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IPCC climate change report key points - in 60 seconds
There is overwhelming evidence that humans are experiencing the effects of climate change, says a new report.
Unless serious action is taken, this is likely to get worse, with growing risks of floods, food shortages, and threats to human health, warns the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), BBC News outlines the report's key points - in 60 seconds.
Video produced by Michael Hirst 
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Aditya Bahadur of Overseas Development Institute introduces a new CDKN Guide on mainstreaming disaster risk management (DRM) into sectoral planning.
...This new CDKN Guide - by Amy Kirbyshire and myself at Overseas Development Institute, together with Dina Khan of LEAD and Mihir Bhatt of the All India Disaster Management Institute - draws on the experience of CDKN’s programmes on climate-related disaster risk management (DRM) within the context of climate compatible development. We explore why mainstreaming DRM into development policy has had widely varying results between countries. In doing so, we attempt to delve beneath the surface of mainstreaming and identify the ways forward for integrating short- and long-term considerations for disaster risk reduction in important development sectors.
We demonstrate that effective mainstreaming requires a supportive policy environment, leadership, knowledge of the relevant risks, risk management techniques that are appropriate to each context, consistent financing and innovation. We draw on empirical examples and relevant literature to suggest how to achieve these elements and presents a clear way forward for governments seeking to mainstream disaster risk across different sectors...
Download the full report: What does it take to mainstream disaster risk management in key sectors?
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At Monday's launch of the latest report from the U.N. climate panel, its chair Rajendra Pachauri said "nobody on this planet" will be untouched by the impacts of climate change.
He said climate change will reduce water availability, cause species to migrate, harm crop yields, and bring more damaging extreme weather. Human security will likely be shaped by increased displacement and conflict, made worse by climate stresses, and some low-lying states may face a loss of their territory.
Authored by more than 300 scientists, who examined 12,000 publications, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is the scientific community's flagship assessment of climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, drawing on a much larger body of research than the last such study in 2007.
"We have so much information, so much evidence, we can no longer plead ignorance," Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, told a news briefing in Yokohama, Japan, where governments agreed the report...
Read the reactions from humanitarian, development and green groups to Monday's release of the second report on climate impacts: http://www.scoop.it/t/climate-change-in-east-africa
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Representatives from government, international organizations, climate science and farmer organizations met at a three-day workshop to share experiences on how development and implementation of national climate change policies, strategies and action plans have interacted with the adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in Africa.
With the goal of informing emerging global efforts on CSA and influencing the UNFCCC negotiations, participants underscored the need to demonstrate how Africa's economic growth is being impacted by climate change. They called for multi-sectoral approaches to address climate changes impacts, and provided concrete approaches to integrate climate change into into planning and implmentation of agricultural strategies. The workshop, titled 'Regional Workshop on African Agriculture in a changing climate: Enhancing the up-take of Climate Smart Agriculture,' also considered synergies among national climate change and agricultural policies, and opportunities for accessing financing.
The meeting took place from 11-14 February 2014, in Arusha, Tanzania. It was jointly organized by the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Program (CCAFS), and the East African Community (EAC). CCAFS is a program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The meeting was one of a series that will inform Africa's common position in the lead up to the launch of the Global Alliance on Climate Smart Agriculture on 23 September 2014, during the UN Secretary-General's Climate Summit.
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United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Ghana's former President John Kufuor and Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, former Prime Minister of Norway as Special Envoys on Climate Change. The two envoys are to assist in engaging Heads of State and Government around the world in order to mobilize political will and action, and raise ambition in advance of the 2014 Climate Summit that will be hosted in New York on September 23 next year. A statement issued from the United Nations Headquarters in New York today, (December 23, 2013) announcing the appointment said that they will also assist the Secretary-General in his consultations with leaders to raise the level of ambition to address climate change and to accelerate action...
...Ex-President Kufuor, a former Chairperson of the African Union received the World Food Prize in 2011. This marked, among others, Ghana's achievement as the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to cut in half the proportion of its people who suffer from hunger, and the proportion of people living on less than a dollar per day, on course to achieve UN Millennium Development Goal 1 before the 2015 deadline. President Kufuor once served as Chairman of the Sanitation and Water for All Partnership and as Global Envoy for the Neglected Tropical Diseases Alliance.
