Social-ecological transformation in Asian cities is instrumental to achieving many global development and climate targets. As dense settlements of human and economic activity, Asian cities present unique
This report contains a list of key messages that together can effectively improve the conditions for food productions and poverty alleviation. There is a large potential to improve water productivity through improved and known water and land management practices, says co-author Jennie Barron. Water productivity is a measure of the amount of water needed to generate an amount of produce.
Ecosystem services are fundamental for human well-being, and are the basis of rural livelihoods, in particular for the poor. Rainwater harvesting can serve as an opportunity to enhance ecosystem productivity, thereby improving livelihoods, human well-being and economies. Rainwater harvesting has been shown to create synergies in landscape management and human well-being.
The report, entitled "Sea Change: US Climate Policy Prospects Under the Obama Administration", provides an analysis of climate policy prospects under the Obama administration and was produced for the Swedish Government's Sustainability Commission in preparation for the upcoming Swedish EU Presidency and the Swedish leadership of the COP15 EU delegation in December 2009.
Carbon or greenhouse gas (GHG) offsets have long been promoted as an important element of a comprehensive climate policy approach. Offset programs can reduce the overall cost of achieving a given emission goal by enabling emission reductions to occur where costs are lower.
An impasse threatens the international climate negotiations. This impasse
Global climate change has resulted primarily from the accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere over the last 150 years. However, recent studies indicate that, on average, 40 per cent of the potential warming by GHGs is being masked by certain aerosols (and aerosol-cloud interactions) that increase the reflection of sunlight.
Current day concentrations of ground level ozone (O3) are commonly reducing crop yields by between 5 and 35 % at agriculturally important locations across South Asia. O3 induced economic crop losses could be in the region of $4 billion per annum for staple crops in South Asia; such losses are likely to impact more on poor and vulnerable people.
Climate change and an ageing population bring together two key policy challenges which need to be addressed to ensure a safe, secure, equitable and sustainable future. Growing old in the twenty-first century will bring with it the unique challenge of
Agricultural water management (AWM) is generally perceived as a key step towards improving low yielding smallholder farming systems in sub-Sahara Africa, South Asia and Latin America. This paper aims to give a first overview of
This study set out to identify and understand the extent to which, and ways in which, information from climate change models is being integrated into agricultural development practice and decision making in Africa. Adaptation to climate variability is not new, but climate change is expected to present heightened risk, new combinations of risks and potentially grave consequences.
