The floods in India’s Uttarakhand State, which may have claimed as many as 5,000 lives, were prompted by an unusually high amount of rainfall. The disaster, possibly the largest so far this year, underscores what is at stake in the UN’s upcoming climate talks in Warsaw, Poland.
"We do know that in warmer climate situations, we expect the atmosphere to be able to hold more moisture, and therefore that heavy rainfall events will become more common in the future," said Andrew Turner, a monsoon expert with the Walker Institute for Climate System Research at the University of Reading.
The extreme event also puts a spotlight on loss and damage caused by climate change and the need for resources for help poor countries adapt - issues to be negotiated at the 19th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will be held from 11 to 22 November. Discussions on these matters have been moving slowly; some important related issues were not even raised at the recently concluded talks in Bonn.
Harjeet Singh, ActionAid's international coordinator for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation, said the unfolding impact of extreme climate variability "is just a sample of the catastrophe our children will witness if we do not dramatically reduce emissions and prepare to deal with it.”
IRIN has asked experts from NGOs and governments what they would like to see happen in Warsaw and what they believe is realistically possible.
For the complete article, please see IRIN.
As hundreds of decision-makers are gathering in Marrakech to agree new standards for global migration, the United Nations climate change conference ‘COP24’ is looking at concrete ways to help countries tackle large-scale displacement caused by the impacts of climate change, including water scarcity, flooding, storms and rising sea levels.
Nigeria’s central Middle Belt region is home to a diverse cultural population of semi-nomadic cattle herders and farming communities. For decades, the region has experienced increasingly violent attacks that have been partially attributed to direct competition over access and use of natural resources.
COP24 starts today, the IPCC has published new scientific evidence on the devastating impacts of climate change, the probability that those changes will be manageable are decreasing, and, once again, there is a stalemate in international climate negotiations. Time is running out fast - or more appropriately, as UNFCCC Executive Secretary Espinosa stressed, time is a luxury we no longer have. So, actually the question is how soon is now?
COP24 might be in Katowice, but for the rest of the world it’s on Twitter. Navigating through this sea of news and expert profiles is not the easiest task, however. With this is mind, we’d like to share our favourite Twitter accounts with our followers so that you can be up-to-date throughout the event.