Ex-Prime Minister Stoltenberg has worked with the Secretary-General before on climate change, leading a 21-member High Level Advisory Group on Climate Financing along with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi...
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From
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Agroforestry can help to achieve climate change mitigation and adaptation while at the same time providing livelihoods for poor smallholder farmers in Africa...
In a special issue of Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, scientists say that in most parts of Africa, climate change mitigation focuses on reforestation and forest protection however, such efforts to reduce deforestation conflict with the need to expand agricultural production in Africa to feed the continent's growing population. Agriculture in Africa is dominated by smallholder farmers. Their priority is to produce enough food. Under such circumstances, any measures that will be put in place to mitigate the effects of climate change should also improve food production...
The report however notes that for farmers to incorporate trees in their farms there is need to revise the cultivation methods and provide them with some support to ensure swift adoption...
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Global food prices rose 2.6 percent in February in the sharpest climb since mid-2012 due to unfavourable weather, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday, with the crisis in Ukraine threatening to cause future volatility.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) price index, which measures monthly price changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 208.1 points in February, up 5.2 points from a slightly revised January index of 202.9.
Unfavourable weather conditions in the southern hemisphere and parts of the United States were the most important cause of the rises, FAO's senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian said.
However, he said market nervousness about the crisis in Ukraine could affect prices in March...
WEATHER DRIVEN
In February prices rose in all commodity groups except meat. The strongest rise was in the sugar sub-index, up 6.2 percent from January due to concerns of crop damage from dry weather in Brazil and forecasts indicating a drop of output in India.
The vegetable oil price index rose 4.9 percent on the previous month, the second-largest increase among the indices after sugar. This was driven by strengthening palm and soy oil prices due to dry weather in Southeast Asia and South America. A 3.6 rise in the cereal price index reflects concerns over the effect of freezing weather on wheat crops in the United States, FAO said.
The last time the food price index rose so significantly was in July 2012 due to a drought in the U.S. Midwest which sent corn and soybean prices to record highs...
Though it is too early to forecast global cereal output for 2014, FAO gave its first world wheat output forecast for the year at 704 million tonnes. This was a drop of 1.7 percent from the 2013 record harvest, but would still be the second largest crop ever, FAO said.
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...This growing nexus between climate change and instability is now already evident in some parts of the continent.
For example, in the Darfur region, climate change has escalated the crisis with competition for scarce water in refugee camps, and scarce land between farmers and herders sparking serious conflicts in the arid region.
According to the United Nations, more than 1,4 million people have been displaced, while thousands others have died since the crisis erupted in the Darfur region in 2003.
In the North Rift and north-eastern regions of Kenya, climate change and human pressures on natural resources have induced violent pastoral conflicts that have resulted in some locals migrating to new lands.
The complexities of climate change also saw Kenya and Uganda at one point coming to an agreement to demarcate Lake Victoria using bright beacons so that fishers from both countries do not cross into another’s border.
This was after long-standing clashes between fishers “encroaching into another country’s waters” in search of better and bigger fish...
...Although tension has been fairly well managed, increased migration, droughts and livestock disease may spark grazing wars, as communities fight over existing and new lands.
Faced with such a daunting challenge, the question for Africa is how to cope and address the effects of climate change - a phenomenon that is not only here to stay but getting worse.
Predictions by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate that over the next 50 years, the continent is expected to suffer from more frequent and intense droughts and floods, more unpredictable growing seasons, and higher average temperatures.
An important question for Africa is how to address this global challenge that was not caused by Africa, but by industrialised countries, yet the continent is the hardest hit due to limited financial resources to adapt to such changes...
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New IFAD report shows rural women are key to unlocking economic and social benefits of adaptation.
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African governments are committing insufficient funding for disaster monitoring and management despite many placing disaster risk reduction high on their national agenda, a UN official has said.
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A regional workshop held in Arusha Tanzania in February 2014 channeled the way forward with regard to Africa's agriculture under a changing climate. Delegates discussed Africa's participation in the upcoming UN Secretary General's Climate Summit to be held in September 2014.
