The World on the Brink: UNEP’s 2025 Emissions Gap Report Warns We Are Running Out of Time

Wazzup Pilipinas!? 

In a world already reeling from heatwaves, floods, and wildfires, the United Nations Environment Programme’s latest Emissions Gap Report lands like a thunderclap — a sobering reminder that the clock on climate action is not just ticking, it’s deafening.

Released just days before global leaders convene for the next round of UN climate talks, the report reveals both progress and peril. While global temperature projections have slightly improved — now predicted to rise by 2.3°C to 2.5°C based on countries’ updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), down from last year’s 2.6°C to 2.8°C — the pace of change remains dangerously insufficient. The world is still on track for 2.8°C of warming under current policies, a level that would unleash catastrophic environmental and humanitarian consequences.

A Narrowing Path to Survival

The UNEP report makes clear that even with full implementation of current pledges, humanity is on the brink of overshooting the 1.5°C threshold — the critical limit scientists say could prevent the worst climate impacts. Temporary overshoot is now considered inevitable, potentially reaching around 0.3°C above the target before any chance of returning below it by century’s end.

This overshoot carries real-world consequences: more deadly heat extremes, collapsing ecosystems, intensified droughts and floods, and the loss of entire island nations. Only one-third of Paris Agreement parties, covering 63% of global emissions, have submitted new NDCs this year. Even more worrying, the G20 countries, responsible for the bulk of global emissions, are not collectively on track to meet their 2030 goals — let alone the strengthened 2035 targets now required by science.

A Call for Unprecedented Action

UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen minced no words in her stark assessment:

“Nations have had three attempts to deliver promises made under the Paris Agreement, and each time they have landed off target. While national climate plans have delivered some progress, it is nowhere near fast enough… But it is still possible – just.”

Her message is both warning and rallying cry. The solutions, she emphasizes, already exist: scaling up cheap renewable energy, cutting methane emissions, and investing in resilient economies that deliver growth, health, and energy security. What is missing is political courage.

Richer Nations Under Fire

For many experts, the report is more than a scientific update — it’s a moral reckoning. Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists described the findings as “alarming, enraging, and heart-breaking,” placing direct blame on wealthier nations and fossil fuel interests for decades of obstruction and delay.

“World leaders still have the power to act decisively,” she said, “and any other choice would be an unconscionable dereliction of their responsibility to humanity.”

Her statement reflects the growing frustration within the scientific and activist communities: that the crisis is no longer one of knowledge, but of will.

A Glimmer of Hope in the Energy Transition

Still, amidst the grim data, there are signs of transformation. Richard Black, Director of Policy and Strategy at Ember, points to the explosive growth of renewable energy as a reason for cautious optimism.

“Whatever a government’s motivation — economic growth, cleaner air, more jobs — the clean energy economy offers more opportunities than sticking with the fossil fuel model.”

In many nations, the shift toward renewables is no longer driven purely by environmental concerns, but by economic competitiveness, energy security, and affordability — forces that could accelerate decarbonization even when political consensus wavers.

The Real Barrier: Political Inertia

Climate expert Catherine Abreu of ICPH dismantled the narrative that “the Paris Agreement is failing.” Instead, she points the finger squarely at a handful of powerful G20 nations stalling progress.

“It isn’t the Paris Agreement that’s failing – it’s a handful of powerful countries… The 1.5°C limit is more relevant than ever. COP30 must deliver an unambiguous signal that now is not the time to retreat — it’s the time to accelerate.”

Her words resonate as both indictment and inspiration: the tools exist, the science is clear, the economics are shifting — what remains is the political courage to act.

The World’s Defining Decade

The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025 is not just another policy document. It is a siren — warning that every fraction of a degree matters, every delay costs lives, and every ton of carbon burned brings us closer to irreversible tipping points.

The report’s conclusion is stark: the gap between promises and reality is shrinking too slowly. The difference between a livable planet and a collapsing one will be determined not by technological breakthroughs, but by whether world leaders choose to honor their commitments and act with urgency.

This is humanity’s defining decade.

The path to 1.5°C is still open — but only just.

And the window is closing fast.

For more details, access the full UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025:

🔗 https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2025

Growing a Farm That Works With Nature: Designing Abundance Through Permaculture

Wazzup Pilipinas!? 

In an age where industrial farming dominates the landscape—depleting soil, wasting water, and disconnecting people from the pulse of the Earth—a quiet revolution is taking root. Across the Philippines and beyond, farmers, homesteaders, and urban growers are rediscovering an ancient truth with modern relevance: when we work with nature instead of against it, life flourishes in balance and abundance.

This is the essence of permaculture—a design philosophy that sees the farm not as a factory, but as a living ecosystem. Whether you have a few hundred square meters behind your home or several hectares of countryside, permaculture offers a way to cultivate food, community, and resilience—without exhausting the land or the people who tend it.

The Heart of Permaculture: Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share

At its core, permaculture is guided by three simple yet profound ethics:

Earth Care – Nourish the soil, protect the water, and honor the web of life that sustains every seed. When we restore the health of our land, we restore our own future.

