New CARE Report Humanitarian Implications of Climate Change (updated)
http://www.careclimatechange.org/careclimatechange.org/events__activities/new_report
Human-induced climate change is affecting patterns of extreme weather across the globe, resulting in higher risk of humanitarian disasters. This is especially true in areas where there already are high levels of human vulnerability concludes a new report entitled Humanitarian Implications of Climate Change: Mapping emerging trends and risk hotspots, which was carried out by CARE International, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Maplecroft.
Climate Change
The Earth is warming. Evidence includes a well-documented increase in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising sea levels. This is triggering a shift in seasons, changes in when/how much rain falls in different parts of the world, and changes in extreme weather.
As such, climate change is blurring the distinction between "natural" and "manmade" hazards. Although weather-related hazards, such as droughts and floods, would occur regardless of whether or not we add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, our actions have consequences.
In fact, an increase in temperature extremes, the area affected by drought and the frequency of heavy precipitation events, as well as changes in wind patterns and storm tracks, have already been measured - and the consensus amongst experts is that we are to blame.
When hazards hit areas where people have limited capacity to reduce their level of risk, manage or deal with the aftermath of extreme weather, the results can be truly "disastrous." This is especially so in areas where population density is high and growing too quickly for good planning.
Mapping the Hazards of Climate Change for Humanitarians
This study uses a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) mapping approach to attempt to understand how the projected impacts of climate change will intersect with existing patterns of human vulnerability or so called disaster risk hotspots.
This allows the identification of current and future hotspots of climate change risk. The results illustrate the implications of climate change for humanitarian assistance so that policymakers can grasp the nature and scale of the challenge we face and humanitarian actors can begin adapting their response strategies to the realities of climate change.
The study builds on recent publications and data relating to trends in natural hazards and their relationship with climate change, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, the World Bank's Natural Disasters Hotspots: a Global Risk Analysis, the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change and the Human Development Report 2007/8._It complements the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' (OCHA) recent work to improve risk analysis and mapping which combines historical data with forward looking climate model projections. Technical details of the methodology used for this study, as well as its limitations, are presented in a _Technical Annex.
An Uncommon Peace, Environment, Development, and the Global Security Agenda (updated)
http://www.heldref.org/env-dabelko.php
By Geoffrey D. Dabelko
In 1988, nuclear war was "undoubtedly the gravest" threat facing the environment, according to Our Common Future, commonly known as the Brundtland report. The possible environmental consequences of thermonuclear war radioactive contamination, nuclear winter, and genetic mutations were widely feared during the Cold War, especially by citizens of the United States and Soviet Union, which the report called "prisoners of their own arms race."
Thankfully, these nightmare scenarios did not come to pass, and, aside from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, our environment has largely escaped the impact of radioactive fallout. However, in the 20 years since the report's publication, the specter of nuclear destruction has not yet been "removed from the face of the Earth," as the report called for, but has merely changed scale: the threat of the mushroom cloud has been replaced by the threat of the the dirty bomb a crude device that a terrorist cell could fashion out of pilfered nuclear material. Setting off such a bomb in a world city-a major hub in the global economy could create more disruption than the paradigm-shifting attacks of September 11, 2001, although the radioactivity would impact far fewer people than the feared global nuclear winter of old.
Drought threatens Iraq's crops and water supply (created)
By SALLY BUZBEE Thu Jul 10, 2:15 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080710/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_drought_year;_ylt=AtGIE3_lkkC4y9ukkZ2hLiGs0NUE
BAGHDAD - It's been a year of drought and sand storms across Iraq--- a dry spell that has devastated the country's crucial wheat crop and created new worries about the safety of drinking water.
U.S. officials warn that Iraq will need to increase wheat imports sharply this winter to make up for the lost crop — a sobering proposition with world food prices high and some internal refugees already struggling to afford basics.
"Planting ... is totally destroyed," said Daham Mohammed Salim, 40, who farms 120 acres in the al-Jazeera area near Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad. "Even the ground water in wells is lower than before."
The Tikrit area, where Saddam Husseinwas born, normally is flush with green meadows in the spring and early summer — but this year has only thistles, said 30-year-old farmer Ziyad Sano. He's resorted to collecting bread scraps from homes to feed his 70 sheep, but 20 have died.
The dry weather has hurt areas from Kurdistan's wheat fields in northern Iraq to pomegranate orchards, orange groves and wheat fields just north of Baghdad.
In the capital, the Tigris riveris at its lowest level since 2001, with yards of reeds exposed on each bank. Some irrigation canals to the north in Diyala province — the country's most important bread basket — are bone dry.
Iraqi officials have won praise for providing small-scale relief, such as aid to farmers and the digging of new wells. But the relatively low-tech farming, coupled with chronic electrical power shortages, have hindered broader solutions.
