The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”.  The day aims to celebrate women and girls who are championing the advancement of transformative technology and digital education. It  will also explore the impact of the digital gender gap on widening economic and social inequalities. 

After two weeks of tense talks, the recent UN Biodiversity Conference COP15 ended with a landmark agreement to guide global action on nature through to 2030. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), includes concrete measures to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30% of the planet and 30% of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030. 

While  talk of carbon markets has been prominent of late, offsetting using forest carbon has long been controversial. Carbon markets are trading systems through which countries, businesses, individuals or other entities buy or sell units of greenhouse gas emissions. A newly launched report by the Rainforest Foundation UK, looks at both sides of the coin. 

The UN’s past two global climate summits have been big on promises for Indigenous Peoples. At COP26 in 2021 governments and private philanthropies pledged nearly $2 billion for Indigenous Peoples and local communities to fight deforestation. Last year’s COP27 led to the creation of a new “loss and damage” fund to help vulnerable communities respond to climate disasters.