Assam Tribune: Ignoring the crucial linkages of a river’s upstream, midstream, and downstream flows can endanger not just the river, but human communities and ecology sustained by it. A disregard of ‘environmental flows,’ by construction of dams, has already harmed many rivers in the Western Ghats, giving rise to political as well as environmental issues. [...]

Chinadialogue: Tourism offers an opportunity to rebuild the local economy of Pakistan’s Swat Valley, ravaged by conflicts and floods. But can it also restore its rivers and forests? Rina Saeed Khan reports. For years, Pakistan’s former princely state of Swat, famous for its fruit orchards, snow-clad mountains, Buddhist stupas and trout-filled rivers, was a popular [...]

The Bhutanese: Weather forecast is a piece of information that can be used by anyone, from a farmer to a tourist, or for construction projects, or to simply planning a picnic! Have you ever wondered where and how the country gets its weather forecast? The Department of Hydro-Met Services (DHMS) under the Ministry of Economic [...]

International Organization for Migration: As part of IOM’s annual International Dialogue on Migration – dedicated in 2011 to the theme “The Future of Migration: Building Capacities for Change” – the IOM membership selected the topic “Climate Change, Environmental Degradation and Migration” as the focus of a workshop in Geneva, Switzerland on 29–30 March 2011.1 The [...]

The Tribune: A collective scientific approach is required for mitigating the impact of climate change which is one of the most serious social, economic and environmental challenges facing humanity. This was discussed at an international conference on “Climate Change: Opportunities and Challenges” held at the National University of Science and Technology here on Wednesday. The [...]

New Internationalist: At the frontline of climate change, the people of Bangladesh are using every ounce of their creativity to adapt. Hazel Healy assesses whether it will be enough. It is hard to believe the village was built from scratch. It looks as if it has always been here. Tidy kitchen gardens sit next to thatched [...]

Bangkok (UN ESCAP Strategic Communications and Advocacy Section) – Climate change mitigation and adaptation must go hand in hand with efforts to make development more inclusive and sustainable in Asia-Pacific countries, the top United Nations official in the region said here today. As the world’s most natural disaster-prone region and with climate change adding to [...]

The News Pakistan: A Bangladeshi disaster management expert, Khurshid Alam, on Friday emphasised the need for training the local community in playing an effective role in recovering from natural calamities and minimising the adverse effects of an emergency. Local knowledge should be incorporated in designing a disaster management plan. It is very important to learn [...]

Ekantipur: Climate change is the definitive challenge of the 21st century. Changes in the climate destroy the basis on which human life subsists; drought, for instance, leads to shortages in food and water. Rising sea levels are already threatening the territories of small island states and vast stretches of coastland. Climate change impacts in Nepal [...]

Sudan Division: Rio+20 offers the world a unique chance to advance the sustainable development agenda. The conference has three main objectives: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development, to assess progress and gaps in implementation of agreed commitments, and to address new and emerging challenges. The two themes of the Conference are a green [...]

Kashmir Life: After Sichaen Glacier devoured more than 130 men in a single avalanche early this month, Islamabad is again seeking a way out from the inhuman, refrigerated battleground it is sharing with India for the last 28 years. In the apparent spring of relations, if the two countries warm up to undo their glaciated [...]

Alertnet: At present, close to one billion people suffer from hunger. Experts agree that there is a high risk of climate change affecting food security at the global level, with the most negative impacts in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The additional risk of climate change could put several hundred million at risk of [...]

WRI Publication: This report introduces the National Adaptive Capacity (NAC) framework, a tool to help governments bring institutional capacity development into their adaptation planning processes. The NAC framework enables its users to systematically assess institutional strengths and weaknesses that may help or hinder adaptation. National adaptation plans may then be better designed to make best [...]

(Reuters) – Whether it is melting glaciers, coastal erosion or drying lakes, a new app displays the impact of climate change on the planet by using before and after satellite images. Called Fragile Earth, the app for iPhone and iPad shows how our planet is impacted by global warming by featuring more than 70 sites [...]

