Climate Change

Quenching Humanity’s Freshwater Thirst Creates a Salty Threat

By Edward Jones, Manzoor Qadir and Vladimir Smakhtin
Starting from a few, mostly Middle Eastern facilities in the 1960s, today almost 16,000 desalination plants are in operation in 177 countries, producing 95 million cubic meters of freshwater every day - equal to about half the flow over Niagara Falls.

Climate Change Threatens Mexico’s Atlantic Coast

By Emilio Godoy
"I couldn't plant my cornfield in May, because it rained too early. I lost everything," lamented Marcos Canté, an indigenous farmer, as he recounted the ravages that climate change is wreaking on this municipality on Mexico's Caribbean coast.

A Salty Dilemma

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
As the threat of water scarcity increasingly grows, many have turned to the Earth’s plentiful oceans for a solution. However, this has created a new risk threatening public and environmental health: brine.

Why We Should Care about Vulnerable Coastal Communities

By Nigel Brett
According to UN statistics, approximately 40 per cent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of the coast, and overall the world’s coastal population is increasing faster than the total global population. At the same time, global warming is causing sea levels to rise and increasing extreme weather incidents on coastlines.

Bangladesh starts its journey towards climate resilience

By Saleemul Huq
At the beginning of January 2019 Bangladesh started to take the required steps to become a climate resilient country by 2030 by achieving transformational adaptation to climate change impacts.

Climate Change-Induced Salinity Affecting Soil Across Coastal Bangladesh

By Reaz Haider
As a country with a large coastline, the adverse impacts of saltwater intrusion are significant in Bangladesh. Salinity mainly affects land and water in the coastal areas.

Building Mongolia’s Green Future

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage and IPS Correspondent
The landlocked country of Mongolia sparks certain images in the mind—rolling hills with horses against a picturesque backdrop. However, the East Asian country is facing a threat that will change its landscape: climate change.

Q&A: ‘There’s a Lot More Climate Finance Available than People Think’

By Yazeed Kamaldien
While growth in the green economy looks promising, government regulation and a business-as-usual approach are among the hurdles inhibiting cleaner energy production.

We Are All DukDukDiya: Humming Bird with One Drop of Water at a Time

By Jamison Ervin
There is a Quechan fable about a hummingbird named Dukdukdiya. During a fierce forest fire, while all other animals stood in stunned fear, Dukdukdiya alone took action by repeatedly carrying a single drop of water in her beak to the flames. When asked why she bothered with such paltry efforts, she replied that she was simply doing everything in her power to stop the fire.

Climate Change: Complex Challenges for Agriculture

By Peter Lüthi
The unusually hot summer of 2018 showed that climate change affects a central part of our lives: agriculture. The severe drought in Liechtenstein led to large losses in the hay harvest.

Turning Mangrove Trees into Sustainable Assets for Myanmar

By Stella Paul
In 2015, Worldview International Foundation began a mangrove restoration project, planting saplings of the trees on about 121 hectares of land in Myanmar’s Ayyerwady region.

Global Warming: Severe Consequences for Africa

By Dan Shepard
Record global greenhouse gas emissions are putting the world on a path toward unacceptable warming, with serious implications for development prospects in Africa. “Limiting warming to 1.5° C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics, but doing so would require unprecedented changes,” said Jim Skea, cochair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III.

Sprouting Mangroves Restore Hopes in Coastal Myanmar

By Stella Paul
Htay Aung is having a moment. The 63-year-old retired professor of Marine Science sits at the foot of a Buddha statue atop a hill on Shwe Thaung Yan sub township, in Myanmar's Ayyerwady region, almost in meditation. Below him, a vast thicket of mangrove glistens in the gold of a setting sun. For Aung, this stretch of mangroves—known as the Thor Heyerdahl Climate Park—is a symbol of joy, hope and all things good.

Mexico’s Forests, Both Victims of and Solution to Climate Change

By Emilio Godoy
"I dream of a healthy, sustainable, well-managed forest," says Rogelio Ruiz, a silviculturist from southern Mexico, who insists that "we have to clean it up, take advantage of the wood, and reforest.”

Getting Sustainable Development Back on Track in Asia & the Pacific

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
2019 will be a landmark year for the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Four years will have passed since world leaders adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Four years since governments recommitted themselves to eradicating extreme poverty, improving universal health care coverage, education and food security, and achieving a sweeping set of economic, social and environmental objectives. Long enough to assess our direction of travel and then refocus work where progress is falling short.

Climate Change Forces Central American Farmers to Migrate

By Edgardo Ayala
As he milks his cow, Salvadoran Gilberto Gomez laments that poor harvests, due to excessive rain or drought, practically forced his three children to leave the country and undertake the risky journey, as undocumented migrants, to the United States.

DRC Farmers in “Schools Without Walls” Learn to Increase Harvest

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman
It was almost four years ago in 2015 that members of Farmer’s Frame of Idiofa (FFI), a farmers group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), produced a mere eight tonnes of sweet potatoes on two hectares of land. But the main reason for the low yield had not necessarily been a climate-related one, but an educational one.

Aborted Fuel Tax Initiative in France: Its Ramifications for Green Growth

By Mizan Khan and Dereje Senshaw
Emmanuel Macron was voted to French Presidency in 2017 with the mission of strengthening the integration of the European Union and pursuing economic and ecological reforms. So from the outset, he was set to distinguish himself, not just in Europe but on the world stage, especially after President Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement. So Macron held the summit meeting on `One Planet’ in Paris last December to push for stronger environment and climate policy. He also spoke of the environment when he addressed the Congress in April 2018, stating that “Let us face it: There is no Planet B.”i

Overfishing Threatens Malawi’s Blue Economy

By Mabvuto Banda
Lake Malawi, Africa’s third largest lake, provides an economic lifeline to many fishing families. But overfishing is affecting many of these lives, with women being affected the most.

Restoring Ghana’s Mangroves and Depleted Fish Stock

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
It was just three and a half years ago that the Sanwoma fishing village, which sits between the sea and the mouth of the Ankobra River on the west coast of Ghana, experienced perpetual flooding that resulted in a loss of property and life.

What the COP24 Needs: A New Emerging Mindset

By William Mebane
An alternative framework of international development and new forms of consumption of good/services are implicit in achieving the goals of UN climate conference recently held in Poland.
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