odi.org.uk - March 2014

Water will be the main channel through which the impacts of climate change will be felt by people, ecosystems and economies. However, predicting impacts on the availability and quality of freshwater resources, and on water-dependent services and sanitation, remains difficult.

While there is a high level of confidence in the processes linking emissions to global warming, much less is known about how warming will affect changes in rainfall, runoff, groundwater recharge and climate extremes.

This reflects challenges with the downscaling of climate models, but also the significance of intervening factors, such as changes in land cover, which may have a greater influence on local systems and services than climate change. In general, the level of confidence in climate change projections decreases as their potential utility for making decisions on how to adapt increases.

This report presents the findings of research into the risks to delivery of WASH results posed by climate change in Africa, drawing on rapid case study reviews of WASH programming in Malawi, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. A separate Case Study Report provides further detail on country background and findings.

BAMAKO/CONAKRY, April 4 (Reuters) - An angry crowd attacked an Ebola treatment centre in Guinea on Friday, accusing its staff of bringing the deadly disease to the town, Medecins Sans Frontieres said, as Mali identified its first suspected cases.

More than 90 people have already died in Guinea and Liberia in what medical charity MSF, or Doctors without Borders, has warned could turn into an unprecedented epidemic...

Please click HERE for more of this article

cnn.com - by Ray Sanchez - April 2, 2014

(CNN) -- Strict building codes and the preparedness of millions of Chileans who live along an arc of volcanoes and fault lines likely kept the death toll -- only six by Wednesday afternoon -- low after an 8.2-magnitude earthquake rumbled offshore and prompted a tsunami, observers said.

Officials said four of those whose deaths were blamed on the quake late Tuesday that triggered landslides, power outages, and a tsunami suffered heart attacks, while two others were crushed.

"They're a seismically active region of the world and they are very good at implementing their building codes similar to California," John Bellini, a Denver-based geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey told CNN on Wednesday.

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Image: ClearWater in action.

digital-democracy.org - March 26th, 2014 - Gregor MacLennan

The Dd team is excited to announce the launch of a site we’ve been working on for months: An interactive map-based platform that tells the inspiring story of the ClearWater Project, an indigenous-led effort in Ecuador’s northern Amazon region to bring clean water to thousands of people suffering from water contaminated by oil drilling.

(VIEW PROJECT MAP)

(VIEW DIGITAL DEMOCRACY SITE)

ipcc.ch - Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
Working Group II (WGII) - March 31, 2014

CLICK HERE - IPCC - Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report, dealing with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability

IPCC - WGII - Quick Summary

Report - WGII Website

IPCC - Data Distribution Centre

IPCC - WGII - Home

Smoke billowing from a plant in Tokyo Bay, Japan. Government officials and scientists are gathered in Yokohama this week ahead of the launch of the IPCC report. Photograph: Franck Robichon/EPA

Leaked text of blockbuster report says changes in climate have already caused impacts on natural and human systems

theguardian.com - by Suzanne Goldenberg - March 28, 2014

Climate change has already left its mark "on all continents and across the oceans", damaging food crops, spreading disease, and melting glaciers, according to the leaked text of a blockbuster UN climate science report due out on Monday.

Government officials and scientists are gathered in Yokohama this week to wrangle over every line of a summary of the report before the final wording is released on Monday – the first update in seven years.

Credit: New York Times

huffingtonpost.com - by Steve Horn - March 17, 2014

. . . Yet even as some say we are witnessing the beginning of a "new cold war," few have discussed the ties binding major U.S. oil and gas companies with Russian state oil and gas companies.

The ties that bind, as well as other real logistical and economic issues complicate the narrative of exports as an "energy weapon."

The situation in Ukraine is a simple one at face value, at least from an energy perspective.

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ALSO SEE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IN ARTICLES BELOW:

Post Crimea, Exxon's Partnership With Rosneft Feels Weird

ccafs.cgiar.org - by Simon Bager - March 26, 2014

Millions of people around the world already struggle to achieve food security and climate change is set to make those challenges even harder. It is perhaps humanity’s most pressing challenge, as we seek to nourish more than nine billion people by 2050.

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND INFOGRAPHICS)

earth-policy.org - March 27, 2014

The world fish catch is a measure of the productivity and health of the oceanic ecosystem that covers 70 percent of the earth's surface. The extent to which world demand for seafood is outrunning the sustainable yield of fisheries can be seen in shrinking fish stocks, declining catches, and collapsing fisheries.

Seafood plays a vital role in world food security. Roughly 3 billion people get about 20 percent of their animal protein from fishery products.

The world fish catch has hovered around 90 million tons over the last 20 years.

The wild fish catch per person has dropped dramatically, from 17 kilograms (37.5 pounds) per person at its height in 1988 to 13 kilograms in 2012—a 37-year low.

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submitted by Tim Siftar

swissre.com

According to the latest sigma study, global insured losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters were USD 45 billion in 2013, down from USD 81 billion in 2012. Of the 2013 insured losses, USD 37 billion were generated by natural catastrophes, with hail in Europe and floods in many regions being the main drivers.

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND LINKS TO THE STUDY)

CONAKRY, GUINEA — Health workers in protective hazmat suits treated patients in quarantine centers on Tuesday in a remote corner of Guinea where Ebola has killed at least 60 people in West Africa's first outbreak of the deadly virus in two decades.

Seven patients are being hospitalized at one isolation ward in Gueckedou in southern Guinea, while two others are being treated elsewhere, said Doctors Without Borders. The aid group said it is sending mobile teams into the surrounding countryside in search of people who may have been exposed since the first cases emerged last week.

oceana.org - March 20, 2014

(CLICK HERE - REPORT -
Wasted Catch: Unsolved Problems in U.S. Fisheries)

thedailybeast.com - by Abby Haglage - March 23, 2014

A new report by Oceana exposes nine U.S. fisheries that throw away half of what they catch, and kill dolphins, sea turtles, whales, and more in the process.

A new study released this week called Wasted Catch: Unsolved Bycatch Problems in U.S. Fisheries reveals the nine dirtiest fisheries in the United States. It’s a dirty bunch indeed, the waste between them accounting for nearly half a billion wasted seafood meals in the U.S. alone.

Culled by Oceana, the largest international organization for ocean conservation, the fisheries are ranked based on bycatch—the amount of unwanted creatures caught while commercial fishing.

newscientist.com - by Andy Coghlan - March 25, 2014

Oil giant Exxon Mobil has promised to reveal how much of its fossil fuel reserves could become worthless if governments agree to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It is the first major fossil fuel company to declare the size of its exposure to the so-called carbon bubble – the over-valuation of fossil fuel companies that could result if their assets are left unused.

To save ourselves from the worst impacts of global warming, we have to leave fossil fuels in the ground instead of burning them.

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Africa’s biggest Ebola outbreak in seven years has probably spread from Guinea to neighboring Liberia and also threatens Sierra Leone.

Five people are suspected to have died from the disease in Lofa county in northern Liberia, Bernice Dahn, Liberia’s chief medical officer, said at a briefing yesterday. At least 86 cases and 59 deaths have been recorded across Guinea, the west African country’s health ministry said. The capital, Conakry, hasn’t been affected, government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said.