The United Arab Emirates, Australia and the United States have the worst overall records for emitting greenhouse gases, according to the CO2 Energy Emissions Index (CEEI), released last week by Maplecroft, a UK-based global risks analysis firm. This adjusted index ranks nations by weighting 3 separate criteria. The index gave [...]

Today in Mexico City, 135 mayors from cities throughout the world signed a groundbreaking agreement on climate change, as a result of the World Mayors Summit on Climate (WMSC). Martha Delgado, Mexico City’s secretary of the environment and ICLEI vice president, had this to say about the agreement: “Cities have [...]

Biodiversity is a critical, and often little understood component of the health of our planet. At the recent Conference on Biodiversity, held this year in Nagoya, Japan, this issue was debated and reviewed by many of the top scientists in the field. 18,000 people attended the meeting, representing the 193 [...]

The issue of the Canadian seal hunt is a controversial one. It is a battle of animal rights versus First Nations rights, at least for the arctic seal hunt. In 2009, the European Union banned the import of seal products. The legislation was one of the most non-partisan bills to [...]

If you haven’t heard of the 10:10 Campaign by now, it’s not too late. Although 2010 feels like it’s starting to come to a close, the campaign, according to its global director Lizzie Gillett, is really starting to pick up steam. (Check out the video of her discussing her involvement [...]

Much of Africa is a desperate place, embroiled in war, rebellion, and a daily struggle to exist. The region around the Congo basin in particular has been home to many scourges, and millions of deaths. The deaths of any people are a tragedy, of course. So who can blame people [...]

In 2008, Greenpeace activists Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki entered a delivery depot in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, and removed a case of whale meat. A case that, along with many others just like it, shouldn’t have been there. They delivered the case to the police, as evidence of a theft [...]

In the late 1950s the British discovered oil in Nigeria. Vast amounts of oil. When Nigeria claimed its independence in 1960, it continued to allow foreign operators to run the oil concession, in return for a 50/50 split in the profits. In the early years, British Shell was the sole [...]

In a recent issue of the New Yorker, one of their excellent reporters asked an interesting question — could Bolivia be the next big source of Lithium for the world’s batteries? The Salar de Uyuni Salt Flats The article gets to the heart of a lot of green issues these [...]

Iceland has been the subject of some unfavorable attention over the past year, between its economic meltdown, its inability to pay its debt, and the recent volcanic eruption. From an environmental standpoint, Iceland is a country of contradictions. Iceland is a small nation, with fewer than 350,000 people, which is [...]