State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Author: Jeffrey Sachs

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  • 6 Ways America Can Get Back on Track with the UN Sustainable Development Goals

    6 Ways America Can Get Back on Track with the UN Sustainable Development Goals

    And why our lives depend on it; an excerpt from professor Jeffrey Sachs’ new book, A New Foreign Policy.

  • From Good Intentions to Deep Decarbonization

    From Good Intentions to Deep Decarbonization

    The most important issue is whether countries will achieve their 2030 targets in a way that helps them to get to zero emissions by 2070. If they merely pursue measures aimed at reducing emissions in the short term, they risk locking their economies into high levels of emissions after 2030. The critical issue, in short,…

  • Breakthrough in Saving Lives in Rural Africa

    Breakthrough in Saving Lives in Rural Africa

    It’s mid-morning in the Tiby Millennium Village in Mali. Rokia, a community health worker, sits with a young mother in a spare courtyard of the household. Gently she asks the key questions.

  • Challenges at the Cutting Edge of Fighting Global Poverty

    The Millennium Village Project (MVP) was launched in 2005-6 in order to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals in the poorest regions of rural Africa. A dozen clusters of villages around Africa have adopted bold and novel strategies to overcome poverty, hunger, and disease. Halfway through the ten-year project, the results are very exciting:…

  • Millennium Goals, Five Years to Go

    Millennium Goals, Five Years to Go

    As 140 heads of state and government gather Monday at the United Nations for the Millennium Development Goals summit, they and the public will ask what has come out of this decade-long effort. The answer will surprise them …

  • Rebuilding Haiti: The 10-Year Plan

    The horrors of Haiti’s earthquake continue to unfold. The quake itself killed perhaps 100,000 people. The inability to organize rapid relief is killing tens of thousands more. More than 1 million people are exposed to hunger and disease and, with the rain and hurricane seasons approaching, are vulnerable to further hazards. Even an economy as…

  • How to Help Haiti Recover

    President Obama has declared that the United States will not forsake Haiti in its moment of agony. Honoring this commitment would be a first for Washington. To prevent a deepening spiral of death, the United States will have to do things differently than in the past. American relief and development institutions do not function properly,…

  • Copenhagen: The False “Victory”

    Two years of climate change negotiations have now ended in a farce in Copenhagen. Rather than grappling with complex issues, President Barack Obama decided instead to declare victory with a vague statement of principles agreed with four other countries. The remaining 187 were handed a fait accompli , which some accepted and others denounced. After…

  • How to Hold the Rich to Their Word

    With less than three days remaining in the Copenhagen climate talks, the rich have finally begun to discuss climate financing for the poor. The negotiating round has gone on for two years with little serious discussion on financing and many other topics, a gaping failure of a process run by and for rich-country politicians who…

  • 6 Ways America Can Get Back on Track with the UN Sustainable Development Goals

    6 Ways America Can Get Back on Track with the UN Sustainable Development Goals

    And why our lives depend on it; an excerpt from professor Jeffrey Sachs’ new book, A New Foreign Policy.

  • From Good Intentions to Deep Decarbonization

    From Good Intentions to Deep Decarbonization

    The most important issue is whether countries will achieve their 2030 targets in a way that helps them to get to zero emissions by 2070. If they merely pursue measures aimed at reducing emissions in the short term, they risk locking their economies into high levels of emissions after 2030. The critical issue, in short,…

  • Breakthrough in Saving Lives in Rural Africa

    Breakthrough in Saving Lives in Rural Africa

    It’s mid-morning in the Tiby Millennium Village in Mali. Rokia, a community health worker, sits with a young mother in a spare courtyard of the household. Gently she asks the key questions.

  • Challenges at the Cutting Edge of Fighting Global Poverty

    The Millennium Village Project (MVP) was launched in 2005-6 in order to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals in the poorest regions of rural Africa. A dozen clusters of villages around Africa have adopted bold and novel strategies to overcome poverty, hunger, and disease. Halfway through the ten-year project, the results are very exciting:…

  • Millennium Goals, Five Years to Go

    Millennium Goals, Five Years to Go

    As 140 heads of state and government gather Monday at the United Nations for the Millennium Development Goals summit, they and the public will ask what has come out of this decade-long effort. The answer will surprise them …

  • Rebuilding Haiti: The 10-Year Plan

    The horrors of Haiti’s earthquake continue to unfold. The quake itself killed perhaps 100,000 people. The inability to organize rapid relief is killing tens of thousands more. More than 1 million people are exposed to hunger and disease and, with the rain and hurricane seasons approaching, are vulnerable to further hazards. Even an economy as…

  • How to Help Haiti Recover

    President Obama has declared that the United States will not forsake Haiti in its moment of agony. Honoring this commitment would be a first for Washington. To prevent a deepening spiral of death, the United States will have to do things differently than in the past. American relief and development institutions do not function properly,…

  • Copenhagen: The False “Victory”

    Two years of climate change negotiations have now ended in a farce in Copenhagen. Rather than grappling with complex issues, President Barack Obama decided instead to declare victory with a vague statement of principles agreed with four other countries. The remaining 187 were handed a fait accompli , which some accepted and others denounced. After…

  • How to Hold the Rich to Their Word

    With less than three days remaining in the Copenhagen climate talks, the rich have finally begun to discuss climate financing for the poor. The negotiating round has gone on for two years with little serious discussion on financing and many other topics, a gaping failure of a process run by and for rich-country politicians who…