MADRID — The next U.S. president should stop subsidizing fossil fuels to help tackle climate change, billionaire Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday, highlighting an issue that is the central pillar of his bid for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race. Bloomberg, who launched his presidential campaign less than three weeks ago,...
Fallen Rights Icon at UN Court for Rohingya Genocide Case
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Twenty-eight years to the day after Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband and sons accepted her Nobel Peace Prize while she remained under house arrest in Myanmar, the former pro-democracy icon appeared in a United Nations court ready to defend her country's army from allegations of committing...
UN: ‘Quick Wins’ Needed to Keep Climate Goals Within Reach
GENEVA — Countries need to begin making steep cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions immediately or risk missing the targets they’ve agreed for limiting global warming, with potentially dire consequences, senior United Nations officials said Tuesday. A report by the U.N. Environment Program, published days before governments gather in Madrid...
South Pole's Ozone Hole Shrinks to Smallest Since Discovery
WASHINGTON — The ozone hole near the south pole this year is the smallest since it was discovered, but it is more due to freakish Antarctic weather than efforts to cut down on pollution, NASA reported. This fall, the average hole in Earth's protective ozone layer is 3.6 million square miles....
Trump Explains His Pillars of Policy Home and Abroad
"The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots," President Donald Trump said in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24. "The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country...
'Greta': A Young Activist's Moment, Praised and Criticized
UNITED NATIONS — She stepped onto the biggest of global stages to face the most diverse of audiences, and she made it count. "How dare you?" she kept saying to some of the world's most powerful people. "You are failing us," she told them. Sometimes, a moment and a person...
UN Chief Urges Action to Make Earth Carbon Neutral by 2050
UNITED NATIONS — World leader after world leader told the United Nations on Monday that they will do more to prevent a warming world from reaching even more dangerous levels, but as they made their pledges, they conceded it was not enough. Sixty-six countries have promised to have more ambitious...
UN Atomic Watchdog Confirms Iran Installing New Centrifuges
BERLIN — The United Nations' atomic watchdog confirmed Monday that Iran is preparing to use more advanced centrifuges, another breach of limits set in the country's slowly unraveling nuclear deal with major powers. Iran had already announced the step, its latest violation of the 2015 agreement as it tries to...
When Was the Last Time You Saw a Monarch Butterfly?
GREENBELT, Md. — Hand-raising monarch butterflies in the midst of a global extinction crisis, Laura Moore and her neighbors gather round in her suburban Maryland yard to launch a butterfly newly emerged from its chrysalis. Eager to play his part, 3-year-old Thomas Powell flaps his arms and exclaims, "I'm flying!...
Farmers Don’t Need to Read the Science. We Are Living It.
[aggregation-styles] The New York Times Subscription FIREBAUGH, Calif. — Many farmers probably haven’t read the new report from the United Nations warning of threats to the global food supply from climate change and land misuse. But we don’t need to read the science — we’re living it. Here in the...