Climate technology experts met virtually last week to discuss how governments can green their economies and prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change.
Climate
Water use efficiency can only be improved by monitoring surface water, groundwater and reservoirs. Effective flood and drought policies can only be implemented with data and models for assessing the frequency and magnitude of extreme events. Each 23 March, we celebrate World Meteorological Day and this year we highlight the link between climate and water and the need to manage them in a more coordinated and sustainable manner.
Yasminna, one among 90 youth environmental activist, exposes the huge impact of rising sea levels threatening homes, crops and culture at child rights meeting in Samoa.
The Green Climate Fund approves project to benefit vulnerable rural communities in Cuba to boost their resilience to climate change. The project is co-designed by FAO.
For more than 25 years, the annual State of the Global Climate Report, published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), has informed us on significant weather and climate trends. It provides authoritative evidence of global temperature increase, including sea-level rise, shrinking sea ice, glacier mass loss and extreme climate events. This week, the WMO presents key findings for 2019, a year that concludes the warmest decade on record. 2019 not only had high-impact weather, it also averaged 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period.
Mission 1.5 aims to give 20 million people around the world the opportunity to have their say on ways to limit climate change that they want to see adopted by government leaders. Play and vote!
The Kyoto Protocol entered into force on 16 February 2005. Currently, there are 192 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. It commits industrialized countries to limit and reduce greenhouse gases emissions.
Like plastic, Concrete Must Give Way to Development Solutions Based on Nature
The year 2019 was the second warmest year on record after 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s consolidated analysis of leading international datasets. Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods were the highest on record. Since the 1980s each decade has been warmer than the previous one. This trend is expected to continue, because of record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This confirms WMO's preliminary assessment that 2019 was one of the three warmest years on record.
From hurricanes pounding islands to drought destroying crops across Central America, and erratic rain patterns affecting the livelihoods of indigenous communities living on Andean slopes, climate-related challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean are as diverse as are the region’s landscapes. Climate change is exacerbating many of these, with higher temperatures, delayed rainy seasons, rainfall irregularity, and increasingly frequent and extreme weather events. The World Food Programme is implementing an array of measures to face up to the region’s challenges.
Eating Insects and Praying for Rain
From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. During the Climate Change Conference (COP25), the Secretary-General urged governments, businesses and people everywhere to join the initiatives announced at the Climate Summit in 2019, and promised to 'keep pushing' for greater ambition and action. Climate change is the defining issue of our time and now is the defining moment to do something about it.
How the World Food Programme (WFP) helped one woman in Bolivia revive land lost to floods — and make a Christmas feast.