Dawn Pakistan: Speakers at a workshop here on Thursday said that glacier lake outburst floods (GLOF) were posing threat to Hindukush-Himalya region that could play havoc with human settlements. They stressed the need for taking steps to reduce the risk. The workshop titled ‘Reducing risks and vulnerabilities from glacier outburst floods in northern Pakistan’ was [...]

IRIN: The governance of natural resources like land, the oceans, rivers and the atmosphere, can affect the impact of some of the world’s biggest crises caused by natural events like droughts and floods. How best to manage those resources has been at the heart of the work by Nobel Prize winner (economics) Elinor Ostrom. She [...]

Canberratimes: Adapting to inevitable global warming will need changes across the Australian economy, including ditching property taxes that discourage people from moving out of areas prone to extreme weather events, the government’s independent research arm says. In a draft report released overnight, the Productivity Commission also calls for a close examination of federal disaster relief, [...]

IPS News: As a result of climate change-related extreme weather events like a rise in the sea level and increasingly intense storms alternating with drought, Caribbean island nations are facing the challenge of adopting adaptation measures that could be too costly for their budgets. One important message from the report is that costly investments are [...]

Business Mirror: There is an urgent need to enhance the capacity of poorest communities to cope with climate change and minimize risk to natural disasters, particularly in Africa with 414 million people and Asia with 1.9 billion people, according to the Sixth International Conference on Community-based Adaptation on Climate Change. “Communities in poor countries are [...]

TIME Science: It could have been so much worse. Over 100 tornadoes ripped through several Plains states in just 24 hours over the weekend. Cars were tossed through the air and houses were pulverized. Hail the size of baseballs fell from the sky, crushing anything left in the open. More than what is ordinarily a [...]

CO2Science: The authors write that “currently there is much discussion regarding the impact of climate change and the vagaries of the weather, in particular extreme weather events,” which climate alarmists generally contend will increase in both frequency and severity in response to global warming. And in light of this significant climate of interest, plus the [...]

CDKN: The Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) was commissioned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in response to a recognised need to provide specific advice on climate change, extreme weather and climate events (‘climate extremes’). The SREX report was written over [...]

Yale Environment 360: Large-scale industrial agriculture depends on engineering the land to ensure the absence of natural diversity. But as the recent emergence of herbicide-tolerant weeds on U.S. farms has shown, nature ultimately finds a way to subvert uniformity and assert itself. In its short, shameless history, big agriculture has had only one big idea: [...]

DAWN (Islamabad): At least 52 glacial lakes in Gilgit and Astore districts have been identified as ‘potentially dangerous’ by a project sponsored by the European Union and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The project report titled “Managing climate risks in the Himalayas: A community-centric approach” says that in the sub-basins of Swat, Chitral, Gilgit, Hunza, [...]

MND: Will a load-of-nonsense IPCC press release be corrected? A little more than two years ago the UK’s Sunday Times ran a headline that read: UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters. (A screenshot may be seen here. The full text of the article is backed up here.) The very next day, the UN’s [...]

Science Daily: New research by UCLA life scientists could lead to predictions of which plant species will escape extinction from climate change. Droughts are worsening around the world, posing a great challenge to plants in all ecosystems, said Lawren Sack, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior author of the research. Scientists [...]

Climate Access (Cara Pike) : I recently attended the “Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change: How do we Address Uncertainty” symposium at Rutgers University where I learned from leading climatologists and social scientists* a few simple concepts that help make the connection between the increased intensity and frequency of storms and global warming. While it [...]

Mongabay: Former president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed speaking to reporters at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009. Photo by: Adam Welz. Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives, told the world on The Daily Show Monday night: “Just don’t be so silly” about climate change. Nasheed, who in February was forced to resign his [...]

Environment News Service: GENEVA, Switzerland, April 3, 2012 (ENS) – Climate change has led to extremes such as heat waves, record high temperatures and heavy precipitation over the past 50 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says in a new report on managing the risks of extreme events. Climate extremes in combination with social [...]

IPS: By Stephen Leahy: CAIRNS, Australia, Apr 3, 2012 (Tierramérica) – Extreme weather is fast becoming the new normal. Canada and much of the United States experienced summer temperatures during winter this year, confirming the findings of a new report on extreme weather. For two weeks this March most of North America baked under extraordinarily [...]

