Climate Change

Storms, Flooding Can Unleash a Toxic Soup

By Desmond Brown
It’s a dirty, smelly business, but wastewater is gaining prominence across the Caribbean as countries from Jamaica in the west to Guyana in the south increasingly recognise its effects on the environment and the importance of improving its management.

Green-Friendly Enterprise Helps Save Biggest Caribbean Wetlands

By Ivet González
The 18 communities in Cuba’s Ciénaga de Zapata, the largest wetlands in the Caribbean, have long survived on the abundant local hunting and fishing and by producing charcoal. But that is no longer possible, due to climate change.

U.S. Unveils Military Strategy for Arctic

By Carey L. Biron
The United States is calling for greater cooperation in the Arctic, even as it warns that it will defend its sovereignty in the face of strengthening international interest in newly opening shipping lanes and natural resource extraction opportunities as the region’s ice disappears.

Today’s Forecast Is for Climate-Proof Farming

By Jewel Fraser
Even as weather extremes bedevil Caribbean farmers, Ramgopaul Roop has turned his three-acre fruit farm into a showcase for how to beat climate change.

South Scores 11th-Hour Win on Climate Loss and Damage

By Stephen Leahy
The U.N. climate talks in Warsaw ended in dramatic fashion Saturday evening in what looked like a schoolyard fight with a mob of dark-suited supporters packed around the weary combatants, Todd Stern of the United States and Sai Navoti of Fiji representing G77 nations.

Local Action Against Climate Change a Beacon of Hope

By Silvia Giannelli
In Maputo, a port city on the Indian Ocean in Mozambique, 44 percent of the 1.2 million inhabitants live in poverty, making them even more vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise, floods and cyclones. But despite their severe poverty, their day-to-day experience gives them practical knowledge on how to deal with climate change effects.

Big Coal Angles For a Slice of Climate Finance Pie

By Mantoe Phakathi
Power generation is a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Choosing the right options for less-polluting energy sources in the future is a vital question – in which energy-starved Africa has a keen interest.

Storm Brews at U.N. Climate Talks

By Wambi Michael
Hundreds of representatives from various NGOs walked out of the negotiating rooms at the United Nations climate talks in Poland on Thursday in protest against the reluctance by developed nations to commit towards achieving a global climate treaty.

Cleopatra Drives in Haiyan’s Climate Change Message

By Silvia Giannelli
Cleopatra is the name chosen for the younger sister of Haiyan, the cyclone that wreaked havoc in the Philippines last week. This latest storm caused massive floods and left 16 dead and hundreds displaced in Sardinia, Italy.

Keeping the Philippines from Becoming Another Haiti

By Ramy Srour
Nearly two weeks after Typhoon Haiyan devastated parts of the central Philippines, experts and activists here are warning that post-disaster reconstruction needs to be more transparent than past such efforts, while also focusing on a long-term assistance strategy that goes beyond immediate emergency relief.

U.N. Climate Meet Becomes About “Not Losing Ground”

By Desmond Brown
Diann Black-Layne grew up in a single parent home with nine siblings on the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua. Still, life was easygoing and enjoyable, she recalls. For her, it was paradise.

G77 Walk-out at COP19 as Rich Countries Use Delaying Tactics

By Claudia Ciobanu
The G77+China group of 133 developing countries negotiating a new international deal at COP19 in Warsaw to combat climate change walked out of the talks in the wee hours of Wednesday morning to protest developed countries’ reluctance to commit to loss and damage.

Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory

By Stephen Leahy
Burning of fossil fuels added a record 36 billion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere in 2013, locking in even more heating of the planet.

New Hope for Haiti’s Decimated Forests

By Desmond Brown
Small farmers could play an important part in making Haiti – where just two percent of trees are still standing – green again.

Driving Home the Link Between Gender and Climate Change

By Silvia Giannelli
Tuesday was Gender Day at the COP19 climate summit in Warsaw, and many of the events that took place in the National Stadium focused on the topic of gender and its relation with climate change, and tried to shed a light on problems that require action from policy-makers.

Coal Tries to Clean Up Its Image

By Claudia Ciobanu
An International Coal and Climate summit organised by the Polish Ministry of Economy and the World Coal Association kicked off Monday in the Polish capital Warsaw in parallel to the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP19, amid outcry from environmentalists who accused COP host Poland of bias in favor of the coal industry.

Japan Bails Out on CO2 Emissions Target

By Stephen Leahy
Japan announced Friday that it will renege on its carbon emissions pledge, likely ending any hope global warming can be kept to 2.0 degrees C.

Fishing Communities Will Face Warmer, Acid Oceans

By Desmond Brown
Eating fish has been an integral part of the Caribbean's cultural traditions for centuries. Fish is also a major source of food and essential nutrients, especially in rural areas where there are scores of small coastal communities.

Brazil Headed Towards an Energy Revolution

By Stephen Leahy
Energy consumption and production are undergoing fundamental shifts but the world is still on course to a 3.6 degree C hotter climate according a report released during the U.N. climate talks in Warsaw.

Concerns Over Role of Corporates at Climate Talks

By Mantoe Phakathi
As deliberations continue in earnest at the 19th United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Warsaw, negotiators from the Global South welcome a focus on financing adaptation – but reject a new emphasis on a role for the private sector.

Developing World Pushes for Rescue of U.N. Carbon Credit Fund

By Wambi Michael
Negotiators from Least Developed Countries are calling for the United Nations climate body to urgently establish a rescue fund to save Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism from collapse.
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