Here’s today’s positive climate and environment news.

🏝️ How island states are saving themselves

Small island states are extremely vulnerable to climate change, with many in danger of sinking completely or becoming uninhabitable. With the COP process failing to provide the climate finance they need to adapt to extreme weather, these states are turning to other solutions to save their land. For instance:

• Many are restoring mangroves and coral reefs, which provide natural protection from storms and flooding

• The Pacific nation Vanuatu is going to court to pressure high-income countries to reduce their climate impact

• Barbados, Belize, and the Seychelles have pushed for ‘debt for nature’ swaps, where debt to international lenders is cancelled in return for the states investing in protecting local nature

🏥 How nature saves the health budget

A study in Australia has found that every visit to a natural park saves the country’s health services almost $100 – totalling $2.1bn every year. As previous research has demonstrated, spending time in nature reduces a range of health issues including depression, anxiety, heart disease and lung disease. These results show why it’s critical that access to nature becomes more equal – people in lower socioeconomic areas typically live further from these parks, so the health benefits are unfairly distributed.

🐦 Recreating the extinct sounds of nature

A new installation in Paris by the one and only Björk is harnessing the sounds of extinct animals in order to draw attention to the biodiversity crisis. Some of these animal cries were recreated with artificial intelligence, using their skeletons and fossils to glean clues as to how they might have sounded.

‘We wanted to remind citizens of the raw vitality of endangered creatures.’