Climate change blogs

How can air travel contribute to the costs of adapting to climate change?

Climate change negotiators are still meeting this week in Bonn to try and find a way forward on, amongst many other subjects, climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance. Sources of ‘innovative’ finance, such as taxes on international transport, have been proposed. Might these provide a way to break the deadlock on finance and prove to be sources of significant and stable financing to address the impacts of climate change?

With nations lagging, cities take lead in adapting to climate change

The opportunities of climate change

It's not always a great idea to acknowledge that bad things can create opportunities – but they can. Bad things cause suffering and tragedy, but they can also destabilise the status quo, open space for new discussions, and give an impetus to groups looking for positive change.

How ‘just giving money to the poor’ helps them adapt to climate change

Programmes which transfer money directly to the poor help them adapt to climate change. That´s what I´m suggesting in a new briefing paper to be presented at the upcoming conference on ‘Social Protection for Social Justice’, will be held at the Centre for Social Protection in Brighton between the 13th and 15th of April. 

Health: an issue that needs to be prioritised in climate change adaptation

How can we measure adaptation: monitoring and evaluation as an entry point?

Adapting to climate change in Bangladesh

Climate adaptation: old wine in new bottles?

Adaptation in Bangladesh: notes from the field

Bangladesh: mangrove island reflects people's creativitiy

Reality check: climate change and the poor

Hannah Reid reports on a field trip to a site in Manikganj District, about three hours from Dhaka city in Bangladesh, to see how vulnerable people are coping with climate-change related impacts

Community based adaptation: conference video blog

The 5th International Conference on Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change, takes place in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 24 to 31 March 2011. Saleemul Huq will be keeping us updated from the conference in a series of daily video logs.

Community-based adaptation and microfinance: a win-win partnership?

Climate change adaptation may cost US$75–100 billion per year between 2010 and 2050. Where these funds will come from, how they will be channelled and how adaptation should be achieved is still being debated. I propose part of the solution is to go micro: linking microfinance with community-based adaptation.

Look Mum! A Tale of Public Engagement with Climate Science

Three boys, probably about ten years old, are standing round a table. They are concentrating intently, jabbing at a touch screen. Suddenly there is a huge sigh of relief. They pull back and turn around, with huge grins across their faces: “Mum. Muuuuuuuuuum. Look Mum — we met the emissions reduction target!”

It is half term and I have come to check out the Science Museum’s new £4.5 million climate science exhibition, atmosphere.

So are there lessons to be learnt from this example about public engagement with climate science?

Climate change winners and losers in Sahel

Earlier this month, I spent a week in Mali, going back to the villages which I have studied for the past 30 years. While international climate negotiators met in Cancun, Mexico, for the UN summit on climate change, I was keen to catch up on how climate change was affecting livelihoods in the West African Sahel.

Can international law break the deadlock in climate talks?

An international lawsuit on greenhouse gas emissions could help create the political pressure and third-party guidance needed to revive global climate negotiations.

Mother Brazil: a way forward for the rainforest?

Dubbed “mother of the nation”, Dilma Rousseff was elected as Brazil’s first female president this month. But this has been an election of two women. Taking the reins at a time of increasing growth, prosperity, and public works expansion in Brazil, will one woman’s touch alone be enough to bring new ways of combating destruction of the Amazon?

A question of time

I have been thinking a lot about ‘time’. It’s been prompted by three things which remind me that, while we need to be realistic about how fast we can build a fairer, more sustainable world, there are some signs of progress.

Storm watch for Cancun climate talks

Striking a deal at this month’s UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico will largely depend on negotiators’ ability to settle stormy disputes, particularly between the developed and developing world, over six key issues.

Tianjin climate begotiation through the CLACC lens

In their last meeting before the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico at the end of November, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) discussed emissions reduction commitments for the 37 developed countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

Less erosion, less warming

I recently met with a Member of the Bangladesh Parliament to discuss the potential for mitigation in the agricultural sector under IIED’s work on the economics of climate change in the agricultural sector. Agriculture produces 10–12 per cent of total global emissions but also has considerable mitigation potential — 70 per cent of which is in developing countries — and I expected the Honourable Member, a well known climate change champion, to back the cause. But he did not seem entirely convinced. Why should decision makers listen? What’s in it for them?

Renewables, why bother?

For much of the developing world producing clean energy that also mitigates carbon emissions is a very low priority. After all, why should countries that haven't significantly contributed to climate change worry about reducing their relatively tiny carbon emissions? In any case who would pay for it all?

REDD: does governance really matter?

With concerns over climate change rising, there have been several initiatives aimed at reducing the impacts and contributing factors of climate change. But with millions and potentially billions of dollars at stake, how successful will these initiatives be in mitigating climate change?

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation - REDD (and REDD+, which includes conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancing forests’ carbon stocks) is an international initiative that seeks to reduce CO2 emissions. The United Nations REDD collaborative programme that has generated $8.7 million for the carbon stored in forests.

What would sustainability in the North mean for development in the South?

Everyone agrees that developed countries need to undertake a radical transformation if they are to assume their responsibilities for mitigating climate change. But what consequences would this have for the global South? Will climate change mitigation in the North undermine economic development in developing countries, or provide them with new opportunities?

New left = new extractivism in Latin America

It was clear at the recent Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of the Mother Earth in Cochabamba that Latin America´s leftist leaders are taking strong positions on issues of environmental sustainability and respect for indigenous people. But is that rhetoric actually borne out by their domestic policies?