Climate Change

Exploring New Depths: NF-POGO Centre of Excellence Driving Innovative, Diverse Ocean Observation

Picture yourself as an early-career ocean researcher. You have the opportunity to be at sea in addition to learning on campus. Through cutting-edge technology and immersive facilities, you experience the most realistic ocean exploration scenarios, including braving extreme cold and harsh environments. That’s the experience at the Launch, a 'living lab' at the Marine Institute of Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the east coast of Canada. It’s an experience meant to prepare you for the real-world complexities of the type of ocean research needed to tackle urgent global issues like climate change.

How Women in Ahmedabad Slums Are Beating Back Climate’s Deadly Heat

Seema Mali is desperate. She has no defences against this changing climate’s brutal heat. Mali makes fresh flower garland the whole year, but her summer income has been plummeting by 30 percent over the last 8–10 years due to the extreme heat.

Beekeeping Offers Opportunity to Zimbabwean Farming Communities

Honeybees quickly react with a sharp and loud buzz sound as beekeeper Tanyaradzwa Kanangira opens one of the wooden horizontal Kenyan top bar hives near a stream in a thick forest in Chimanimani, 412 kilometres from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. The 26-year-old puffs some smoke, a safety measure, as he holds and inspects a honeycomb built from hexagons by the honey bees.

Brazil’s Biofuel Potential Set to Expand Thanks to Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Brazil is counting on biofuels to assert itself as an energy powerhouse in the near future, as a decisive supplier of low-carbon jet fuel, a requirement of the climate crisis. The electrification of automobiles has tended to curb the strong ethanol and biodiesel agribusiness developed in the country since the 1970s. But demand for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) now offers the possibility of significant new expansion for many decades to come.

International Women’s Day, 2024
Inside Women Dominated Seaweed Farms in Kenya’s Indian Ocean Waters

Nearly two kilometers into the Indian Ocean from the Mwazaro beach coastline in Lunga Lunga Sub-County, Kwale County, women can be spotted seated in the shallow ocean waters or tying strings to erected poles parallel to the waves. It is a captivating sight to see rows of seaweed farms in the Indian Ocean.

Into the Abyss: The Scramble for the Ocean Floor

Beneath the vast expanse of the ocean surface lies another world. At first, around the shores, the continental shelf is little more than an extension of the adjoining landmass. But then one reaches the edge of the abyss and, with the sudden drop that follows, everything changes. Remarkably, in view of what is known about the rest of the planet, and even outer space, most of the ocean floor remains largely a mystery. The scientific consensus is that only 5% of the deep sea has been explored in any detail. When a passenger jet was lost somewhere in the Indian Ocean in 2014, rescuers floundered without definitive maps of the maritime space and its currents at different depths that might have helped in their search.

International Women’s Day, 2024


 
On March 8th, we celebrate International Women’s Day. A day to honour the resilience, achievements, and potential of women worldwide. The world faces crises—geopolitical conflicts, poverty, and climate change.

UN Environmental Assembly Call for Action to Address Planetary Triple Threat

The  Sixth United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA-6)  ended with delegates calling for firm actions to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss, and pollution. The assembly also reaffirmed its call for “environmental multilateralism” in seeking solutions to the threats, noting that time was running out fast before the threats could besiege the planet and make life a bigger nightmare, especially for the underprivileged.

Venezuela Bids Farewell to Its Last Glacier, Wrapped in Plastic

Venezuela has undertaken the task of covering the remains of its last glacier, La Corona, on Humboldt Peak at 4,900 meters above sea level in the Andes mountains in the southwest of the country, with plastic "blankets" to slow the inevitable end of this icy patch of its mountain landscape and source of legends.

From Gas to Ash: The Struggle of Nigerian Women Amidst Surging Cooking Gas Prices

One sunny mid-morning in Omu-Aran village, a community in Kwara State, North Central Nigeria, Iyabo Sunday sat beside a firewood stand observing her pot of beans with rice (a combination enjoyed by many in Nigeria). The 52-year-old widow used her plastic dirt parker to fan the flames, occasionally blowing air through her mouth for speed and frantically shielding her face from the wisps of smoke that curled from the firewood.

