adaptation

Vidal’s voyage to Durban

by Bryan Walker November 28, 2011

How better to journey to the climate conference at Durban than through the African countries along the way which are already grappling with climate change? That’s the route John Vidal, the Guardian’s environment editor, has been following over the past ten days and reporting on in a series of articles. He started in Egypt. The [...]

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The Climate Show #22: Durban doubts & Renwick on extremes

by Gareth November 25, 2011

A crisp and crunchy show this week, as Gareth and Glenn interview Dr James Renwick about the IPCC’s cautious new report on extreme weather and the riskier future we all face. With added ruminations on the potential slowdown in international action at the Durban conference, record greenhouse gas levels reached in 2010, the prospect of [...]

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Hotspots hit poor hardest

by Bryan Walker June 4, 2011

Another report this week drives home the message that the world’s poorer people are going to suffer the early and potentially devastating effects of climate change. The report is the work of the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) programme associated with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a group of food [...]

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Listener gets serious about sea level

by Bryan Walker May 15, 2011

As I walked past the magazine stand at the supermarket this week my eye was caught by the front cover of the this week’s Listener (on sale last week). “Rising sea levels & extreme weather — why NZ needs to get serious,” it said. A cautious peek inside suggested Ruth Laugeson’s article might deserve a [...]

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Adapting to climate change in Vietnam and the Philippines

by Bryan Walker April 27, 2011

I stumbled across a documentary programme on BBC World during the weekend, Nature Inc. It visited two Asian regions where the impacts of climate change are being experienced and described the active local measures under way to cope with them. It’s the sort of programme we ought to be seeing a great deal more of [...]

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Bangladesh: lessons in adaptation

by Bryan Walker March 25, 2011

A basket case” said Henry Kissinger of Bangladesh in 1974 after the civil war that liberated it from West Pakistan (the side he backed). Mark Hertsgaard in Hot (reviewed here) reports a rather different picture. I thought it worth dwelling longer on what he has to say about Bangladesh than was possible in the review [...]

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Adapting to Climate Change

by Bryan Walker March 1, 2011

Adapting to Climate Change is a reassuring sounding title, but the content of this book makes it clear that there will be nothing straightforward or easy as human communities try to ready themselves for the coming climate crisis. Editors Neil Adger, Irene Lorenzoni and Karen O’Brien have been doing on research in the area for [...]

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Heart of the city

by Bryan Walker January 27, 2011

We tend to become riveted on the efforts of national governments to address greenhouse gas reductions, so far with dismal results. But as a valuable new study reminds us, city administrations can play a significant role in mitigation and with more immediate effect. Cities and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Moving Forward is to be published in [...]

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NZ regions planning for climate change

by Bryan Walker November 13, 2010

I opened the latest Environment Waikato news update to discover that a Regional Policy Statement (RPS) is due, ten years after the last one. As I thumbed through the publication a heading leapt out at me: “Our climate is changing, so we must too.” Underneath came this statement: “Even if all greenhouse gas emissions were [...]

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Preparing for Climate Change

by Bryan Walker November 5, 2010

The global climate is changing. The impacts on human society are likely to be very serious. We would be foolish indeed not to plan ahead for coping strategies. Michael Mastrandrea and the late Stephen Schneider have produced a small book setting out what we can best do to be ready for what is in store.  Preparing [...]

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