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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…
New learning paper takes stock of CRH GCF Readiness support work in Belize
Willis Towers Watson’s Climate Resilience Hub (CRH) has produced a new learning paper about its experience implementing the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Readiness support project “Capacity Building of National Designated Authority”, commissioned by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) acting as the Delivery Partner (DP). This paper builds on the CRH climate finance team’s…
Four Adaptation Opportunities Myanmar Can Take to Build Resilience to Climate Change
By Georgina Wade Myanmar has experienced a number of extreme weather events in recent years, many of which are likely to worsen with climate change. In 2019, the country suffered record pre-monsoon heat. The city of Yangon recorded 42 degrees Celsius in April – a new record for the city. Dozens of people were admitted…
Global farming feels the impacts of global heating
By Tim Radford Global heating has already set back farming around the world, and wiped out seven years of steady advance. LONDON, 12 April, 2021 − Climate change has begun to harm the world’s farmers. Compared with a notional world in which global heating is not being driven ever higher by fossil fuel use, a new…
Why we need to transform commodity value chains (and what this means for cotton)
By Charlene Collison When conditions in a system change to the point where it can’t cope, the system either dies or transforms. This is true for natural systems, and also for complex human-created systems like global value chains. The COVID-19 crisis is revealing cracks in commodity value chains, and society now has to make a choice:…
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…
Intergenerational cooperation on climate change is needed to deliver the future that Myanmar’s youth deserve
By Will Bugler Young people in Myanmar are fighting for their futures on several fronts: COVID, climate and coup. Myanmar’s youth have a long history of supporting peace and democracy. Their energy and creativity are needed now more than ever. Whilst many young people may feel let down, with some justification, by older generations, overcoming…
Antarctica’s ice shelves are trembling as global temperatures rise – what happens next is up to us
By Ella Gilbert Images of colossal chunks of ice plunging into the sea accompany almost every news story about climate change. It can often make the problem seem remote, as if the effects of rising global temperatures are playing out elsewhere. But the break-up of the world’s vast reservoirs of frozen water – and, in…
Wildfires: we calculated how climate change will increase danger in the UK
By Nigel Arnell The past few years have seen very severe wildfires in Australia, California, Siberia and around the Mediterranean. Wildfires have become one of the most potent symbols of the threats posed by global warming, and images of fire are widely used to illustrate climate change news stories. People in the UK don’t often…
The scale of the climate challenge facing Myanmar
By Georgina Wade Today, Myanmar is in the midst of a fight that will determine the future of its democracy. While this inevitably demands the full attention and energy of the population, the future holds other challenges of its own. The military takeover came just as the government was preparing for a crucial year for…