People Care – A thriving farm should also nurture those who live and work within it. Food, shelter, and community become not just goals, but natural outcomes of thoughtful design.

Fair Share – Nature’s abundance is meant to be shared. By returning surplus to the system—whether that’s compost, seeds, knowledge, or kindness—we ensure that growth remains equitable and sustainable.

These ethics form the compass for every design decision, from how we plant and harvest to how we share our yield and wisdom.

Designing a Farm That Thrives on Its Own

Permaculture is not about copying nature—it’s about understanding her patterns. It invites us to observe first, and only then intervene wisely.

Here are a few foundational design principles that can transform any space into a self-sustaining, abundant ecosystem:

Observe and Interact: Spend time watching your land—how sunlight moves, how water flows, where the wind travels. Nature’s rhythms reveal where life wants to thrive.

Catch and Store Energy: Rainwater, sunlight, compost—all are gifts waiting to be harvested. Store energy in natural ways that keep your system productive and resilient.

Obtain a Yield: Every design should feed you back—through food, beauty, learning, or joy. A farm that nourishes its caretakers endures.

Use and Value Diversity: Like a healthy forest, diversity breeds strength. Grow multiple crops, attract beneficial insects, and integrate animals wisely. Each species has a role in the whole.

Produce No Waste: In nature, nothing is wasted. Every leaf, drop, and scrap can be reused or composted back into the cycle of life.

When these principles are applied thoughtfully, a once-barren piece of land can transform into a thriving, regenerative ecosystem—one that grows food, stores water, shelters wildlife, and supports the people who depend on it.

Building Resilience: A Farm That Feeds the Future

A farm designed through permaculture is more than just productive—it’s resilient. It weathers storms, resists pests naturally, and regenerates its own fertility over time. Instead of relying on expensive inputs or chemical fertilizers, it draws strength from cooperation—between plants, animals, microbes, and humans.

Imagine fruit trees shading vegetable beds, ducks fertilizing rice paddies, compost feeding new seedlings, and water flowing through gentle swales instead of running off to waste. Every element supports another, forming a web of life that grows stronger each season.

In this way, the farm becomes not just a source of food, but a sanctuary—a place where humans and nature coexist in mutual respect and abundance.

A Call to Grow Differently

Permaculture challenges us to rethink what “progress” means. It invites us to slow down, to reconnect, and to design not for short-term gain, but for long-term harmony.

Whether you’re cultivating a backyard garden in the city or stewarding ancestral land in the countryside, you hold the power to create a space that heals rather than harms. Every seed planted with intention becomes a small act of hope. Every compost pile, a quiet protest against waste.

Because in the end, growing a farm that works with nature isn’t just about producing food—it’s about cultivating life itself.

"When we learn to listen to the land, we begin to understand that growth is not a race but a rhythm. The soil teaches us patience, the rain teaches us trust, and the plants remind us that abundance comes not from control, but from connection. To grow with nature is to remember who we truly are—a part of the Earth, not apart from it."

— Ross Flores Del Rosario, Founder, Wazzup Pilipinas

From Seed Keepers to Street Vendors: How Asia's Food Guardians Are Fighting Climate Change One Meal at a Time

Wazzup Pilipinas!? 

In the rice terraces of the Philippines, the spice gardens of India, and the coffee forests of Thailand, a quiet revolution is brewing—and it smells like fermented soy, heirloom grains, and hope.

When Abdul Shakoor Ehrari watches over his native livestock in Afghanistan's windswept highlands, he's not just tending animals—he's guarding centuries of ecological wisdom passed down through nomadic communities who learned to thrive in some of Earth's harshest landscapes. Thousands of miles away, in the volcanic soils of Indonesia, Gusti Ayu Komang Sri Mahayuni crouches in her garden, sorting seeds that carry the genetic memory of drought, flood, and survival.

These aren't nostalgic hobbyists or romantic traditionalists. They're the frontline warriors in humanity's most urgent battle: feeding a hungry planet without destroying it in the process.

This November, their worlds converge in Bacolod, Philippines, where over 2,000 of Asia and the Pacific's most innovative food leaders—farmers who've rejected pesticides, youth activists reimagining agriculture, Indigenous chefs reclaiming ancestral cuisines, and entrepreneurs proving sustainability can be profitable—will gather for Terra Madre Asia & Pacific from November 19-22, 2025.

The Crisis at the Table

The statistics are stark: industrial agriculture contributes up to 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Biodiversity is collapsing at unprecedented rates. Yet across Asia and the Pacific, home to 60% of the world's population, communities are cultivating solutions that challenge everything we think we know about modern food systems.

"Terra Madre Asia & Pacific is a platform where communities come together to celebrate identity, share knowledge, and collaborate on sustainable food solutions," explains Edward Mukiibi, President of Slow Food. "It embodies our collective commitment to building food systems that nourish both people and the planet."

But this isn't another talking-heads conference where distant experts pontificate about problems they've never touched. This is where soil gets under fingernails and fermentation bubbles in clay pots.

