Blog

Urban microgrids are high on the global development agenda. They are attractive for many reasons, most recently for their relevance to climate change adaptation and mitigation. They have proven resilient to extreme weather events, and, because they create commercial opportunities for low-carbon generation technology, they can reduce greenhouse gases from the urban sector in the long term.

• 08/23/2019
• Michael Ashford, Lisa Pagkalinawan

Energy efficiency programs provide multiple benefits that align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, including economic opportunity, improved health, gender equity, and better environmental and climate-related outcomes. However, energy efficiency remains an underused resource in developing countries, where citizens have limited access to power, utilities often struggle to keep up with demand, and financial capital for improving quality of service is scarce.

• 08/21/2019
• Alexandra Aznar, Alexis Powers

Measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) are essential for transparency between countries as they track their greenhouse gas emissions. By emphasizing common standards, MRV ensures that countries are on the same page when it comes to the methodologies they use.

• 08/01/2019
• Stephan Hardeman

Changes in the frequency, location, and severity of climate impacts are placing more people at risk from health-related hazards such as reduced air quality, extreme heat, exposure to extreme weather events, and shifts in vector borne diseases. The World Health Organization predicts that between 2030-2050, climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths annually worldwide due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress.

• 07/31/2019
• Fernanda Zermoglio

Many countries have committed to establishing national forest monitoring and measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems, but lack the technical capacity to achieve their goals. As the science of forest monitoring and MRV advances, these countries face challenges identifying and implementing cost-effective tools and methods that suit their long-term needs.

• 07/30/2019
• Moses Jackson

The Dominican Republic is one of the world’s ten most climate-vulnerable countries and experiences significant gender inequality in the Latin America and Caribbean region. The combination of these issues can threaten the health, safety, and livelihood of women and girls, who are often directly on the frontlines of impacts.

• 07/10/2019
• Jamie Wen-Besson

Many countries around the world have set ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a result, those countries are now pursuing a breadth of mitigation actions across sectors and at all scales, from local projects to national policies.

• 07/09/2019
• Marian Van Pelt

The new Financing the Climate-Health Nexus Tool from the Adaptation Thought Leadership and Assessment (ATLAS) project summarizes available sources of funding that are the most relevant and feasible for financing initiatives addressing climate risks to human health.

• 06/28/2019
• ATLAS

Global environmental changes such as landscape conversions alter natural systems and can increase contact between humans and other species.

• 06/27/2019
• Isabela Barriga

Children with dirty hands. Long lines at public water points. Cholera sweeping through a densely populated settlement. In the short-term, these public health issues can often be solved through Water, Sanitation and Hygiene projects – WASH, for short.

• 06/17/2019
• SWP Team

The 2015 Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on planetary health final report, “Safeguarding Human Health in the Anthropocene Epoch,” begins: “Far-reaching changes to the structure and function of the Earth’s natural systems represent a growing threat to human health.”

• 06/13/2019
• Christine Chumbler

This year’s World Environment Day theme focuses on a global challenge with pressing implications on human health and the environment: air pollution.

• 06/05/2019
• Isabela Barriga

This month saw the release of a dire UN report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warning that nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history. 

• 06/04/2019
• Agrilinks

Landscapes and the complex, interlinked spatial units that comprise them are changing at an accelerating rate. Land use change, especially deforestation and forest degradation, are among the main contributors to global greenhouse emissions.

• 05/30/2019
• Ioana Bouvier, Silvia Petrova, Lovasoalalaina Parson

Finding ways to adapt to the effects of climate change is no longer optional for most communities - it is necessary. The question is, what are the range of strategies for adaptation? Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is a nature-based and people-centered approach that emphasizes ecosystem integrity as crucial for human resilience to climate change.

• 04/30/2019
• Anila Jacob, Jennifer Kane, Christine Chumbler