...record. The world's richest nations are withdrawing aid funds for poorer countries at a rate never seen before, according to a new study. In 2025, the second consecutive year of decline, official development assistance (ODA) by member states dropped by 23.1% from 2024 to just over €149 billion, the OECD has reported. Leading the retreat, the US led by President Donald Trump slashed its aid budget by an unprecedented 57%, accounting for the lion's share of the global shortfall. Together with cuts from other major donors, namely France (-10.9%), Germany (-17.4%), Japan (-5.6%) and the UK (-10.8%), they account for 96% of the total drop in funding, such as grants, loans or technical and logistical support. The OECD forecast a further 5.8% contraction in 2026. Who is the new largest international aid donor? Following Washington's funding drop, in 2025, Germany became the world's largest ODA funder, with €24.89 billion. The US is now second with €24.77 billion, followed by EU institutions (€22.29 billion) and the UK (€14.70 billion). However, looking at ODA as a percentage of each country's gross national income (GNI), Norway tops the list with 1.03%, followed by Luxembourg, Sweden and Denmark.

Many people compare poverty in developing countries with the homelessness and presence of beggars in the developed world. I currently stay in the downtown part of Vancouver where such homelessness is visible. There are `interesting’ aspects of homelessness in Vancouver compared to that in cities of the United States of America.  The number of homelessness people (say between 3 to 4 thousands) is…

Going electric does not solve our problems, it only deepens them. As engineers, we must say the opinion of the professionals in the industry is contrary to the mainstream, and for good reason, Zsolt Horváth and Tamás Ignácz write. We’ve known for a long time that our GDP addiction and capitalist economic model are incompatible with life on Earth. Scientists kept saying that for decades, yet very little happened. A few years ago, the electrification of passenger vehicles had begun its journey, hoping it could reduce CO2 emissions to save the planet. Not only does it not help — it worsens the situation, and yet we keep heading towards a disaster. Hoping for a deus ex machina There are many examples of the emerging problems that come hand in hand with the electrification of cars. While producing an electric car, you still end up emitting greenhouse gases into the air. The resources required to build a sustainable and efficient system for electric transportation are way too costly, especially for smaller countries or emerging countries. There is no clear strategic plan on how to finance or maintain it. The price of an electric car is extremely expensive compared to its predecessors, the internal combustion engines, and the efficiency is nowhere near them if you look at just how many improvements still need to happen to make an electric car run the same as its non-electric counterpart. 

. There’s an obvious reason why people from at best developing countries, but in some cases come from countries where the economy is barely moving at all and come to America or Canada and Europe to a certain extent, but generally America. Because they want a quality life for themselves and their kids if they have any. They are looking to escape poverty or authoritarianism and in come cases both.…

Greenhouse gas emissions have reached an all-time high, threatening to push the world into “unprecedented” levels of global heating, scientists have warned. The world is rapidly running out of “carbon budget”, the amount of carbon dioxide that can be poured into the atmosphere if we are to stay within the vital threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures, according to a study published in the journal Earth System Science Data on Thursday. Only about 250bn tonnes of carbon dioxide can now be emitted, to avoid the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere that would raise temperatures by 1.5C. That is down from 500bn tonnes just a few years ago, and at current annual rates of greenhouse gas emissions, of about 54bn tonnes a year over the past decade, it would run out well before the end of this decade. […] Sultan Al Jaber, the president-designate of Cop28, will arrive at Bonn on Thursday, under pressure to produce a plan for the talks that will achieve the “course correction” he has called for. While heading the talks, Al Jaber has retained his role as head of UAE’s national oil company, Adnoc, which is planning to increase its oil and gas production capacity. [...] Joeri Rogelj, co-author of the new paper and a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, told the Guardian: “The years of continued high emissions as the updates the remaining carbon budget mean that by now we should be doing more. That means either moving forward the global goal net zero date for CO2 from around 2050 to about 2035, or cutting much deeper by 2030.”