The power outages have prevented farmers in Diyala from drawing water from wells or pumping it from rivers to flood-irrigate fields as usual.
The dry spell has its roots in a winter with only 30 to 40 percent of normal rain — both in Iraq and in Turkey, where the Tigris enters Iraq to the south.
Iraqi officials negotiated with Turkey to let more of that country's dwindling water supplies to flow south from dams, said Mahdi Thumad al-Qaisi, Iraq's deputy minister of agriculture.
But some Iraqis say the government should press harder to get more water from neighboring countries. A representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, urged the government this week to sell oil at preferential prices in return for more access to water.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, asked about the issue on his first-ever visit to Iraq on Thursday, insisted his country is supplying Iraq "with more water than what we had promised, regardless of the high need in our own country."
Besides Iraq and Turkey, the drought has spread across Syria, Cyprus, Iran and Afghanistan, where the wheat crop is also in trouble and could cause shortages.
...
Canada The security dimensions of environmental policy (created)
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/455931
Toronto Star
By Alec Crawford
July 8, 2008
On April 13, a patrol of Canadian Rangers arrived at Eureka, a remote
weather station in the southwest part of Ellesmere Island.
For more than two weeks the patrol had been trekking across Canada's
northern archipelago as part of Operation Nunalivut ("this land is
ours"), a now-yearly exercise carried out by the Canadian Forces to
assert the country's sovereignty in the High Arctic.
A month later, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Minister of National
Defence Peter McKay unveiled the latest iteration of the Canada First
Defence Strategy.
The war in Afghanistan remains the focus. But the defence strategy also
underlined a commitment to augmenting the Canadian Forces' capacity to
"protect Canada's Arctic sovereignty and security."
While this hearkens back to the country's more traditional security
concerns, it has been brought about by a very new security threat: that
of climate change.
...
With climate change increasing access to the Bering, Chukchi and
Beaufort Seas, lucrative fisheries will develop as the ice recedes and
cold-water fish move north.
The exploitation of the area's mineral deposits will become more
cost-effective, and the region's vast oil and gas resources - which are
believed to account for one-quarter of the world's undiscovered reserves
-- will ironically become more accessible due to climate change
...
Successive Canadian governments have argued that the Northwest Passage
is Canadian territory, and in the interest of North American security
(and the environment) Canada should control traffic in the passage, as opposed to allowing unfettered access.
The government's position stands in contrast to that of other maritime
countries. The United States, for example, believes the Northwest
Passage should be open to international traffic, and that vessels need
not obtain consent from Canada before travelling through the strait;
acceptance of Canadian sovereignty over the strait could set a dangerous
precedent for other, equally strategic waterways such as those in the
South China Sea.
To back up its stake, the Canadian government is investing heavily in
equipment and staff to bolster its presence in the region. It has
committed to building six to eight navy patrol ships to guard the
Northwest Passage, and in August 2007 the Prime Minister announced plans
to build two military bases in the region: an army training centre for
100 troops in Resolute Bay, and a deep-water port at Nanisivik on Baffin
Island.
Report ODI SUDAN Water for Recovery and Peace Programme External Evaluation (updated)
Final report by Katharina Welle, Manhiem Bol Malek and Tom Slaymaker
http://www.odi.org.uk/wpp/resources/project-reports/WRAPP%20evaluation%20report.pdfExecutive
Summary and Strategic Recommendations
The Water for Recovery and Peace Program (WRAPP) has been operating in Southern Sudan under PACT since 2005 with the aim to (1) increase access to protected water supply and enhance awareness about sanitation and hygiene; (2) enhance capacity for community management of water schemes; (3) contribute to the reduction of conflict and the promotion of stability and peace; and (4) be gender and environmentally sensitive. The main funding agency of WRAPP is USAID/OFDA.
By November 2007, WRAPP had implemented 707 (boreholes) rural water supply schemes, rehabilitated 505 (boreholes) schemes, 13 semi-urban water distribution
schemes, public toilet blocks in 10 towns and one hafir, a major rainwater harvesting facility. The total number of beneficiaries reached under WRAPP reach an estimated
1,4 million. The purpose of the evaluation was to assess the WRAPP approach in terms of its appropriateness, effectiveness and sustainability. The evaluation team followed the log frame approach, assessing to what extent the programme is meeting its objectives and achieving outcomes and impact with a focus on qualitative methods to assess the soft aspects of the WRAPP approach.