The Revolutionaries

Consider Lee Ayu, co-founder of Akha Ama Coffee in Thailand. While multinational coffee corporations squeeze farmers for cheaper beans, Lee has built a model supporting 300 Indigenous families through ethical production. Her forest-grown coffee doesn't just taste better—it preserves canopy cover, protects watersheds, and keeps traditional knowledge alive.

In Nepal, Pasang Sherpa isn't waiting for governments to solve the climate crisis. She's mobilizing youth to transform food systems from the ground up, proving that the generation inheriting this broken planet refuses to accept business as usual.

Meanwhile, in the Philippines, Rowena Gonnay treats every heirloom rice variety and forgotten tuber as an act of resistance. When indigenous crops vanish, they take with them generations of climate adaptation, nutritional diversity, and cultural identity. She's fighting to ensure that doesn't happen.

Four Days That Could Change Everything

The Terra Madre program reads like a manifesto for planetary survival disguised as a food festival:

Transforming Agriculture for a Sustainable Future sessions will dissect how to break free from chemical-dependent industrial farming and embrace agroecology—working with nature's intelligence rather than against it.

The Slow Food Coffee Coalition Area brings together 27 delegates from six countries to share stories "from soil to cup"—including youth-led cooperatives in Timor-Leste and innovative Indonesian producers turning waste coffee cherries into cascara tea.

Food and the Climate Crisis workshops explore how biodiversity isn't just nice to have—it's our best insurance policy against environmental collapse. When farmers plant fifty varieties instead of one, when they preserve wild relatives of domesticated crops, they're building resilience into the food supply itself.

But the most radical part? This isn't just about lectures and PowerPoints.

Learning by Tasting, Teaching by Feeding

Children will trace Indian spices from plant to plate, their hands grinding cardamom while stories unfold about trade routes and monsoons. Families will make tofu alongside Japanese artisans, feeling centuries of technique in the texture of curds separating from whey. Adults will learn ancestral fermentation methods and bamboo cooking, skills their grandparents knew but that nearly vanished in the rush toward convenience.

The show-cooking sessions transform food into storytelling. When delegates prepare "Street-Spice Duet: Pakora & Garlic Cowpea" from India or "Island Taro, Two Ways" from Vanuatu, they're not just demonstrating recipes—they're preserving cultural memory, one fritter at a time.

Collective tastings like "K-Ferments Flight: Gochujang to Ganjang" from Korea prove that biodiversity isn't an abstract concept. It's the explosion of umami on your tongue, the complex layers in properly aged soy paste, the realization that industrial food has been selling us monotony wrapped in marketing.

From morning tea ceremonies to evening bar takeovers, the Slow Drinks program features artisans and mixologists exploring sustainable beverages—because even what we drink carries environmental consequences.

Why This Matters Beyond Bacolod

Asia and the Pacific contain some of Earth's most biodiverse landscapes and richest food cultures. But they're also on the front lines of climate change—rising seas threatening island nations, changing monsoons disrupting rice cycles, warming temperatures pushing coffee cultivation to higher altitudes.

The solutions being shared at Terra Madre aren't exotic curiosities. They're templates for survival.

When Afghan nomads preserve livestock adapted to extreme conditions, they're maintaining genetic diversity that could prove crucial as climate chaos intensifies. When Indonesian women revive traditional seed exchange networks, they're creating food security that doesn't depend on corporate supply chains. When Thai Indigenous communities practice forest-grown agriculture, they're proving you can produce premium products while regenerating ecosystems.

This is what "good, clean, and fair" food actually looks like—not as a trendy marketing phrase, but as a lived reality in communities that never forgot how to work with nature instead of against it.

The Visual Story

Even Terra Madre's identity tells a deeper story. The event's visual design, created by illustrator Dan Matutina, draws inspiration from archipelagic landscapes and handcrafted clay forms—celebrating resilience, biodiversity, and the interconnections that sustain both ecosystems and cultures.

Because this movement understands something fundamental: everything is connected. The seed to the soil. The farmer to the chef. The meal to the planet. Break those connections, and entire systems collapse. Honor them, and abundance becomes possible again.

A Movement, Not Just a Meeting

Terra Madre Asia & Pacific represents something increasingly rare: genuine hope grounded in practical action. These aren't dreamers hoping someone else will fix things. They're people who've already begun building the future we desperately need—one garden, one recipe, one community at a time.

From Afghanistan's highlands to Samoa's islands, from rice fields to rainforests, these food guardians are proving that the path forward might actually lead through the wisdom we've been leaving behind.

The question isn't whether their approaches work—the delegates gathering in Bacolod are living proof they do. The question is whether the rest of us will pay attention before industrial food systems finish breaking what they've so carefully preserved.

In Bacolod this November, over 2,000 people will gather to share seeds, stories, and solutions. They'll cook, taste, teach, and learn. They'll strengthen networks spanning thousands of miles and countless cultures.

And they'll remind us that feeding the world sustainably isn't some impossible dream. It's already happening. We just need to follow their lead.

Terra Madre Asia & Pacific takes place November 19-22, 2025, in Bacolod, Philippines, bringing together delegates from over 20 countries to build food systems that are good, clean, and fair for all. For more information, visit slowfood.com.