As the coronavirus outbreak shutters gyms, malls and swimming pools, residents from Los Angeles to Bangkok are heading to parks and open spaces during lockdowns, highlighting their vital role in protecting health and wellbeing, urban experts said.

Using water more efficiently in everything from daily life to agriculture and industry would help reduce planet-warming emissions and curb climate change – a potential benefit that has yet to be widely recognised, the United Nations said.

Complaints and concerns over water shortages rose by 58% in Jordan in the first day after a country-wide curfew was instated, water authorities said.

People globally are being told to wash their hands to fight the spread of coronavirus but in Africa many can’t, experts said, urging states to use the pandemic as a reason to finally push for improvements to water supplies.

Catastrophic crop failures caused by extreme weather in just one country could disrupt global food supplies and drive price spikes in an interconnected world, exposing how climate change threatens global stability, researchers said.

The coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the planet will force city authorities and planners to more seriously consider factors such as population density, technology, food security and inadequate housing, urban experts said.

If governments follow through on plans to build thousands of kilometres of roads through the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, it will not only fuel deforestation but bring economic losses too, researchers said.

The spreading coronavirus is threatening project schedules in the booming U.S. solar industry following a year in which the sector topped natural gas as the nation’s top new power source, according to a report.

Those living in polluted cities are more at risk from Covid-19, the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) warned today.

Policymakers and government leaders have taken a range of approaches to deal with the economic fallout from the coronavirus. Here is a list of how some of the world’s biggest economies and economic blocs have reacted.