The World Health Organization said Monday that constructive action against climate change could save “millions” of lives.  Ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, scheduled for October 31, the WHO is urging governments to reach concrete agreements to combat climate change.  “Countries must set ambitious national climate commitments if they are to sustain a healthy and green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the WHO said Monday in a statement announcing a new report on climate change and health.  Amid the pandemic, climate crises including droughts, heat …

A key U.N. summit tasked with protecting biodiversity officially opens in China and online Monday, as countries meet to tackle pollution and prevent mass extinction weeks before the COP26 climate conference. Beijing, the world’s biggest polluter, has sought to position itself in recent years as a world leader on climate issues after Washington’s withdrawal from international commitments under the Trump administration. The online session that begins Monday afternoon — setting the stage for a face-to-face meeting in April — will see parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) working …

Some days, all Tsimamorekm Aly eats is sugary water. He’s happy if there’s a handful of rice. But with six young kids and a wife to support, he often goes without.  This is the fourth year that drought has devastated Aly’s home in southern Madagascar. Now more than one million people, or two out of five residents, of his Grand Sud region require emergency food aid in what the United Nations is calling a “climate change famine.”  “In previous years there was rain, a lot of rain. I grew sweet potatoes and I had a …