Delegates from 21 countries from Northern, Eastern and Southern Africa recently took part in a regional workshop on African Agriculture in a Changing Climate: Enhancing the up-take of Climate Smart Agriculture held in Arusha, Tanzania.
The aim was to provide an opportunity for consolidating and sharing of experiences that could inform emerging Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) global efforts and the on-going United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations.
Coorganised by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC), East African Community (EAC) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), the meeting took place from 12 to 14 February 2014 in Arusha, Tanzania.
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As the global population grows past seven billion, our cities continue to expand, increasing the need for natural resources while simultaneously decreasing the supply. Google’s Earth Engine team created these time-lapse maps to illustrate a few of the trends reshaping the world right now.
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It's more than floods.
"We will witness instability in rainfall, disease spreading, sea level rise and floods. One other effect of climate change is to send Africans further and further to seek water. This brings them into conflicts with other Africans. We will face wars on African soil that are not created in Africa."
These words by Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, the former chairperson of the Africa Group at the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations provides a striking reminder and warning that climate change is more than just about floods or droughts but rather a serious phenomenon that has the capacity to destabilize Africa.
This growing nexus between climate change and instability is now already evident in some parts of the continent...
...In the North Rift and North Eastern regions of Kenya, climate change and human pressures on natural resources have induced violent pastoral conflicts that have resulted in some locals migrating to new lands. The complexities of climate change also saw Kenya and Uganda at one point coming to an agreement to demarcate Lake Victoria using bright beacons so that fishers from both countries do not cross into another border...This was after longstanding clashes between fishers "encroaching into another country's waters" in search of better and bigger fish....
...Faced with such a daunting challenge, the question for Africa is how to cope and address the effects of climate change -- a phenomenon that is not only here to stay but getting worse...Predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate that over the next 50 years, the continent is expected to suffer from more frequent and intense droughts and floods, more unpredictable growing seasons, and higher average temperatures.
An important question for Africa is how to address this global challenge that was not caused by Africa, but by industrialized countries, yet the continent is the hardest hit due to limited financial resources to adapt to such changes...
...Another key intervention for Africa is improving access to accurate information about climate change and climate change induced conflict. The African media has been identified as an important player in the global effort to combat the impacts of climate change, particularly in early warning, management and resolution.
Empowering journalist on reporting climate change has resulted in more people knowing the various measures that are available to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Africa is slowly turning to renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro and wind - which are less polluting to the environment compared to other forms such as coal thermal...Turning to renewables is not only sensible, but fossil fuels and other forms of energy such as coal will not last forever, hence the need to prepare for the future...
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Climate change threatens to put back the fight to eradicate hunger by decades – and our global food system is unprepared to cope with the challenge. New evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is likely to show that the impact of climate change on global hunger will hit harder and sooner than previously thought.
In this briefing, Oxfam analyses ten key factors that influence a country’s ability to feed its people in a warming world, including the quality of weather monitoring systems, social safety nets, agricultural research and adaptation finance. Across all ten areas Oxfam has found a serious gap between what is happening and what is needed to protect our food systems. And that it is the world’s poorest and most food insecure countries that are generally the least prepared for and most susceptible to harmful climate change.
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The draft of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that the world faces serious risks from warming and that the poor are especially vulnerable. But it avoids the kinds of specific forecasts that have sparked controversy in the past...
...Central to that new take is setting climate change in a context of other risks, uncertainties and mega-trends such as poverty and social inequality, urbanization, and the globalization of food systems. What some call "climate exceptionalism" — the idea that climate change is something of an entirely different order to other threats faced by the world — has been rooted out. Here climate change is painted as pervasive, since nobody can avoid it wholly, but as usually only one among many pressures, especially on the poor...
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Former US Vice-President and climate change lobbyist Al Gore has launched the African branch of the Climate Reality Project, which aims to mobilise individuals and organisations to implement climate change mitigation measures and 'spread the truth' of climate change to communities on the continent.
Marius Engen's curator insight,
March 20, 2014 3:35 AM
USA participating in the global climate issue. Do they care or are they just trying to show people that they care?
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By John Abraham and Dana Nuccetelli
Ugandans are already noticing climate change making weather patterns unpredictable, and other climate impacts.