Madagascar to Sell Carbon Credits to Protect Forest (created)
| http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48759/story.htm\\ |
| |
| MADAGASCAR: June 13, 2008 |
| PORT LOUIS - Madagascar will sell nine million tons of carbon offsets in a voluntary scheme to help protect one of its biggest and most pristine forests, a conservation group said on Thursday. |
| Environmental campaigners are placing huge hope in offset schemes that let polluters pay for cuts elsewhere in emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. Experts say safeguarding forests like Madagascar's will be key to tackling warming, since deforestation in the tropics produces about 20 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions. A UN report this week warned that Africa is suffering deforestation at twice the world's average rate. Ray Victurine, finance programme director for the non-profit Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told Reuters by telephone that the offsets were expected to sell over 30 years, with prices now at an average of between US$4 and US$10 per ton. "It is linked to the voluntary carbon market," he said. Madagascar's forests may be small in comparison with those in Indonesia or Brazil. But they contain rich biodiversity, from chameleons to lemurs and enormous baobab trees. WCS said proceeds from the sale would be used to protect the 400,000-hectare Makira Forest, which is home to 22 species of lemur, hundreds of varieties of birds and thousands of plants. About half of Madagascar's unique biodiversity was found in Makira, the group said. Half the expected revenue from the sales would go directly to communities living in the forest, WCS said, while a quarter would go to forest conservation and 15 percent to the government's conservation and climate change projects. The remainder would go on monitoring and overheads. Conservationists say deforestation in Madagascar has slowed after the authorities there decided to set aside some 6 million hectares as nature reserves. But farming and charcoal use still lead to the loss of 100,000 hectares of forest a year on the huge island, where more than three quarters of the almost 20 million population live on less than US$2 per day. (Editing by Daniel Wallis and Mariam Karouny) (For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/ ) |
| Story by Ed Harris |
Inside Gate, India's Good Life, Outside, the Slums (created)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/world/asia/09gated.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: June 9, 2008GURGAON, India--- When the scorch of summer hit this north Indian boomtown, and the municipal water supply worked only a few hours each day, inside a high-rise tower called Hamilton Court, Jaya Chand could turn on her kitchen tap around the clock, and water would gush out.
The same was true when the electricity went out in the city, which it did on average for 12 hours a day, something that once prompted residents elsewhere in Gurgaon to storm the local power office. All the while, the Chands' flat screen television glowed, the air-conditioners hummed, and the elevators cruised up and down Hamilton Court's 25 floors.
...
India has always had its upper classes, as well as legions of the world's very poor. But today a landscape dotted with Hamilton Courts, pressed up against the slums that serve them, has underscored more than ever the stark gulf between those worlds, raising uncomfortable questions for a democratically elected government about whether India can enable all its citizens to scale the golden ladders of the new economy.
...
Gurgaon, a largely privately developed city and a metonym for Indian ambition, has seen a building frenzy to satisfy people like the Chands. The city's population has nearly doubled in the last six years, to 1.5 million. The skyline is dotted with scaffolds. Glass towers house companies like American Express and Accenture. Not far from Hamilton Court, Burberry and BMW have set up shop.
State services, meanwhile, have barely kept pace. The city has neither enough water nor electricity for the population. There is no sewage treatment plant yet; construction is scheduled to begin this year.
India has long lived with such inequities, and though a Maoist rebellion is building in the countryside, the nation has for the most part skirted social upheaval through a critical safety valve: giving the poor their chance to vent at the ballot box. Indeed, four years ago, voters threw out the incumbent government, with its "India Shining" slogan, because it was perceived to have neglected the poor.
U.S. pushes utilities to counter Moqtada al-Sadr (created)
US general in Baghdad says bringing basic services to Sadr City to weaken Sadr and his militia can work this time.ByHoward LaFranchi| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the April 28, 2008 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0428/p01s03-wome.html
Baghdad - Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, US commander in Baghdad, patted the hand of the Iraqi general who oversees government forces in Sadr City. He smiled, but delivered a firm message.
"Tell the mayor - the mayor of Baghdad, the big mayor - tell him we'll be here tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock, and we'll be very disappointed if he's not here. The prime minister needs this to happen," he said during a Friday trip to Sadr City. "We gotta get going."
General Hammond is pushing for services - trash pickup, medical care, water, electricity - for a southern slice of the volatile district. It's part of a US plan to win Iraqis away from Moqtada al-Sadr's sway. And they see a window of opportunity as fighting in Mr. Sadr's Baghdad stronghold shows signs of quieting.
While sporadic fighting continued Sunday, clashes with the Mahdi Army calmed after Sadr issued a statement Friday calling for the "patience" of his followers and for an end to bloodshed among Iraqis. He stepped back from his earlier threat of "open war until liberation," saying it was only directed at Iraq's "occupiers."
In the assault on the Shiite enclave, the Americans' original goal was to push Mahdi Army gunmen out of the southernmost section of Sadr City, from where a barrage of rockets and mortars was launched on the Green Zone, home of US and Iraqi offices. The firings from this part of the district have mostly stopped.
...
Added to that is Maliki's commitment to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her recent visit to Baghdad that the government would spend $300 million to improve living conditions in the Shiite neighborhood.
