• Animals

Top Ten Stories of 2020: Biodiversity Crisis Is Recognized, Movement for #30×30 Is Growing

• #30x30
• #COVID
• biodiversity
• climate change
• extinction
• habitat
• United Nations
• zoonotic pandemics

This year was supposed to be a big one for biodiversity with the Conference of the Parties for the Conference on Biodiversity meeting in the fall in China, of all places, and then the pandemic struck and pushed the meeting back by a year.  Nevertheless, the evidence of the importance of conserving nature and ensuring we do not experience a mass extinction crisis became even clearer, especially when compounded with warming across the planet.

• Sustainability

Study Finds that Amazon Generates Enough Plastic to Circle Globe 500 Times

• #COVID
• Amazon
• Oceana
• plastic pollution

A new report from the environmental nonprofit Oceana finds that Amazon has increased the amount of plastic packaging it uses every year.  Last year, according to Oceana’s estimates, the company generated enough plastic packaging to circle the globe 500 times.  

Why this Matters: Oceana also found that less than 1% of Amazon’s plastic waste ended up in rivers, lakes, and oceans.  But it’s 1% of a huge number —  that amounts to the equivalent of dumping one delivery van full of plastic into marine ecosystems every 70 minutes.

• Air

As COVID Spikes Again in Alabama, Environmental Injustice Prompts a “Moral Moment”

• #COVID
• air pollution
• chronic disease
• Environmental Justice

E&E reports in an in-depth piece on Tuscaloosa, chronic illness and exposure to air pollution are exacerbating the spiking COVID rates and increasing the risks for people living in neighborhoods just outside the boundaries of industrial plants and refineries across the country. 

Why this Matters: Clean air should be a right, not a privilege. Across the country, communities of color face disproportionate local air pollution and higher COVID rates.

• Climate Change

Three Keys to Climate Action, Five Years after Paris

• #30x30
• #COVID
• Natural Security
• nature
• nature based solutions
• Paris Agreement

By Shyla Raghav, VP of Climate Change, Conservation International Five years ago this month, after years of tense negotiations, the gavel sounded to announce the adoption of the Paris Agreement. Like many who participated in the negotiations, I was relieved, hopeful, and exhausted. Everyone in the conference room recognized that this was just the first […]

• Sustainability

Ensuring Our Natural Security

• #30x30
• #COVID
• 30 by 30
• COVID-19
• national security
• nature based solutions
• President Biden
• protect nature

by Alejandro Perez, Sr Vice President, Policy and US Government Affairs at WWF-US Over the last year, a previously unknown pathogen jumped from an animal to a person, spread across the globe, claimed well over a million lives and brought national economies to their knees. And yet, as devastating as the pandemic has been, the world […]

• Climate Change

The Paris Agreement at 5: What’s Next?

• #COVID
• climate change
• climate crisis
• NDC
• net-ero
• Paris Agreement

Tomorrow at 9 a.m. EST, the Climate Ambition Summit will begin. The Summit marks five years since the Paris Agreement and will be a moment for countries to announce improved climate plans for the next decade. 

Why this Matters: The summit comes as the end of the COVID pandemic is on the horizon, creating a global impetus for countries to emerge from the past year with stronger climate plans than before.