Climate change blogs

Knowledge is power in this game of chance (called life)

Where honey means money and climate means change

Ngan lives in a village called Ri in the remote highlands of Vietnam's Thanh Hoa province. It's beautiful. Everywhere you look is green-green-green, from the forested limestone mountains that look like the humps of long dead dragons to the flat sheets of emerald rice fields that shimmer in the sun.

Top tips for pitching climate change adaptation stories to the media

Mike’s advice was shared as part of a Dragon’s Den session, where practitioners at the conference worked in groups to come up with a story and pitch it to two journalists as part of the

Building one village’s resilience to climate change starts with a cave

It might talk about the people living in the cave thousands of years ago.

Vietnam: Mangroves break waves and help the people of Dai Hop Commune break even

Well-fed women smile out from under their hats as they pull in their catch of fish, shrimp and crabs from the mangrove forest. The simple images are in an educational booklet on the benefits of mangroves, with tips on how to grow seedlings.

A tale of typhoons, trees and tiny creatures that stood between a community and climate resilience

We were in Da Loc commune, a sleepy part of Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa province. It’s a place that on a single day witnessed both the fury and the protective power of nature.

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres calls for an “energy revolution”

New technologies and the involvement of the private sector are needed to tackle climate change emissions and power the world said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the

Tweet-by-tweet: COP17 Climate Communications Day

What happens when 150 climate-change communicators get together to talk about their craft?

We found out when Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the International Institute for Environment and Development organised the first Climate Communications Day (full programme here) as a side event at the UN climate change conference in Durban, South Africa.

Top ten highlights from 2011

December is traditionally the month of 'top 10s'. Every year, as journalists, bloggers, commentators and organisations across the world reflect on the year that's gone, the online world is flooded by lists highlighting the highs and lows. Search in Google and you'll instantly have to hand more than 150 million top 10 lists for 2011.

India at the UN Climate negotiations: back to the wall

Of all the baffling going-ons at the recent climate change conference in Durban, what bewildered me most was the position of India.

Working with local journalists: a mutually beneficial partnership

"I am not exaggerating when I say that reporting on the UN climate change talks is one of the best experiences an environment journalist could ever have. Suddenly it seems as if everyone in the world talks only about forests, water and climate."

A tale of two cities: Durban and Brussels

The media has been telling a tale of two crises: they are complex, interconnected and have much in common. The common threads include richer countries living beyond their means and racking up high levels of financial and ecological debt over several decades leading to an economic and financial crisis. In Europe, we are due for a substantial adjustment in living standards, to get back into balance. Analysts reckon that in the UK, families will only regain their 2002 incomes by 2016 – and that’s if all goes to plan.

Taking the long view on adaptation

The impacts of climate change do not happen overnight but play out over decades. Funders looking to support people to adapt to those impacts must take the long view and accept that their investments may not provide measurable outcomes for ten years or more.

Hope from action

As climate-related impacts become more frequent and extreme, the primary preoccupation of a progressive global society should be to protect the more vulnerable amongst us – countries and individual

UN climate negotiations video update: Trying to find "common ground"

This is the last video update from Saleemul Huq, Senior Fellow of IIED's climate change group, from Durban, South Africa where high-level Ministers have arrived and are making statements.

What winning the film competition means to us

Development and Climate films focus on ‘human’ angle of climate change

Consensus grows behind the scenes at the UN climate negotiations

It’s too early to talk about the end-game in the 17th conference of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks that are underway in Durban. But amid the shifting diplomatic sands of talks and texts, there are signs that some of the ground is starting to solidify.

UN climate negotiations video update: Forest day

James Mayers, the head of IIED's natural resources group, discusses key themes being discussed at the UN Climate Negotiations’ forest day in Durban, South Africa.

UN Climate negotiations video update: climate adaptation on the agenda

Closed negotiations have begun at the UN Climate Change conference. Parties are looking at two key issues behind closed doors: national adaptation plans and loss and damage.

Climate communications day: we need to “tell stories”

“When talking to the converted...we’re looking for depth. When we’re talking to others... we need simple messages” and to tell stories that people can relate to, says Liz Carlile, Director of Communications at the International Institute for Environment and Development.

UN climate negotiations video update: "Good COP vs bad COP"

In the COP17 side events “we see a lot of hope, solutions and activities at the side events of a positive nature which completely bely the negative vibes coming out of the negotiations themselves,” says Saleemul Huq, IIED’s Senior Fellow in the Climate Change group.

Do or die in Durban

I was one among the many sleep-deprived observers present at the birth of the Kyoto Protocol, during the early hours of a cold December morning in 1997. I cannot claim to have formed an immediate emotional attachment. Along with many others, I despaired already at the weakling’s lack of ambition, and numerous defects (politely called loopholes) that rendered it a joke on the planet. It was optimistically proclaimed a “first small step”, implying that better would follow once the world “warmed up” to the idea of living in a carbon-constrained world.

Video update from the UN climate negotiations: "Theatre from the Canadians"

Saleemul Huq, IIED’s Senior Fellow in the Climate Change group, reports from Durban on "theatre from the Canadians".

Video update from the UN climate negotiations: Day 2

In his second video update Saleemul Huq, IIED’s Senior Fellow in the Climate Change group, comments on the UN climate change opening ceremony with President Jacob Zuma and on hopes that South African political leadership “can bring [together] what seemingly look like very different points of view”.