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Health must be put at the heart of national climate plans
By Jeni Miller For seven decades, the World Health Organization has used April 7th, World Health Day to bring important health issues to public attention. This year, as the world battles the Covid-19 pandemic, the theme is “building a fairer, healthier world for everyone”. With November’s COP26 fast approaching, this World Health Day message should…
Half a billion people may face heat of 56°C by 2100
By Tim Radford Take today’s heat, apply mathematical logic and consider a murderously hot future, 56°C by 2100, for hundreds of millions. LONDON, 29 March, 2021 − Many millions of people − among them some of the world’s poorest − will be exposed to potentially lethal temperatures on a routine basis. At worst, the mercury could reach…
Europe has grown drier over the last two millennia
By Tim Radford Global heating may be to blame for the fact that Europe has grown drier over the last 2,000 years to a new high in 2015. LONDON, 17 March, 2021 − Europe has grown drier, an outcome shown by the continent’s last five summers, which have been marked by drought that has no parallel in…
Poorest people will suffer worst from cities’ heat
By Tim Radford As ever, the poorest people will most feel the heat in a hotter world. But a green growth initiative could help them. As the summer thermometer soars, and the cities of the US Southwest are caught up in extremes of heat, the poorest people who live in the least prosperous districts may find…
I’m a climate scientist – here’s three key things I have learned over a year of COVID
By Piers Forster The planet had already warmed by around 1.2℃ since pre-industrial times when the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic on March 11 2020. This began a sudden and unprecedented drop in human activity, as much of the world went into lockdown and factories stopped operating, cars kept their engines off and planes were…
Cotton 2040: Interview with CottonConnect’s Hardeep Desai
As part of the Cotton 2040 initiative’s Planning for Climate Adaptation workstream, climate two new studies were published describing the potential climate impacts to the cotton sector. The reports, one a global analysis of climate risks to cotton production in 2040, and the second a detailed climate risk and vulnerability assessment of cotton-growing regions in India,…
New report: Hydromet Gap Report 2021
A new report from the leaders of the Alliance for Hydromet Development provides insight into how far we have to go to tap the benefits of effective weather and climate services and presents the challenges of the complex global and local undertaking required. Additionally, the report highlights priority actions to scale up support to developing countries…
Fashioning a climate resilient cotton sector
By Charlene Collison and Ulrike Stein Why understanding the climate threat to cotton is essential for preparing a cross-sector response. As the Cotton 2040 initiative publishes two new studies highlighting the potentially drastic impacts the climate crisis could have on cotton production in India and globally, Forum for the Future’s Charlene Collison and Ulrike Stein…
Half of all cotton growing regions face severe climate risks by 2040 if carbon emissions continue to soar
The first-ever global analysis of climate risks to global cotton production reveals that runaway climate change could expose half of all global cotton growing regions to high risks from temperature increases, changes to rainfall patterns and extreme weather events by 2040. Titled “Adapting to climate change – physical risk assessment for global cotton production”, the…
The European Investment Bank is launching a project to increase the Climate Resilience of their Investment Projects
The European Investment Bank (EIB), the bank of the European Union and a leader among international finance institutions in the climate change realm, has commissioned Willis Tower Watson, together with AFRY, the Finnish Meteorological Institute and adelphi to undertake a project titled “Climate Resilience in Investment Projects”. This project aims to build resilience to climate…
Webinar: Cottoning on to climate change
Date: Wednesday 14 July 2021 Time: 12:30-2:00pm BST / 7:30-9:00am EST / 5-6:30pm IST / 7:30-9:00pm SGT / 9:00-10:30pm AEST Register here Global warming could reach 1.5ºC as early as 2030. And yet, despite the Paris Agreement and the ambitious decarbonisation pledges and targets being set by countries and corporates around the world, we are faced…
Severe storms from tropics reach Europe once every five years on average – new research
By Alexander Baker An unusual and devastating storm struck Ireland in the early hours of October 16, 2017. Record-breaking gusts of up to 119mph left 360,000 homes without electricity and, sadly, three people lost their lives. The storm continued north-eastwards, causing power outages and damage across the UK and Scandinavia over a two-day period. That storm, named Ophelia,…
Falling harvests could soon follow growing deserts
By Tim Radford A hotter world will mean more deserts and falling harvests − bad news for food producers and for all of us. LONDON, 18 May, 2021 − By the end of the century falling harvests could jeopardise as much as a third of present levels if greenhouse gas emissions continue uncontrolled. That is because climatic regions…
A generational historic struggle to regain our water
By Sharon Udasin May 14, 2021 — Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaboration, Tapped Out: Power, justice and water in the West, in which eight Institute for Nonprofit News newsrooms — California Health Report and High Country News; SJV Water and the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism; Circle of Blue; Columbia Insight; Ensia; and…