks forest destruction and human rights violations when granting environmental certifications. Deforestation Inc. showed how major companies increasingly use certifications based on flawed audits to advertise products and operations as compliant with environmental standards, labor laws and human rights, misinforming shareholders as well as customers.
In a press release, First Resources said that in 2022 it recorded “its best performance” financially since listing on the Singapore exchange with $1.2 billion in revenues. In the sustainability report it published on its website, the company assured investors and customers that its supply chain is “transparent” and that it “encourages” its suppliers to adhere to its environmental standards.
The examination of First Resources’ practices by The Gecko Project appears to contradict the company’s statements.
Rapid economic progress in Viet Nam has been accompanied by a huge increase in consumption and, as a result, waste – particularly plastic waste. It is estimated that Viet Nam’s post-consumer plastic waste will rise by 36% from 2018 levels by the year 2030. 1 Despite major commitments from the government, business and civil society, plastic waste leakage into the country’s water bodies is expected to increase by 106% between 2018 and 2030, to 373,000 tonnes per year.2 The intersectional gender context assessment report on the plastic value chain in Viet Nam is an initiative under the framework of the NPAP Viet Nam. Its aim is to highlight the gender and inclusion gaps and inequalities that exist throughout the plastic value chain, which can inform the development of gender-responsive and inclusive policy options for addressing plastic waste pollution in Viet Nam. Executive summaryGender Context Assessment of the Plastic Value Chain in Viet Nam 6
An armada of poorly regulated, scrapyard-ready tankers is hauling sanctioned oil through the region’s bustling shipping lanes. With that, they’re carrying an ever-present threat of environmental catastrophe
Smoke rises from the oil tanker Pablo after it suffered from multiple explosions on 1 May off the coast of Malaysia. The ship was registered to Gabon and was part of the so-called “ghost fleet” of little-regulated tankers. Photo courtesy of the Malaysian coast guard.
On the morning of 3 May, residents of Batam, Indonesia, the largest city of the country’s Riau Islands, woke up to beaches black with oil.
A wave of recent closures of environment organizations in Vietnam, as well as the arrests of NGO leaders, reflects the difficult position that activists face in the one-party state.
Nonprofit organizations have an unclear legal status in the country, and are vulnerable to pressure from the state as well as from powerful private interests.
Though the communist-led government has at times recognized the value of NGOs as partners in implementing social and environmental programs, it has also attacked the concept of civil society as a threat to official ideology and morality.
Thuý, who helped run environmental programs at a nonprofit based in Ho Chi Minh City, had for weeks pondered quitting her job to pursue an advanced degree. The 24-year-old, who like all NGO workers interviewed for this story used a pseudonym due to fear of reprisals, was at a loss as to how to communicate her hard decision to her supervisors. While she felt it was time to move on, Thuý was grateful for the open-minded and dynamic working environment that had allowed her to grow tremendously.
Much to Thuý’s surprise, it was her supervisors who initiated a conversation about her career, advising her to be prepared to leave soon, because their organization was being told “from above” to shut down.
Sotheby’s auction of the exclusive licensed rights to the Widi Reserve, more than100 environmentally protected islands that cover 25,000 acres in Indonesia, has been delayed from its originally scheduled date last week. The holdup follows backlash from environmental groups, which say the privatization and development of the islands could cause ecological damage and interfere with life in coastal communities.
With 161 votes in favour, and eight abstentions*, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution on Thursday, declaring access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, a universal human right.
The resolution, based on a similar text adopted last year by the Human Rights Council, calls upon States, international organisations, and business enterprises to scale up efforts to ensure a healthy environment for all.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, welcomed the ‘historic’ decision and said the landmark development demonstrates that Member States can come together in the collective fight against the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
CVD 