Factbook news: 5 new data visualisation features
Resolving environmental conflicts is important for creating and sustaining peace. But the connections between environmental problems and social or political conflicts are complex. Environmental changes are rarely, if ever, the sole driver of tensions and violence. The ECC Factbook investigates climate-security links and offers a detailed, interactive map to explore more than 120 case studies. The editorial team is happy to announce 5 new features that make it even easier to access relevant information. Try them out and learn about environment, conflict and cooperation!
1. A new ‘slideshow’ function for the conceptual model allows you to explore climate-conflict dynamics in more detail.
2. Short texts summarise the main conflict mechanisms described in each case study.
3. Icons in the embedded maps of the factsheets show locations of interest.
4. More information is displayed when clicking on the icons.
5. Short texts summarise the climate adaptation and resilience-building measures described in each case study.
Linking climate change and peacebuilding in Colombia through land access
Colombia’s long-standing internal conflict and the country’s contribution to climate change share one common root cause: land concentration. Policies to strengthen access to land and to ensure sustainable land use might therefore hold the key to promoting peacebuilding in Colombia, while simultaneously reducing emissions.
Climate-related disasters pose grave challenges to health in South Asia
As disasters wreak havoc all over South Asia, health impacts have increasingly emerged as a major concern for communities and governments in the region. It underscores the need for concerted efforts towards building synergies between the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, particularly now, in the post-disaster reconstruction phase, to ensure “building back better” and future disaster prevention.
Forty years of tree-planting in China: successes and failures
In the Inner Mongolian county of Horinger, Northwestern China, afforestation efforts have transformed a barren, dusty landscape into a pine forest. Planting trees has diminished the sandstorms, boosted biodiversity and improved the environment generally. As the climate emergency worsens, the potential for planted trees to draw carbon out of the atmosphere is being re-examined. What can the world learn from the Chinese experience with afforestation?
Two events in August 2019 underlined the complexity of paving the way to a climate-neutral world: the publishing of the new IPCC report and the Amazon fires. Both events demand that climate diplomats move beyond a narrowed focus on energy in decarbonisation debates.