As I have written before, I have a particular interest in smart energy sources for the developing world. Issues of climate change and energy supply meet as countries try to provide basic services for their populace. Some contrarian climate scientists have claimed that developing clean energy sources is unwise for these countries – insisting incorrectly that dirty energy is the future. Most of us are smarter than that. Most of us realize that deciding the best pathway forward requires balancing the costs of inaction with the costs of action. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that countries are not already feeling the impact of climate change.
Part of my work involves helping countries chart wise energy pathways. My students also travel to developing countries and part of their work involves articulating the challenges and opportunities faced around the globe. This article is supplied by Ms. Lauren Vallez, a freshman student of engineering at the University of St. Thomas. This January, she was in Uganda interviewing experts on the impacts and adaption strategies faced by that country. Here is what she found...
...Much of the Ugandan economy is based on agriculture, a practice infused in their culture. Normally regular wet and dry periods have become more varied. He stated that they are, '…seeing drought. Serious drought that has not happened before. This drought has caused famine in parts of the country. In other parts, there has been too much rain.' He also told me, 'It has been very hot these days. Over the years it has gotten hotter with more unpredictable weather.'
But, unlike many countries which are inactive, Uganda has plans. From the top levels of government, they have enacted policies which encourage reforestation. They also are taking steps to preserve wetlands. Will these steps stop climate change? By no means. But they will help insulate Uganda and its neighbors from the impacts.
His anecdotal perceptions matched with what scientists expect. Uganda, and many other countries in Africa are at or near the equator. Atmospheric circulation patterns provide regular rainy-dry seasons but the water cycle is being modified. This modification may be occurring because of large scale circulation changes, perhaps it is associated with increases in evaporation and water-holding capacity of the air. Regardless of the cause, people in countries like Uganda live close to the ground, acutely aware of changes to seasonal weather. They have cultivated an agriculture based on traditions that are now being challenged...
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An entrepreneurial Kenyan engineer has produced a machine that enables farmers to defy changing weather conditions and earn good profits by switching from traditional food crops to sisal, which thrives in semi-arid regions and needs no fertilizer... ...One crop that has always flourished on drought-prone Kenyan farms is sisal. Many families make ropes and baskets on a small scale from sisal fibre, giving them a modest income. Sisal plants also help prevent soil erosion and can be used as firewood when their productive life is over...
...Today more than 20,000 farmers in different parts of Kenya are earning good money from sisal...about 10,000 acres are under sisal and the area is increasing fast.
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New research from the ODI argues that measures to help vulnerable communities adapt to climate extremes and sea-level rise, or to pursue clean development, need to take politics into account a great deal more than they do now. Because if they don't, they run a high risk of failing to make people more resilient to climate change and related problems in the longer term...
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Somali farmers have for the first time been able to supply high quality food to the UN’s World Food Program (WFP), providing supplies to be used to feed fellow countrymen. Farmers from South-central Somalia have sold 200 metric tons of high quality maize grain to WFP, which is to supply areas within the country that have inadequate food. This is a major breakthrough for the farmers, especially coming from an area that faced severe famine less than three years ago. In 2011, the United Nations declared that 4 million people in Somalia suffered food crisis, as the country suffered the worst drought to affect the East African region in 60 years.
The farmers were supported by the European Union, Austria as well as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP). Under the program, the farmers were trained by experts from FAO and WFP on different aspects including grading their grain, post-harvest handling as well as storage and warehouse management. These skills have been essential in ensuring good quality for the grain that meets the international standards required for purchase by WFP.
Luca Alinovi, FAO’s outgoing representative for Somalia says their focus was on improving the quality of the farming in Afgoye. “FAO is the organization that helped the farmers, the local institutions to improve their agriculture and FAO’s role was to make sure that the farmers get all the knowledge and capacity to strengthen their productive capacity in order to meet the standards that are required by WFP to purchase the food, which is very complicated, normally it takes several seasons. The beauty of this thing is that the farmers in Afgoye were so good that in one season we were able to produce as per the international standards, which is required by WFP for international purchase,” he says. For Somali’s Minister for Agriculture, Abdi Ahmed Mohamed the revamping of the sector is significant to efforts aimed at reviving the economy, which has also been strained by decades of war.