ScientificAmerican: Climate change is already shaping conflicts around the world–and not for the better. Energy security and climate change present massive threats to global security, military planners say, with connections and consequences spanning the world. Some scientists have linked the Arab Spring uprisings to high food prices caused by the failed Russian wheat crop in [...]

IRIN: JOHANNESBURG – People often use “coping” and “adapting” interchangeably in the context of disaster response – an issue the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seeks to address in its new report. Disaster risk management includes both coping and adapting, and the two concepts are central for adaptation to climate change in both research [...]

Times of India And Business Recorder: The productivity of staple grain wheat could decline by upto 18% by 2020 due to adverse impact of climate change which is causing rise in temperature, Parliament was informed today. The yield of another major food crop rice might also fall by up to 6 per cent by 2020, [...]

Reuters (David Fogarty and Deborah Zabarenko): A future on Earth of more extreme weather and rising seas will require better planning for natural disasters to save lives and limit deepening economic losses, the United Nations said on Wednesday in a major report on the effects of climate change. The U.N. climate panel said all nations [...]

Guardian- Associated Press in Washington: Prepare for unprecedented onslaught of deadly weather disasters, report says, claiming global warming causing crisis. Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heatwaves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly weather disasters, an international panel of scientists has said. The greatest danger [...]

J.C.Moore: Science is about using observation and reason to understand the physical world. Some people are suspicious of computer models and theories; so here is some of the the basic data in pictures and graphs. Ice core data gives a good picture of what has happened to the Earth in the last several ice ages. Please [...]

The Himalayan ecosystem is fragile and diverse. It includes over 51 million people who practice hill agriculture and remains vulnerable The Himalayan ecosystem is vital to the ecological security of the Indian landmass, through providing forest cover, feeding perennial rivers that are the source of drinking water, irrigation, and hydropower, conserving biodiversity, providing a rich [...]

Delegates continue to negotiate the outcome document for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) during back-to-back meetings from 19-27 March 2012, at UN Headquarters in New York, US. The first “informal informal” consultations to negotiate the draft outcome document will take place from 19-23 March, and will be followed by the Third [...]

Case studies on responses to too much and too little water in the Hindu Kush Himalayas. With increased climate variability increasing the risk of floods and droughts, problems of too much or too little water are affecting the lives and livelihoods of the people in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. Climate change is expected to [...]

The claim that global warming and climate change aren’t real gets increasingly ridiculous each year. For one, the science just makes it so much more obvious as it develops (but, truthfully, it’s been obvious for years). Additionally, the real-world climate disasters just keep increasing. In the past two years, for example, 42 million Asians have [...]

Federal cabinet has approved national policy on natural disaster management. Under the policy, effective measures will be taken and arrangements made to cope with natural calamities. Session of the cabinet was held in the PM Secretariat, Islamabad. Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani chaired the meeting. The cabinet approved the national disaster management policy which [...]

Global warming threatens to accentuate existing threats and risks in the developing world as well as in industrialised countries. It is the main reason for how security policies around the globe are developing and will be a central peace policy of the 21st century. Today’s climate change is a fact. Scientific data has established that [...]

Before Apa became a legendary Sherpa mountaineer, he was a humble Himalayan potato farmer who worked his fields in the Everest foothills until without warning, raging floodwaters swallowed his farm. The flash flood — unleashed when a mountain lake fed by melting glacier waters burst its banks — destroyed homes, bridges and a hydroelectric plant. [...]

In an effort to make communities more resilient to disasters, El Salvador’s schools and universities have begun teaching students how to deal with the risks of extreme weather and climate change. The small Central American country has been hit by three heavy rainy seasons in three years, with storms and flooding causing as many as [...]

There is mounting evidence that Asia and the Pacific are undergoing weather patterns more extreme than previously experienced, attributable to the effects of global climate change. Reduction of the impact of climate change is gaining importance in the international agenda. Increasing intensity and frequency of climatic hazards are impacting negatively upon environmental and socio-economic systems. [...]

