Posts tagged with 'drought'
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 ...
4 Actions Vulnerable Countries Need from COP28
4 Actions Vulnerable Countries Need from COP28
The conclusion of the Global Stocktake at COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates this December will evaluate how much progress the international Paris Agreement on climate change has made in the fight against the climate crisis and what more is needed to ...
South African Cities Show Commitment to Accelerate Water Resilience at 2023 UN Water Conference
South African Cities Show Commitment to Accelerate Water Resilience at 2023 UN Water Conference
South Africa’s cities are economic engines, drawing workers across the country and the continent. Of the country’s 58.8 million population, 68% live in urban areas. Between 2000 and 2014, urban area in South Africa expanded by 1,464 km2. Population projections ...
5 Priorities for Urban Climate Action in 2023 and Beyond
5 Priorities for Urban Climate Action in 2023 and Beyond
We now have less than seven years to cut emissions in half in order to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees C, the limit scientists say is necessary for averting some of the most dangerous climate impacts. 2022 saw flooding, drought and severe ...
4 Environment and Development Stories to Watch in 2023
4 Environment and Development Stories to Watch in 2023
What will 2023 hold for the environment and development? The end of 2022 certainly left us in an interesting — and concerning — place. The world’s three-year-old pandemic proved it was far from over, sickening millions and affecting economies. Global ...
How Rapid Urbanization in Africa Compounds Water Challenges
How Rapid Urbanization in Africa Compounds Water Challenges
Africa’s population is growing faster than any other continent’s and its urban population is expected to more than double by 2050. This urban rapid growth, which is mostly sprawling “horizontal” growth, as the World Resources Report: Towards a More Equal City shows, is combining with climate ...
How Forests Near and Far Benefit People in Cities
How Forests Near and Far Benefit People in Cities
A New Yorker may not think about the forested Catskills Mountain Range upstate as she pours a glass of water. Londoners probably don’t consider the Amazon rainforest as they watch the rain falling on city parks. And folks in Addis ...
‘Code Red for Humanity’: Sinking Indian Cities
‘Code Red for Humanity’: Sinking Indian Cities
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warns, “India will see increased heat waves and heavy rainfall events, while glaciers will melt further, along with more compound events from rising sea-levels like flooding.” The report further states that “unequivocal human ...
Improving Water Security Helps Reduce the Gender Gap in Mexico City
Improving Water Security Helps Reduce the Gender Gap in Mexico City
Water for human consumption is increasingly inaccessible, due to poor management, degradation of water sources, the effects of climate change and more. Marginalized groups — such as minorities, rural communities and women — are disproportionately affected by water security issues, and women often play a key ...
Urban Sanitation Is a Climate and Economic Issue Too
Urban Sanitation Is a Climate and Economic Issue Too
Along the Ngong River in Mukuru, one of Nairobi’s slum neighborhoods and home to more than 100,000 people, residents face a dual threat when the rains come. First, the river rises, flooding into streets and houses. Then the water reaches ...
Responding to Day Zero Equitably: Water Crisis Lessons from Cape Town and Chennai
Responding to Day Zero Equitably: Water Crisis Lessons from Cape Town and Chennai
When Cape Town, South Africa, and Chennai, India nearly ran out of water, these two cities managed to avert Day Zero with solutions that were creative and effective but far from perfect. In Cape Town, there were mile-long queues of people waiting for hours for water. ...
17 Countries, Home to One-Quarter of the World’s Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress
17 Countries, Home to One-Quarter of the World’s Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress
Once-unthinkable water crises are becoming commonplace. Reservoirs in Chennai, India’s sixth-largest city, are nearly dry right now. Last year, residents of Cape Town, South Africa narrowly avoided their own “Day Zero” water shut-off. And the year before that, Rome rationed water to conserve scarce ...
How Does a Flood-prone City Run Out of Water? Inside Chennai’s “Day Zero” Crisis
How Does a Flood-prone City Run Out of Water? Inside Chennai’s “Day Zero” Crisis
Chennai faced a devastating flood in 2015 that killed hundreds of people and displaced many more. Today, the southern Indian city’s four main reservoirs are virtually dry. This crisis is not only due to lack of water. Lack of proper management is ...
Stronger Than the Storm: 3 Lessons for Building Climate Resilience in Poor Urban Communities
Stronger Than the Storm: 3 Lessons for Building Climate Resilience in Poor Urban Communities
Climate change affects poor and marginalized communities first and hardest. These effects are happening now – not in a far-fetched future. Particularly in cities, a lack of access to basic services, a long history of unsustainable urban development, and political ...
Help for São Paulo’s Complex Water Woes: Protect and Restore Forests
Help for São Paulo’s Complex Water Woes: Protect and Restore Forests
In 2014, São Paulo nearly ran out of water. Schools closed, crops faltered and reservoirs were left at a tiny 5 percent of their capacity for the city and its surrounding population of 22 million. It was the worst drought in eight decades. ...
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