“Despite the 20 years of conflict in Somalia, the bread or the anjeera in the plates of the Somali people were produced by mainly from the Somalis. So farmers have been always engaged in the production. Our plan now is to revive the agricultural sector. Its recovery is not only a matter of producing agricultural products, it’s about recovering the whole economy and contributing to the stabilization and the peace,” he notes. The farmers’ aspirations are not only to feed their fellow countrymen but also to be a major grain supplier for the region. Musa Musa, a farmer from Afgoye says they have capacity for massive production but need support for it to be marketed extensively.
“They told us, we are very glad, most of the maize we were bringing to Somalia from abroad, we will stop and then we will take your maize for the people of Somalia. And even the people of East Africa if possible. We can produce so much maize and many other grains if we get help. The only help which we need is to get market for our maize. We can produce the maize in any quantity they need,” he says.
Farming in Somalia, like other sectors has been greatly affected by the conflict, stretching over 2 decades, bringing all activity to a halt while the police suffered severe famine.
Today, the country however enjoys relative peace facilitated by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which has made it possible for such activities to take off. The farmers remain hopeful that this milestone will be the beginning of many others to come.
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BLOG Representative Carolyn Maloney, U.S. Representative for New York's 12th District; Ranking House Member, Joint Economic Committee
This post is part of a series from the Safe Climate Caucus. The Caucus is comprised of 37 members of the US House of Representatives who have committed to ending the conspiracy of silence in Congress about the dangers of climate change. For more information, visit the Safe Climate Caucus website and like the Safe Climate Caucus on Facebook. ______________
International Women's Day is a time to celebrate women's achievements, but it's also a good time to draw attention to problems too often overlooked by policymakers and begin discussing constructive solutions. As a member of the Congressional Safe Climate Caucus, I am struck by the disproportionate toll that environmental destruction driven by climate change exacts on women.
Women account for 20 million of the 26 million people displaced by climate change -- a staggering disparity driven by the fact that women make up over 70 percent of the world's poor. When access to food, shelter, education, income, land, and health care are already limited, the effects of a natural disaster caused by a changing climate are devastating.
Women in the world's poorest regions are the most immediate victims of climate change. In Africa, women and girls spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water. As drought becomes increasingly common, they must travel further distances and face greater danger from attack and sexual assault. After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the death rate for women soared, and in some areas it was three times greater than it was for men. The London School of Economics studied the impact of 141 natural disasters on women and men and concluded that women have a higher death rate because of their lack of rights and mobility.
Unfortunately, these problems are getting worse, not better, and it's time to sound the alarm. Poverty, especially among women, is growing in large part due to our changing climate. The United Nations Development Program 2013 Human Development Report concluded that the number of people living in extreme poverty may increase by up to 3 billion by 2050 unless there is international response to environmental disasters. As the U.S. and other nations struggle to address environmental challenges, we must recognize the unique challenges women face. But we cannot adapt without including more women of diverse backgrounds in the discussion. Unfortunately, that is not what is happening now. A 2012 report by the European Institute for Gender Equality shows that men continue to outnumber women in high-level decision-making positions related to stopping climate change and mitigating its effects.
On International Women's Day, let's commit to correcting this disparity. We need women at the table to ensure that more perspectives are heard and that the impact of climate change on women is not forgotten. Climate change is here. It is happening, and it is affecting women at a greater rate than men. While our effort to limit carbon emissions and assist those impacted by climate change is no small task, involving more women in these negotiations is something that we can change immediately. I say we do it.
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This paper uses three case studies to look at the role of political analysis in analysis of climate change impacts. The first, on Aceh, shows how inattention tothe political legacy of a recent conflict can undermine well-intentioned and technically sound environmental or climate mitigation programmes; the second, on EAST AFRICA, explores what might happen when the political sophistication of those writing climate change strategies is not matched by those reading and supporting them; and the third, on Darfur, looks at whether conflicts can be analysed directly through links to climate change and resource scarcity. Together, the three case studies show that, when disciplines are used techno-centrically and in the absence of sophisticated political analysis, there are significant risks that interventions designed to support resilience may in fact do more harm than good.