Climate change is altering the face of the Himalayas, devastating farming communities and making Mount Everest increasingly treacherous to climb, some of the world’s top mountaineers have warned. Apa Sherpa, the Nepali climber who has conquered Mount Everest a record 21 times, said he was disturbed by the lack of snow on the world’s highest [...]

As a leading regional resource center, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) works towards the realization of disaster reduction for safer communities and sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific. Since its inception in 1986, ADPC has been recognized as the major independent center in the region for promoting disaster awareness and the development of local [...]

MIT: With climate change, today’s ’100-year floods’ may happen every three to 20 years, according to new research. Last August, Hurricane Irene spun through the Caribbean and parts of the eastern United States, leaving widespread wreckage in its wake. The Category 3 storm whipped up water levels, generating storm surges that swept over seawalls and [...]

GIZ: The Indo-German project Climate Change Adaptation in Rural Areas of India (CCA RAI, www.ccarai.org) is pleased to announce the launch of the book “Adaptation to Climate Change with a Focus on Rural Areas and India“. The publication provides an overview of the main issues in current adaptation discussions and suggests adaptation options in six [...]

Climate change impacts – from worsening droughts to new pots of climate-related cash for fragile states – may turn out to be a catalyst for worsening conflict. If so, keeping an eye on local politics and the quality of governance could be as important in heading off climate crises as breeding drought-resistant crops or protecting [...]

Sharing research-based knowledge and promoting innovation are unprecedentedly critical for effectiveness climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes worldwide, particularly in developing countrie. Scientists can significantly help advance policies to promote best and environmental practices in all socio-economic spheres including agriculture, livestock rearing, irrigation, water management, environmental-friendly drainage and sanitation. Such roles by scientists can boost [...]

National Geographic: We have the knowledge that can contribute to finding solutions to the crisis of climate change. But if you’re not prepared to listen, how can we communicate this to you? — Marcos Terena, Xané leader, Brazil. The precipitous rise in the world’s human population and humankind’s ever-increasing dependence on fossil fuel-based ways of living [...]

The United Nations launched today an information system to improve and expand the exchange of weather, climate and water data, which can be used for disaster risk reduction, water management, food security and health purposes. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Information System will facilitate access to meteorological observations and products, making it easy to share [...]

You are an expert in disaster risk management/reduction, working in tough conditions with little time to process huge amounts of information. You make life-or-death decisions about disaster programmes or policies. You know a lot about what you do. But knowing is not enough. We need to integrate DRM/DRR, development and climate change adaptation. Changing climate, [...]

Natural disasters in Asia in 2011 could well prove to be the costliest ever, experts say. “Never before has this world suffered so much economic loss due to natural disaster, most of which has been in Asia and the Pacific,” Sanjay Srivastava, UN regional adviser for disaster risk reduction, told IRIN in Bangkok. Of the [...]

Publication: How can disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation be integrated? This paper reviews the extent of convergence between disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) at a number of scales. It also examines what is at stake if the two agendas do not converge. The authors present updated evidence of where [...]

Looking at the swirling grey waters of the Bhote Koshi River, Ratna Kaji remembers when it turned into a “monster,” leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. “It came down roaring, washed away homes and people when they were sleeping,” the 77-year-old said of the 1996 flood, caused by a massive landslide that blocked [...]

Reuters: Picture this: a terrible drought forces you to abandon your meagre plot of farmland, so you migrate to a city where the jobs are, only to end up living in a slum regularly submerged by floods. It’s a scenario that’s going to become more and more familiar in coming years as climate change and [...]

Noreen Haider: It has been more than six years when the Northern areas of Pakistan were hit by one of the most devastating earthquake in the history of the region. The earthquake measured 7.6 on the Richter scale and within the very few first seconds created an unimaginable devastation in an area of more than [...]

BEN: Australia’s infrastructure is not prepared to withstand the consequences of catastrophic climate change events such as floods, droughts, coastal erosion, tropical cyclones, fires and seal level rise. The report released today calls on all stakeholders to address regulatory frameworks gaps, which are acting as barriers towards effective climate adaptation. It analyses the extent to [...]