Posts in the 'Climate Action' category
The Impacts of El Niño Go Far Beyond Water
The Impacts of El Niño Go Far Beyond Water
Over the past several months, the climate pattern El Niño has disrupted different regions and sectors across the world. Zimbabwe recently declared a state of disaster, due largely to El Niño-induced drought. The city government in Bogotá, Colombia, announced water rationing as reservoir levels ...
How Improved Housing in Under-Served Communities Can Strengthen Climate Resilience
How Improved Housing in Under-Served Communities Can Strengthen Climate Resilience
In the crowded slums of Zambia, Africa, members of the Zambia Youth Federation, a social movement of the urban poor, conducted climate change research and presented it in an emotional spoken word poem. Their message let policymakers know how climate ...
4 Climate Stories That Will Define 2024
4 Climate Stories That Will Define 2024
Last year shattered global heat records. The world witnessed the effects of rising temperatures in the form of devastating wildfires, severe flooding, extreme heatwaves and more. Poor countries and communities who have contributed the least to causing the climate crisis ...
Unpacking COP28: Key Outcomes from the Dubai Climate Talks, and What Comes Next
Unpacking COP28: Key Outcomes from the Dubai Climate Talks, and What Comes Next
The COP28 climate talks began with a new fund to address the increasingly severe losses and damage vulnerable countries face from climate impacts and concluded with the first international agreement to tackle climate change’s main driver: fossil fuels. Those bookends to the Dubai summit ...
The Future of Extreme Heat in Cities: What We Know — and What We Don’t
The Future of Extreme Heat in Cities: What We Know — and What We Don’t
The past year registered record-shattering global temperatures. People around the world are already witnessing epic heat waves, wildfires and drought at 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F) of global warming, compared to pre-industrial averages. With current policies putting the world on ...
Tracking Climate Action: How the World Can Still Limit Warming to 1.5 Degrees C
Tracking Climate Action: How the World Can Still Limit Warming to 1.5 Degrees C
Today’s climate change headlines often seem at odds with each other. One day, it’s catastrophic wildfires wreaking havoc around the world; the next, it’s an optimistic piece on the rapid scale-up of solar and wind power. Taken together, such stories ...
Crisis Resilient Urban Futures: What’s Next for Asia-Pacific Cities?
Crisis Resilient Urban Futures: What’s Next for Asia-Pacific Cities?
Cities have always been dynamic hubs of culture, education, economic growth and opportunity, and most importantly, centers of social interaction attracting residents and visitors alike. It is no surprise then, that Asia and the Pacific have become increasingly more urban ...
Big and Small Steps to Beat the Heat
Big and Small Steps to Beat the Heat
It’s an island no one in their right mind wants to be on, but sadly many of us increasingly find ourselves due to global warming. “Heat islands” are a concept British climatologist Gordon Manley came up with way back in ...
India’s First Water Body Census: Connecting the Missing Links
India’s First Water Body Census: Connecting the Missing Links
A systematic, consistent, national-level dataset on India’s water bodies that could inform efforts to improve water management and increase resilience has been long awaited. The National Water Body Census 2023 is a crucial milestone in creating such a database. Undertaken ...
How Africa’s First Chief Heat Officer is Helping to Create a More Resilient Freetown
How Africa’s First Chief Heat Officer is Helping to Create a More Resilient Freetown
“Climate change is affecting cities all around the world, and Freetown is no exception.” That’s what Eugenia Kargbo, Freetown’s Chief Heat Officer, told UrbanShift during the City Academy hosted in Kigali last year. Through her role—the first of its kind in ...
What Is the 'Global Stocktake' and How Can It Accelerate Climate Action?
What Is the ‘Global Stocktake’ and How Can It Accelerate Climate Action?
This year is a critical moment for climate action. The mounting impacts of climate change, from floods and droughts to hurricanes and heat waves, are taking a major toll on human lives and economies globally — particularly in vulnerable developing nations ...
What to Watch at the First Africa Climate Summit
What to Watch at the First Africa Climate Summit
Climate change is already having a significant impact on Africa’s ecosystems, economy and society. This year alone, 1.8 million Africans were displaced during a prolonged drought, the Democratic Republic of Congo experienced catastrophic flooding, and Cyclone Freddy left a trail of destruction in Malawi and Mozambique. ...
25 Countries, Housing One-quarter of the Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress
25 Countries, Housing One-quarter of the Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress
New data from WRI’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas show that 25 countries — housing one-quarter of the global population — face extremely high water stress each year, regularly using up almost their entire available water supply. And at least 50% of the ...
As the Earth Gets Hotter, Can Our Cities Get Cooler?
As the Earth Gets Hotter, Can Our Cities Get Cooler?
This summer the Northern Hemisphere has been so hot with record temperatures — including at sea — that discussions have turned to the limits of human survival. Even in the Antarctic, sea ice is failing to re-form, a drastic departure ...
New Data Dashboard Helps Cities Build Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate
New Data Dashboard Helps Cities Build Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate
Climate change is impacting cities and their residents in many profound ways, from poor air quality to flooding to biodiversity loss and extreme heat. Now, with the help of a new tool, select cities can access localized, integrated data to ...
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