Blog

This blog about Jamaica is part of a series of country spotlights Climatelinks is publishing ahead of COP28.

• 11/09/2023
• Ariel Schindler

In April 2022, USAID released their new Climate Strategy which will guide the Agency’s approach to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, improving overall operations, and helping partner countries build resilience to climate change through 2030. InterAction began refining and deepening our community’s understanding of climate change’s impacts, sharpening our recommendations for a comprehensive USG response.

• 08/31/2023
• Brian Aka and Claudia Sanchez de Lozada

In order for USAID to have maximum impact in confronting the most urgent demands of the climate crisis, improved participation at all levels is key. Thus, an increased emphasis on working with Indigenous Peoples and local communities is critical to USAID’s climate efforts.

• 03/03/2022
• Sophie Schrader

During November, we highlighted USAID’s work leading up to and during COP26, as well as updates regarding the new USAID draft Climate Strategy. Gillian Caldwell, the Agency’s Climate Change Coordinator, produced a blog on confronting the climate crisis, released alongside the draft Climate Strategy. Additional blogs highlighted how USAID and other development partners can support national adaptation plans and the need for immediate climate action in the Caribbean.

• 12/03/2021
• Sophie Schrader

In September and October, we highlighted work focused on climate finance. We posted the first two parts of a blog series highlighting a new wave of private investment for climate solutions, answering the call to climate action and climate finance in action.

• 11/05/2021
• Sophie Schrader

As an Agency that stares down the world’s toughest challenges, none pose a greater threat than climate change. The science is clear: we have a narrow window remaining to dramatically reduce global emissions or we all face catastrophic consequences — with the most vulnerable populations continuing to get hit the hardest.

• 11/03/2021
• Gillian Caldwell

Earth Day 2021’s theme is “Restore Our Earth,” focusing on the central role that nature can play in combating the climate crisis. It’s a timely theme: on Earth Day, President Biden is hosting a Leaders’ Summit on Climate to increase global ambition to address the climate crisis and galvanize efforts to keep the vital goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach.

• 04/22/2021

The end of USAID’s five-year LESTARI project (2015-2020) in Indonesia is an opportunity to recognize USAID’s collective achievements with the Government of Indonesia in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from land use in both biodiverse and carbon-rich landscapes.

• 11/02/2020
• Tedi Rabold

Armenia’s Ararat Valley, a 1,177 square-kilometer swath of land located to the east of Mount Ararat, is home to critical artesian aquifers and central to the country’s economic stability. The aquifers are a frequently tapped resource for public services, agriculture, and fish farming, as well as cooling of Armenia’s nuclear power plant.

• 10/27/2020
• Jamie Carson, Elizabeth Hutchison

Perú es el cuarto país con el mayor volumen de turba tropical, cuya mayor parte se encuentra relativamente menos degradada en comparación con otras regiones del mundo. Sin embargo, esto podría cambiar. La creciente presión del desarrollo y la carencia de políticas específicas de protección ponen en riesgo a las turberas de Perú y sus reservas de carbono.

• 10/06/2020
• Isabela Barriga

Peru stands as the country with the fourth-highest volume of tropical peat, most of which is relatively less degraded than in other regions of the world. However, this could change. Increasing development pressure and lack of peatland-specific protection policies puts Peru's peatlands— and its carbon reserves—at risk. 

• 10/01/2020
• Isabela Barriga

The ways we use land—for instance, agriculture, forestry, urban development, or ecosystem protection—has long-term impacts on global climate change. Approximately one quarter of net global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come directly from land use (like agriculture) and land use change (like deforestation).

• 09/22/2020
• Noel Gurwick, Isabela Barriga, Julia Bradley-Cook

While at first glance the relationship between education and climate change may not be clear, a number of challenges and opportunities become apparent when the two are considered together. Climate change education is highly relevant to youth, who will grapple with the impacts of climate change for decades to come.

• 09/01/2020
• Stephan Hardeman

“Climate change does not drive conflict in a vacuum but contributes to conflict in already fragile contexts and in combination with a number of other critical factors.” This is one of five themes to emerge from a literature review as reported in a new study, which critically assesses how peacebuilding programming can also produce adaptation benefits (and vice versa).

• 08/11/2020
• Christine Chumbler

As we all know too well, the coronavirus pandemic has left no one untouched, fundamentally altering billions of people’s daily lives, disrupting the global economy, and most notably, with millions contracting the virus and the resulting strain of severe illness, hospitalizations and the tragic loss of human life. The crisis has also laid bare many of society’s weaknesses, including economic inequalities, institutional shortcomings, and inadequate health care delivery systems, leaving vulnerable populations to bear the brunt of the effects of the pandemic.

• 07/30/2020
• Emily Chen