Durban, South Africa (PANA) - The African Group at the United Nations Climate Change Conference currently taking place in the South African city of Durban said it expects a balanced outcome at the end of the negotiations, including a legally-binding outcome on the scale of emission reductions to be undertaken by developed countries. Full text...

Durban, South Africa (PANA) - Wildlife Works has announced the launch of CODE REDD, an emergency action campaign to save the world’s wild forests using private sector financing within the Voluntary Carbon Market. Full text...

Durban, South Africa (PANA) - Qatar and Korea will co-host the United Nations Climate Change Conference at the end of 2012, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, announced here Tuesday. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) - The world shipping industry could accept a global levy on carbon emissions from merchant ships, under a deal that would also channel proceeds to poor countries. Full text...

Durban, South Africa (PANA) - Severe drought developed in parts of East Africa in late 2010 and continued through most of 2011, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) disclosed Tuesday. Full text...

Durban, South Africa (PANA) - Global temperatures in 2011 are currently the 10th highest on record and are higher than any previous year with a La Niña event, which has a relative cooling influence, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has disclosed. Full text...

Durban, South Africa (PANA) - As governments gathered Monday in Durban, South Africa, to begin two weeks of negotiations to build on agreements reached in Cancun, Mexico, on climate change last December, South Africa has warned that if the question on the Kyoto protocol second commitment period is not resolved, the outcome on other matters in negotiations will be extremely difficult. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) - South African President Jacob Zuma, on Monday called on delegates attending the UN climate conference in Durban to work a "balanced, fair and credible" outcome with a view to reaffirming the Kyoto Protocol. Full text...

Durban, South Africa (PANA) - A two-week United Nations Climate Change Conference kicked off Monday in Durban, with the UN climate change top official urging parties to reassure each other that they are committed to finding concrete solutions in the South African port city. Full text...

Luanda, Angola (PANA) - The Angolan Vice President, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos, arrived Durban, South Africa, on Sunday evening to attend the opening ceremony of the United Nations (UN) conference on Climate Change. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), in partnership with the the WWF and the Institute for the improvement of living standards, is to provide seven West African countries with trainers in the management of protected areas, following the 21-25 November workshop held in Dakar. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - One thousand people, most of them women and children, have died from lead poisoning resulting from illegal mining activities in Nigeria's northern Zamfara state since June 2010, the local Guardian newspaper Sunday quoted State Governor Abdul Aziz Yari as saying. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - A report released on Friday by the UN Environment Programme Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Research in Africa and Asia has shown that efforts to assess what is needed to adapt agriculture to a changing climate are often missing the point by trying to estimate an overall price tag that fails to reflect the diversity of the sector, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) said Friday. Full text...

Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) - Public Works officials are renovating leaking water pipes and building new ones to improve the water supply network in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital, PANA reported from here. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - African governments are signing away water rights for decades, with insufficient regard for how this will affect millions of local users, including fishing, farming and pastoralist communities, a paper published Thursday by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has warned. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The UN on Wednesday launched a campaign ahead of its major conference on sustainable development (Rio+20) in June 2012, involving governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and people everywhere to engage in a global conversation about the communities they want to see in the future. Full text...

Durban, South Africa (PANA) - Over 1,000 forestry experts, activists, policymakers, global leaders and climate change negotiators will gather on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in Durban, South Africa, for the fifth annual Forest Day on 4 Dec., organisers said. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Ahead of next week's climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, the United Kingdom-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has highlighted three steps through rich countries can meet their financial promises to poor nations to enable them adapt to climate change, an IIED statement, made available to PANA here, indicated Monday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Unless prompt action is carried out, most governments in sub-Saharan Africa will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on halving the number of people without access to sanitation, according to the new “Off-track, off-target" report published by the international organization, WaterAid. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) – Ethiopia on Friday launched an ambitious green economic growth strategy whose implementation requires US$ 150 billion over 20 years. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - A new report -- Off-track, off-target -- released Friday by the international charity WaterAid, has shown that there are more people in the world today lacking adequate sanitation services than in 1990. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Tanzania has been urged to take action to adapt to climate change by developing robust policies, strategies and plans to prepare for an uncertain future. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The former Ghanaian president, John Agyekum Kufuor, will head the UN-backed partnership, known as "Sanitation and Water for All", which works to achieve universal and sustainable access to decent sanitation and drinking water. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - Africa fully supports the controversial proposition by the Transitional Committee (TC) that designed the new Green Climate Fund (GCF) in October, its chief negotiator, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said Wednesday. Full text...

