admin November 16th, 2010
So it would appear that it takes the inundation of 160,000 square kilometres of land, an estimated 1,600 deaths and 20 million people affected by flooding for Pakistan – a tiny emitter of greenhouse gases – to decide that it needs a climate change strategy to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events caused by global warming.
What, therefore, is it going to take for the major emitters of CO2 – China, the US, Russia, India, Japan and Germany in total tonnage rank – to do the same and really start to get to grips with the emissions that they are generating? After all, it is these emissions that are the root cause of the melting glaciers in the Hindu Kush. And it is the meltwater from these glaciers that, along with unusually high rainfall, caused the flooding.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Cancun, China, Copenhagen, Floods, Germany, Global warming, India, Japan, natural disasters, Pakistan, Russia, USA
admin August 3rd, 2010
The complexities of global warming and the interconnectedness of world markets have been starkly illustrated this week. And, as so often, the people to suffer from these random events are the poor in general and the African poor in particular.
As the worst famine for several years stalks Niger and Chad, IRIN News reports that the 2010 rainy season in West Africa has opened with hail storms in Guinea and the heaviest rain in 50 years in northern Chad. Floods have killed at least 80 people and destroyed homes, bridges, septic tanks, livestock, crops and food stocks; dams have broken, and wells and latrines and have been submerged.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Chad, Climate change, Drought, Floods, Global warming, natural disasters, Niger, Pakistan, Russia, UNICEF
admin June 29th, 2010
The number of natural disasters around the world fell year-on-year in 2009 according to the Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2009 produced by CRED (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters). And it also fell below the 2000-08 average.
But CRED, which is a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre, warns that although the upward trend in disaster occurrence has stabilized in 2009 it is not possible to identify a trend from this fact: “In general, a high variation exists in the reported number of deaths and victims from one year to the next. This is mostly due to single disaster events that cause a tremendous human impact.” In 2009 there were no events like the 2002 drought in India (300 million victims), the 2004 Tsunami (226,408 deaths across 12 countries) or cyclone Nargis, which hit Myanmar in 2008 causing 138,366 deaths.
Continue Reading »
Tags: China, CRED, cyclone, Drought, earthquake, Floods, Global warming, India, Indian Ocean Tsunami, Myanmar, natural disasters, Storm, WHO
admin June 26th, 2010
Five of the ten countries in the world with the least secure supplies of water are in Africa. And Africa has the unpleasant honour of taking the top four places in a new report, ‘Water Security Risk Index’ published this week by Maplecroft, a firm specialising in corporate risk intelligence.
The top ten countries with the least secure supplies of water – shown in dark blue on the map below - are 1. Somalia, 2. Mauritania, 3. Sudan, 4. Niger, 5. Iraq, 6. Uzbekistan, 7. Pakistan, 8. Egypt, 9. Turkmenistan and 10. Syria.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Brazil, Climate change, Drought, Egypt, Ethiopia, Floods, Global warming, Himalaya, Iceland, India, Iraq, Mauretania, New Zealand, Niger, Nile, Norway, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, UK, Uzbekistan
admin June 25th, 2010
If you keep your eyes open for these things, around the world there are regular small-scale disasters that show the impacts of global warming and climate change. Here in the UK it can be something as simple (as apparently silly?) as drought orders being applied for in north-west England just a few months after catastrophic floods.
On a larger scale, north-eastern Brazil has been hit by torrential floods which have left more than 40,000 people without shelter following the bursting of a river dam.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Brazil, Climate change, Drought, Floods, Global warming, Mozambique, UK
admin June 9th, 2010
Water is one of the planet’s great Commons, and ‘Tackling the World Water Crisis’, which is available here is the latest contribution to a rapidly growing literature looking at the threat of water shortages as the world’s population grows and our water use grows exponentially.
Published by the Foreign Policy Centre, it is a collection of articles by politicians such as new Foreign Secretary William Hague and EU foreign minister Baroness Catherine Ashton, journalists from the BBC and the Financial Times, leaders of NGOs like ActionAid and WWF-UK, plus assorted academics and think-tank heads.
Continue Reading »
Tags: ActionAid, Bangladesh, BBC, China, Climate change, Financial Times, Ganges, Global warming, Himalaya, India, Mekong, natural disasters, Nile, Peru, Sahel, WWF, Yemen
admin May 24th, 2010
The problems of managing the waters of the Nile, which we wrote about here recently pale into insignificance when you consider the problems of managing the waters that flow down from Hindu-Kush Himalaya region (HKH). Advance Aid was at the House of Lords in London last week for the launch of a report on the waters of the HKH titled ‘The Waters of the Third Pole: Sources of threat, sources of survival’.
One fifth of humanity is sustained by the waters that flow down from the HKH, including some or all of the populations of the most populous countries on earth – Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan. And it is the source of ten major Asian river systems, including the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong and Yellow rivers. As the report says, these drainage basins are “one of the world’s most complex and intensive risk hotspots. This water system could be involved in future crises concerning dams, river diversions, floods, water shortages and contamination”.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Bangladesh, China, Climate change, Drought, Floods, Global warming, Himalaya, India, Kings College London, natural disasters, Pakistan, UCL
admin April 19th, 2010
In the wake of the perceived failure of COP-15 in Copenhagen in December last year, today sees the opening of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. This is taking place in Cochabamba in Bolivia and runs to April 22nd. Full details are here.
‘The defence of Mother Earth’ has been championed by Bolivian President Evo Morales, and the World People’s Conference lists 241partners – grassroots and indigenous movements, non-governmental organisations, activists and intellectuals – who are calling for a charter of rights for the planet.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Bolivia, Climate change, Copenhagen, Global warming
admin December 15th, 2009
The map below, published last week, is from the Global Climate Risk Index 2009 (CRI), produced by Germanwatch and re-insurance giants Munich Re. Taken at face value it appears to show that the continent with the lowest climate risk in the world is Africa.
Asia has the highest risk, with China and India at the forefront, but even Europe is shown to be at greater climate risk than Africa. Only Mozambique and Madagascar appear within the top 50 countries in the world.
But, as in so many things statistical, all is not as it seems.
Continue Reading »
Tags: China, Climate change, cyclone, Floods, Global warming, Mozambique, Munich Re, Myanmar, Storm, USA
admin December 7th, 2009
Today is the first day of the Copenhagen conference on Climate Change. Fingers crossed for the developing world that a real, verifiable and (above all) fair agreement can be reached. But the chances of, in football terms, getting a result on all three looks pretty slim at this stage.
But before anyone can get to the real negotiating, there’s the small problem of coming to an agreement on whether the ‘problem’ of global warming and climate change is real or not!
Continue Reading »
Tags: Climate change, Copenhagen, Global warming