Asia-Pacific Climate Week 2018 is designed to advance regional climate action. The ultimate aim of APCW 2018 is to support implementation of countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement on climate change and action to deliver on the SDGs.
One of the biggest challenges to climate action is not only understanding the risks of flooding, extreme heat and other challenges, but how your community might respond to these risks. What are its strengths? How might policymakers augment existing capacities and address weaknesses?
The event aims at discussing the prospects for a leadership role of the European Union in international climate policy.
"Land degradation is a root cause of migration and a trigger of conflicts", said Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in a recent interview with the ECC platform. Whether for growing crops, grazing animals or constructing houses – land is a prerequisite for human life. But global pressures on land are increasing and threaten millions of livelihoods - and thus peace and stability.
Can climate change be the source of conflicts or is it merely one among several catalyzers that worsen the pre-existing condition on the ground in some cases? And how can we avoid climate change mitigation and adaptation policies not to become a new source of tensions between groups in society?
Achieving Zero Hunger in Europe and Central Asia requires supporting smallholders and family farmers to reduce poverty and, in the face of climate change, managing natural resources in a sustainable way, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said on 16 May 2018.
Iraqi Kurdistan is blessed with abundant water resources, but these resources are under increasing stress. Changing demographics, dam building in neighboring countries, and drought have driven Kurdish hydropolitics to a critical juncture where two distinct water futures are possible—and both have implications for regional stability and for U.S. interests.
The Lake Chad Basin is afflicted with a multidimensional crisis, which contributing factors range from deeply-entrenched regional hostilities to environmental degradation. The vulnerability of livelihood systems to changing climate patterns adds to the security pressures by exposing local populations to intimidation and recruitment by radical groups. Anja Stache, Programme Coordinator at GIZ, explains how the German development agency helps strengthen resilience by introducing climate-smart seeds.
After nearly fifteen years of study, what do we know about the relationship between climate change and conflict? To answer this question, Joshua Busby; Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security, focuses on five different causal pathways: agricultural production and food prices, economic growth, migration, disasters, and international and domestic institutions.
Starting in 2014, the number of migrants from Central America’s Northern Triangle surged. Experts blame the region’s widespread criminal violence for spurring migration. But the Northern Triangle countries also share similar ecology, staple crops, and vulnerability to climate events. While environmental and natural resource factors are just part of the complex picture, understanding how they intersect with other migration drivers is key to creating and implementing effective policy responses.
The impact of hundreds and thousands of Rohingya refugees have been devastating to the forest cover and water availability in Cox’s Bazar, fuelling resentments with the local population.
On 22 March 2018, the UN Security Council held a discussion on the causes of conflict and human suffering in the Lake Chad Basin. Chitra Nagarajan, adelphi’s partner in the G7 Lake Chad Climate-Fragility Risk Assessment project was one of the expert briefers. She along other invited experts highlighted the importance of forward-looking climate security risk assessments on the ground for responses to the crisis to be better equipped for promoting peace and sustainable development.
According to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), between 2005 and 2015 natural disasters cost the agricultural sectors of developing country economies USD 96 billion in damaged or lost crop and livestock production. Almost all of these disasters have been directly caused or exacerbated by climate change.
A recent article in Nature Climate Change has spurred a new chapter in the lively scholarly debate over the potential relationship between climate change and violent conflict. Malin Mobjörk (SIPRI) and Sebastian van Baalen (Uppsala University) argue that although there are several forms of sampling bias in this field, researchers must pay deeper attention to the “nuts and bolts” that shape both climate-related conflicts and our understanding of them.
The 48th sessions of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) will convene in Bonn, Germany, from 30 April to 10 May 2018.