For billions of people, mountain meltwater is essential for drinking water and sanitation, food and energy security, and the integrity of the environment. But today, as the world warms, glaciers are melting faster than ever, making the water cycle more unpredictable and extreme. And because of glacial retreat, floods, droughts, …
Solar panels and wind turbines coupled with energy storage offer a better hope for tackling climate change than trying to capture carbon from fossil fuel power stations, according to new research published by Nature Energy. Carbon capture technologies -- that is new, or as yet undeveloped, technologies that capture CO2 …
From genes to micro-organisms to top predators and even whole ecosystems, depend on biodiversity for everything from clean air and water to medicines and secure food supplies. Yet human activities are destroying biodiversity around 1,000 times faster than natural ‘background’ rates. This global biodiversity crisis is hitting the poorest communities …
The African Development Bank (AfDB) on Thursday said it would provide $25 billion (2.5 trillion shillings) over the next five years to help in the global fight against climate change. Akinwumi Adesina, the President of AfDB, said the bank currently provides 34 per cent of its overall lending portfolio to …
With the world's forests increasingly under threat from climate change and logging, leaders and top bank chiefs pledged billions on Thursday to help reverse the steep decline in Africa's woodland areas. So far this century East Africa alone has lost around 6 million hectares of forest, swathes of which contain …
The World Bank Group, yesterday, made several announcements to scale up support for both climate adaptation and mitigation in Africa during the third One Planet Summit. The summit is being convened by President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Interim President of the World Bank Group, Kristalina …
Kenya is under sharp focus at the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) Assembly over flouting of climate change mitigation policies as it hosts the One Planet Summit in Nairobi today. President Uhuru Kenyatta and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron could face protests by civil society groups, which accuse Kenya of …
The World Bank will more than double its commitment to climate adaptation and mitigation in Africa over the next five years to $22.5 billion. “This region is particularly vulnerable to increasing floods, droughts and destructive storms,” World Bank Group Interim President Kristalina Georgieva said in an emailed statement Wednesday. “We …
From the world’s northernmost town, Longyearbyen, down to Cape Town in South Africa, from the Western tip of Anchorage in Alaska to Tokyo in Japan, young people are preparing to go on a school strike for the climate. The walkout on on Friday 15 March will be the biggest yet, …
If the world fulfills the pledges made at COP 21 it might be possible to keep the rise of average global temperatures to between 3.3 and 3.8 degrees above 1990 levels, but this may be unattainable. CO2 emissions reached an all-time high, with an increase of close to 3%, in …
With African countries on the front lines of intensifying climate change risks, the World Bank is ramping up support through its new Action Plan on Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience, prioritizing the Sub-Saharan Africa region Since 2016, the Africa Climate Business Plan (ACBP) has delivered $17 billion to meet the …
The carbon footprint of food loss and waste (FLW) is estimated to be up to 3.49 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (gtCO2e), representing up to 6–10% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (HLPE 2014). Addressing FLW can reduce the emission intensity of the agricultural system; i.e. the number of …
To stabilize the Earth's climate for people and ecosystems, it is imperative to ramp up natural climate solutions and, at the same time, accelerate mitigation efforts across the energy and industrial sectors, according to a new policy perspective published today in Science. Among their findings, the researchers warn that a …
International discussions on climate change increasingly recognize the importance of agriculture in adaptation and mitigation efforts. Adaptation has been generally prioritized in the most vulnerable countries, where a failure to adapt can constitute a threat to food security. However, synergies between adaptation and mitigation exist in many cases. Climate-smart agriculture, …
Translating the EU’s long-term strategy into action also means engaging more deeply with the different opportunities, challenges and conditions to unlock specific challenges faced by individual Member States or sub-national regions. A common European approach to decarbonisation and common legislative tools are of course needed. However, the EU must also …
Achieving the Paris Agreement global warming target could protect millions of tonnes in annual worldwide fisheries catch, as well as billions of dollars of annual revenues for fishers, workers' income and household seafood expenditures, according to new research from the University of British Columbia. The study, released today in Science …
Evidence for man-made global warming has reached a “gold standard” level of certainty, adding pressure for cuts in greenhouse gases to limit rising temperatures, scientists said. “Humanity cannot afford to ignore such clear signals,” the US-led team wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change of satellite measurements of rising temperatures …
Scientists have managed to turn CO2 from a gas back into solid “coal”, in a breakthrough which could potentially help remove the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. The research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, developed a new technique using a liquid metal electrolysis method which efficiently converts …
This report demonstrates that changes in consumption patterns and dominant lifestyles are a critical and integral part of the solutions package to addressing climate change. The report fills a gap in the existing research by establishing global targets for lifestyle carbon footprints, examining current consumption patterns and their impacts on …
The main objective of this report is to provide a regional synthesis of the current climate change mitigation and adaptation commitments in the agriculture sectors of the Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (SEECA) region, as set forth in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and to identify opportunities for …
The World Bank has set aside 5.08 trillion ($50 billion) to tackle challenges posed by climate change around the world over the next five years. The financing level, an average of $10 billion (Sh1 trillion) a year, is more than double what the global lender allocated during financial years 2015-18. …
