Blog Posts: health

As African governments design their economic recovery plans from the coronavirus pandemic, they must consider access to affordable and reliable electricity.

The developing world is facing a major debt crisis, limiting their ability to spend on economic recovery for COVID-19 or climate action. Creditor countries — specifically China, the largest bilateral creditor to developing countries — can exchange this for clear, verifiable climate action and investments in healthcare.

Cities are stuck with a lot of dead trees every year, which often go to waste. Reforestation hubs are a new model that can help cities find new uses from urban wood, which can save cities money, create new jobs, address long-term public health goals and mitigate climate change.

Sustainable development depends on access to electricity. New WRI research presents four ways to better link energy and development efforts.

Rural areas face unique risks due to COVID-19, with many rural hospitals also struggle with unreliable access to electricity, affecting the day-to-day treatment of patients. Nav Jivan Hospital in rural India shows the life-saving value of sustainable energy, especially in times of crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic lays bare two facets of our new reality: we are more interconnected than ever, and cities are at the front lines of this crisis and will be at the front lines of any similarly globalized crisis in the future. Cities are already in adaptation mode.

As governments look to help their economies recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulus packages should also build resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Climate scientists recently found that extreme heat is leading to more pre-term births, warming waters in New England are linked to a decline in fishermen, and unprecedented changes in the Arctic show the region is changing more quickly than anticipated. This post summarizes these and other studies published in December 2019.

As Diwali ends and winter sets in, fireworks and crop burning push New Delhi's poor air quality to dangerous extremes. But to fix underlying, year-round air pollution, Delhi should look to cleaner transport.

Solar panels can help rural doctors in India maintain reliable electricity and save more lives. But remote hospitals remain a largely untapped market for renewables.