Issues & Trends
| Plan now for climate-related disasters - U.N. report * Rising population, development put more in harm's way * Policymakers urged to act in next few decades * Less emphasis on mitigation, more on cutting risk By David Fogarty and Deborah Zabarenko |
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| Losses from Natural Disasters Reach New Peak in 2011 The breakdown of loss-relevant events among the main hazards-geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, and climatological events-is more or less in line with the average over the past 30 years. In 2011, some 91 percent were weather-related-37 percent each were storms and floods and 17 percent were climatological events like heat waves, cold wav |
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| Fukushima reactor shows radiation levels much higher than thought Damage from disaster so severe that clean-up expected to take decades, according to latest examination of nuclear plant |
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| Banking against Doomsday Gene banks represent an overdue push to preserve crop biodiversity. It also needs conserving on farms |
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| Access to energy - necessary but not sufficient to cut poverty The UN estimates that 1.4 billion people have no access to electricity, hurting their ability to earn a living or educate their children. But connecting to an electric grid may not be the only solution. |
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| Water-short world will need 'more crop per drop' - experts Water must be used more efficiently to meet rising food demand from a growing population amid climate-change pressures, experts say. |
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| Hydropower 'could supply Africa's entire power needs' [MARSEILLES] Hydropower could supply all of Africa's electricity needs if cross-border cooperation was stepped up, according to a UN report launched last week (12 March) at the World Water Forum in Marseilles, France. |
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Report: Water shortages increasingly will offer new weapons for states, terror groups Fresh-water shortages and more droughts and floods will increase the likelihood that water will be used as a weapon between states or to further terrorist aims in key strategic areas, including the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa, a U.S. intelligence assessment released Thursday said. |
| Fundamental Steps Needed Now in Global Redesign of Earth System Governance, Experts Say Some 32 social scientists and researchers from around the world, including a Senior Sustainability Scholar at Arizona State University, have concluded that fundamental reforms of global environmental governance are needed to avoid dangerous changes in the Earth system. |
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| Climate 'tech fixes' urged for Arctic methane An eminent UK engineer is suggesting building cloud-whitening towers in the Faroe Islands as a "technical fix" for warming across the Arctic.Scientists told UK MPs this week that the possibility of a major methane release triggered by melting Arctic ice constitutes a "planetary emergency." The Arctic could |