But perhaps the best sign, some US military officials say, is evidence that local residents are ready for things to change in the neighborhood.
"The people tell us they are sick of the fighting, they want a positive life," says Lt. Col. Frank Curtis, commander of the 4th Infantry Division's 302nd Civil Affairs Battalion.
...
"I didn't think I'd find myself doing this," Hammond says. "But we need the people to see they have security forces that are making their neighborhoods safe, and to see they have a government that can deliver a better quality of life."
Agriculture, The Need for Change (created)
For an official reader-friendly overview of the assessment, please visit
www.greenfacts.org/en/agriculture-iaastd/,
International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development
Washington/London/Nairobi/Delhi, 15 April 2008 - The way the world grows its food will have to
change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with a growing
population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse. That
is the message from the report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and
Technology for Development (IAASTD), a major new report by over 400 scientists which is
launched today.
The assessment was considered by 64 governments at an intergovernmental plenary in
Johannesburg last week.
The authors' brief was to examine hunger, poverty, the environment and equity together.
Professor Robert Watson Director of IAASTD said those on the margins are ill-served by the
present system: "The incentives for science to address the issues that matter to the poor are
weak... the poorest developing countries are net losers under most trade liberalization
scenarios."
Modern agriculture has brought significant increases in food production. But the benefits have
been spread unevenly and have come at an increasingly intolerable price, paid by small-scale
farmers, workers, rural communities and the environment.
It says the willingness of many people to tackle the basics of combining production, social
and environmental goals is marred by "contentious political and economic stances". One of the
IAASTD co-chairs, Dr Hans Herren, explains: "Specifically, this refers to the many OECD member
countries who are deeply opposed to any changes in trade regimes or subsidy systems. Without
reforms here many poorer countries will have a very hard time... "
The report has assessed that the way to meet the challenges lies in putting in place
institutional, economic and legal frameworks that combine productivity with the protection and
conservation of natural resources like soils, water, forests, and biodiversity while meeting
production needs.
In many countries, it says, food is taken for granted, and farmers and farm workers are in
many cases poorly rewarded for acting as stewards of almost a third of the Earth's land.
Investment directed toward securing the public interest in agricultural science, education and
training and extension to farmers has decreased at a time when it is most needed.
The authors have assessed evidence across a wide range of knowledge that is rarely brought
together. They conclude we have little time to lose if we are to change course. Continuing
with current trends would exhaust our resources and put our children's future in jeopardy.
Professor Bob Watson, Director of IAASTD said: "To argue, as we do, that continuing to focus
on production alone will undermine our agricultural capital and leave us with an increasingly
degraded and divided planet is to reiterate an old message. But it is a message that has not
always had resonance in some parts of the world. If those with power are now willing to hear
it, then we may hope for more equitable policies that do take the interests of the poor into
account."
Professor Judi Wakhungu, said "We must cooperate now, because no single institution, no single
nation, no single region, can tackle this issue alone. The time is now."
About the IAASTD
This international assessment addresses how to make better use of agricultural science,
knowledge and technology to reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and foster
equitable and sustainable development.
The assessment represents a three-year effort by about 400 experts around the world, working
under the auspices of 30 governments and 30 representatives of civil society. The latter
include non-governmental organizations, producer and consumer groups and international
organizations.
The assessment was sponsored by the United Nations, the World Bank and the Global Environment
Facility, an independent financial organization that provides grants to developing countries.
Five U.N. agencies were involved: the Food and Agricultural Organization, the U.N. Development
Program, the U.N. Environment Programme, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization and the World Health Organization. Additional individuals, organizations and
governments participated in a peer review process.
For more information, see www.agassessment.org, which includes the opening statement to the
IAATSD meeting in Joahnnesburg last week by UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
Vision on Water Could Ease Tensions (updated)
http://www.middleeastprogress.org/wp-content/themes/meb/newsletter.php
"These water woes concerns more than just the people of Egypt, Israel, Lebanon or Gaza. These are problems touching the international community. Unless duly addressed they will add to the region's already explosive problems in years to come."
Contents:
1. Middle East Water Woes, by Middle East Times, Editorial
2.Water Policies in the Gulf and Recent Initiatives, by Dr. Mohamed Abdel Raouf Abdel Hamid, Senior Researcher, Gulf Research Center (Khaleej Times)
3. Regional Cooperation - Making It Real, Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni, Interfaith Dinner in Celebration of Regional Cooperation honoring "The Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC): A Joint Arab-Israeli Project to Solve Regional Water Problems," September 24, 2007
4.Carbon Emissions---What's All the Fuss About?, by Elizabeth Bains (ArabianBusiness.com)
5.Hopes Fade for Turkish Water as a Strategic Asset,by Gareth Jenkins (Eurasia Daily Monitor)
