The number of hungry people in the world has dropped to 795 million – 216 million fewer than in 1990-92 – or around one person out of every nine, according to the latest edition of the annual UN hunger report (The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015 - SOFI).

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has released guidelines on transboundary conservation to support practitioners and those involved in initiating, managing and governing transboundary conservation programmes.

This handbook is designed as guidance for policymakers and practitioners to mainstream pro-poor environment and climate concerns into planning, budgeting and monitoring.

Adaptation responses are needed to address the existing levels of climate variability and to prepare for future climate impacts. There is wide agreement that adaptation is an important issue and would benefit from being enhanced through more effective action and better planning.

Reducing black carbon emissions could prevent millions of premature deaths annually and play an important role in the global fight against climate change. Yet despite these benefits, an array of black carbon abatement measures that are technically within reach have not yet been financed and deployed to their full potential.

The 2015 Global Food Security Index provides a worldwide perspective on which countries are the most and least vulnerable to food insecurity. During the past year, food security has improved in almost every region of the world, according to the 2015 Global Food Security Index (GFSI).

Water is key to food security and nutrition. However there are many challenges for water, food security and nutrition, now and in the future, in the wider context of the nexus between water, land, soils, energy and food, given the objectives of inclusive growth and sustainable development.

Nearly 2.9 billion people still use polluting fuels like wood and coal to cook and heat their homes, at a huge cost to the society, in terms of health, environmental and economic costs, estimated at over US$123 billion every year according to this World Bank report. It provides a comprehensive picture of the current state of the global clean cooking sector and underlines urgent need to accelerate adoption of clean and efficient cooking solutions to reach sustainable energy goals by 2030.

More than 7.7 million people worldwide are now employed by the renewable energy industry, according to a new report released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). This is an 18 per cent increase from last year’s figure of 6.5 million.