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From
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The overall aim of the study is to provide policy makers and donors in Uganda with the evidence base on the economic impacts of climate change in order to promote increased investment for adaptation in climate-sensitive sectors. The study also aims to increase the capacity of Government officials to use the evidence on the economic impacts of climate change in development and investment planning. It is anticipated that the study will provide the economic case for prioritised interventions and investments by the Government of Uganda in climate-resilient development, as well as assist Uganda to access climate and development finance, and frame its approach to climate finance mechanisms, such as the Green Climate Fund...
...The economic assessment will also be the latest addition to a growing body of work generated as the Government works at formulating a coherent response to climate change at policy level. In January the Ugandan Cabinet adopted the first National Climate Change Policy. Climate change has also surfaced on the legislature’s radar through a parliamentary forum on climate change that is gaining popularity...
The economic assessment consists of six work packages that include climate projections and expected impacts; economic assessments at the national, sectoral, and district levels; policy recommendations; and communicating of the results. The consortium partners are Baastel, Makerere University, Metroeconomica, and the Centre for International Development and Training at the University of Wolverhampton.
Potential focus areas for the study are taken from the newly adopted National Climate Change Policy: agriculture, water and sanitation, energy, health, transportation and infrastructure, and forestry, wildlife, tourism and ecosystems...
The final selection of sectors and case studies will be concluded by the end of March 2014.
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Since the Horn of Africa drought of 2011 aid agencies have been working to understand the changes taking place in the drylands, hoping to better anticipate people's needs. Recent research shows these changes go beyond climate and environment to encompass social and economic factors. The findings have important policy implications...External factors, such as drought, have been used to explain pastoralists' movement from nomadic livestock keeping to living in settlements and peri-urban areas. But this explanation ignores the rapidly changing socio-economic circumstances in these communities, the report says...
...The report also found that youths and children, including those from pastoral settlements, were eager for professional futures, with the more settled and urban people interested in commerce. Women were also increasingly taking on professional careers or managing businesses, moving away from their traditional roles as caretakers of the home and family...
...The Lamu Port and Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) project, Kenya's flagship project under Vision 2030, is opening up the arid northern region. LAPSSET plans include: a port in Lamu; a 1,500km standard-gauge railway line from Lamu to Nakodok, along the Kenya and South Sudan border; oil pipelines to South Sudan and Ethiopia; an oil refinery; three airports; and three tourist resorts. But according to experts, while LAPSSET could generate wealth and opportunities, it could also pose risks to the environment and to local communities' rights and livelihoods.
Pastoralists are concerned that the 200m-wide LAPSSET transport corridor will obstruct vital livestock migratory routes, and local leaders in Lamu are demanding a share of proceeds once the port is completed. The project has been criticized for insufficient consultation with communities.
Locals have agitated for access to the benefits of other development projects, as well. In Turkana, residents have staged demonstrations to demand more jobs in the burgeoning oil sector. Current policies and legislation in the Horn of Africa offer mixed support for drylands communities, according to a 2013 report on integrated planning in the drylands of Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda...
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The board of the fledgling U.N. Green Climate Fund, which is likely to handle billions of dollars in climate finance in the coming years, has decided to aim for an equal "50:50" balance between funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation "over time".
It will also aim to allocate no less than half the money it earmarks for adaptation for countries that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including least developed countries, small island developing states and African nations...
...The board of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) said it had decided to manage access to resources "with a view to seeking geographical balance and a reasonable and fair allocation across a broad range of countries", while "maximising the scale and transformational impact" of its mitigation and adaptation activities.
Climate and development experts gave a cautious welcome to the decisions on the funding split. This became a major issue after only about a fifth of the more than $30 billion "fast start" climate aid provided between 2010 and 2012 was spent on adaptation activities to help protect people from extreme weather, longer-term climate shifts and sea-level rise...
...The GCF is expected to channel a considerable proportion of the $100 billion in annual climate finance rich countries have promised to mobilise by 2020 to tackle climate change...But it is not expected to garner large pledges of money from donor countries until it has settled on eight "essential requirements" for its initial resource mobilisation, which is unlikely to begin until September this year. Six of those have yet to be agreed...
...Decisions have yet to be made on key issues such as how countries will access the fund, its social and environmental safeguards, how the private sector facility will engage with businesses in recipient countries, terms and conditions for grants and concessional loans, and how the fund will measure results....
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