Salvadoran Poultry Farms Produce Biogas, Easing Socio-environmental Conflicts

In a win-win relationship, a segment of El Salvador's agribusiness industry is taking steps to ease the tension of the historic socio-environmental conflict caused by poultry and pig farms, whose waste has caused concern and anger in nearby communities.

The World Social Forum: The counterweight to the World Economic Forum

This week the 2024 annual meeting of the World Social Forum (WSF) was held in Nepal. There were fifty thousand participants from over 90 countries, exchanging strategies to address the multiple global crises, from climate catastrophes to unfettered capitalism, inequality, social injustice, wars and conflict.

Unpacking 2023, the Warmest Year on Record

2023 was the warmest year on record. The latest Copernicus Climate Change Service highlights that February 2023 to January 2024 was the first time that we experienced 12 consecutive months of temperatures 1.5-degree hotter than the pre-industrial era.

Coastal Indigenous and Minority Women Driving Kenya’s Blue Forest Conservation Efforts

Tsunza Peninsula is a natural wonder that sits just inside the many inlets of Mombasa Island on the border between Mombasa and Kwale Counties—a little-known spectacle of lagoons, islands, and thick mangroves in Kinango Sub-County, Kwale County, on Kenya’s coastal region. 

Who Wants to Live by the Sea?

For most of history, only those who made their living from the sea chose to live on the coast. Fear of being battered by storms, not to mention vulnerability to attacks from foreign navies, kept most people inland. Gradually that changed and, along with fisherfolk and their families, the idea of a coastal location became something of a cult. High property prices still reflect its popularity. But is it any longer so desirable?

Small Island “Digital” States: Charting the Course for Transformation

Small Island Developing States, or SIDS, have long been pioneers in international development, often compelled by the challenges they face. Positioned on the frontlines of climate change, they lead efforts in mitigation, adaptation, and advocacy, and despite their geographical dispersion, they are innovating approaches to resilience and sustainability.

Snowless Winter and a Climate Crisis: Kashmir’s ‘Unprecedented’ Weather

Abdul Gani Malik, a 75-year-old goldsmith living in Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, has witnessed eras of tranquility and turbulence in the Himalayan region. What he has not seen, however, is a snowless Kashmir during the winter.

Smallholder Farmers Are Key to CGIAR Response to Hunger Crisis

Dr Ismahane Elouafi has her work cut out. As the new executive managing director of CGIAR, a global network of agricultural research centers, her mandate, simply put, is to tackle the world’s most severe hunger crisis in modern history. And it is in Africa that the former Chief Scientist of FAO with a PhD in durum wheat genetics faces her greatest challenges, both in terms of developing science-based innovations and technologies and lobbying governments to adopt responsible policies.

Nepal Farmers Face Another Year of ‘Agricultural Drought’, Threatening Food Security

Najboon Khatun looks up at the sky every day, searching for the possibility of rain. Clouds come and go without a drop of water. “Winter crops like wheat and vegetables need water, but like last year, there has been no rainfall yet,” says 65-year-old Khatun, expressing her anguish. In her village in Dhanusha, one of the agricultural hubs in the southern plains of Nepal, farmers mostly depend on rain as a source of irrigation. However, they are facing yet another year of drought, affecting winter crops, including wheat, mustard, lentils, and vegetables.

State of the World’s Migratory Species Report ‘Alarming’ Threats, Global Action Urged

A groundbreaking State of the World’s Migratory Species report is calling for accelerated global conservation measures to counter the threat of extinction faced by 1 in 5 of all migratory species.

Proven Vector Control Interventions Needed to Stem Malaria Infections in Africa

Experts recommend that the current prevention of malaria in highly endemic countries in Africa should integrate "locally appropriate" control measures to cope with the highest burden of mosquito-borne disease on the continent.

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