Paris, France (PANA) - The Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN), laureate of the 2011 Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation, will be awarded the Prize at a ceremony during the fifth World Science Forum which will take place in Budapest, Hungary, from 17 to 19 November. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - African leaders will meet in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Wednesday to discuss preparations for the UN Climate talks in Durban, South Africa, amid growing concerns that climate change effects had drastically reduced food production. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - The Senegalese government plans to increase the national coverage rate of its network of protected marine zones to 17 per cent by 2020, a technical adviser of the Senegalese Minister of Environment and Protection of Nature, Oumar Bâ, said Monday in Dakar. Full text...

Tshwane, South Africa (PANA) - Climate change could significantly alter water flows in major river basins in Africa, presenting a new barrier to efforts to better manage water for food production and to resolve potential cross-border water conflicts all over southern Africa, according to research findings presented at this week’s Third International Forum on Water and Food in Tshwane, South Africa. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Mobile telephone firm Bharti Airtel has announced plans to power an initial batch of 250 diesel-powered base stations in Nigeria with solar energy. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Shell must commit to paying an initial US$1 billion to begin the clean-up of pollution caused by oil spills in the Niger Delta, Amnesty International and the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) said in a report released Thursday (10 Nov), the 16th anniversary of the death by hanging of Niger Delta environmental rights activist Ken Saro Wiwa. Full text...

Johannesburg, South Africa (PANA) - International environmental rights campaigner Greenpeace has denied allegations that it engaged in violence during Monday's protest at the coal-fired power station in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Sub-Saharan Africa has massive potential to generate clean energy that could help lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty without exacerbating climate change, a new report by charity Christian Aid said Wednesday. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - Congo's President Denis Sassou Nguesso has launched the national afforestation and reforestation programme (PRONAR) that will cover one million hectares over 10 years. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) - Greenpeace activists on Monday climbed a construction crane at a coal-fired power station under construction in east of Johannesburg, and planned to spend the night there to protest what they call South Africa's unnecessary dependence on coal. Full text...

Praia, Cape Verde (PANA) – A report on the vulnerability and adaptation of Cape Verde to climate change to be discussed at the Conference of parties on climate change slated for this month in South Africa, has been presented to the authorities, official sources in the Cape Verdian capital said on Thursday. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Developing countries should play an active role to ensure that their views on climate change and environmental issues are taken into account in the global sustainable development agenda, a senior UN official said here Thursday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday inaugurated Full text...

Paris, France (PANA) – UN agencies Tuesday launched a plan to improve the management of the ocean and coastal areas, a statement from UNESCO indicated here. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Governments are ignoring a vast store of knowledge, generated over thousands of years, that could protect food supplies and make agriculture more resilient to climate change, according to a briefing published Monday by the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Full text...

Paris, France (PANA) - In a bid to address the problems of overfishing, degradation of coastal areas, pollution and declining biodiversity that are seriously affecting the health of the ocean, four UN agencies have prepared a plan to improve the governance of oceans and limit their degradation, according to a statement from UNESCO in Paris, France. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - The African Union (AU) Commission on Tuesday expressed concern about the decline of African wetlands. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) – The Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Desertification Control (UNCCD), Luc Gnacadja, has urged Africa to set itself realistic goals to counter climate change. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) – The phenomenon of desertification affects 70% of economic activity in Africa, the African Union (AU) chairperson, Jean Ping, said on day in Addis Ababa. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The 182-member sates of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) on Monday in Vienna, Austria, approved a plan to boost the organization’s on-site inspection capabilities. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - The president of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, Monday urged Africa to adopt a common and consensus-based stand at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (RIO +20 ), scheduled for June in Brazil. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - The Senegalese town of Bignona, in the region of Ziguinchor, in the south of the country, has won the "International Price of the Sustainable Town" from a list of 36 other African countries, a communique from organizers Les Eco maires, disclosed. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Plans for a multi-billion-dollar fund to help developing countries deal with climate change have hit a big barrier, after countries could not agree on the design of the fund. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) – The seventh session of the food security and sustainable development committee started on Thursday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, aimed at preparing Africa’s joint position for the Rio 20 conference. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) – Participants at the conference on climate change and development in Africa are dreaming of a low carbon emission development for the continent, according to the declaration read at the end of the meeting on Wednesday. Full text...