Blog

In December 2019, Typhoon Kammuri flooded parts of Legazpi City, one of the biggest natural hazard hotspots in the country. Earlier that year, USAID had helped the local water district develop an emergency preparedness plan for maintaining and restoring water services when disasters strike.

• 04/08/2021
• Tedi Rabold

One of the greatest threats to our global community is climate change, and research shows women are more vulnerable than men to its consequences.

• 03/09/2021
• Corinne Hart

Climatelinks has a new design and updated content – just in time for the United States to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord. The site has been revamped to better meet the needs of the USAID, its climate and development partners, and the climate community around the world. 

• 02/17/2021
• Climatelinks

In mid-2020, Climatelinks added sector pages to its website. The 14 pages, accessible by hovering your mouse over “What We Do” in the website’s top navigation menu, showcase sector-specific work on climate change that USAID is undertaking in a variety of contexts. Each sector page houses an introductory overview detailing related climate impacts and stressors, as well as potential solutions.

• 12/30/2020
• Stephan Hardeman

Over the course of 2020, the Climatelinks community contributed over 120 blogs on topics varying from mangrove restoration in coastal Sierra Leone to flood early warning systems in East Java, Indonesia. Below are the five most visited blogs of 2020.

• 12/15/2020
• Stephan Hardeman

In July 2019, USAID launched a new Environmental and Natural Resource Management (ENRM) Framework to coordinate, unify, and elevate environmental and natural resource management across the Agency. The Framework outlines a unifying vision to address emerging challenges and the most critical threats to the environment and development, and serves as a guiding document for cross-sectoral investments in environmental and natural resource management.

• 12/07/2020
• Christine Chumbler

Landfills and wastewater treatment plants generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas (GHG), from decomposing organic waste and wastewater treatment processes, respectively. What if there were ways to reduce GHG emissions while simultaneously creating renewable energy? And what if there were additional benefits beyond reducing emissions and creating energy?

• 12/04/2020
• Peter Nash

The majority of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and they continue to grow by more than 75 million people per year. Cities, especially rapidly growing cities, are likely to be the driving economic force in many countries, even more so than they are now.

• 12/01/2020
• Stephan Hardeman, Colin Quinn

Originating in Turkey, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers traditionally have met the vast majority of Iraq’s water needs. The rivers are used to pump water into millions of homes and irrigate the historic Mesopotamia agricultural fields.

• 11/17/2020
• Owen Scott

There is a wealth of options to consider when financing urban infrastructure. Some of these include but are not limited to: public-private partnership models; user fees or other domestically mobilized resources; loans from commercial or multilateral development banks; grants from facilities like the Green Climate Fund; or contributions from local businesses.

• 11/12/2020
• Max Lohmann

According to USAID’s Southern Africa’s Climate Change Risk Profile, “Changes in water quality and availability will be the dominant changes seen under a new climate.” The sensitivity of livelihoods and economies to these changes, together with a lack of access to drinking water (and contamination of existing supply), threatens water security and resilience in a region where water demands are rising in response to an increasing population.

• 11/10/2020
• Suvritha Rampha, Steve Collins

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

During this next event in a series of joint Climatelinks-CEADIR webinars, the author of this assessment will present findings and opportunities. Representatives of global reinsurance companies SwissRe and MunichRe will also join to discuss their experiences with parametric insurance for utility-scale VRE in Latin America and beyond.

• 09/24/2020
• Santiago Enriquez

Although half of global mangrove deforestation since 2000 has been in Indonesia, Bintuni Bay and Mimika District have some of the largest intact areas of mangroves in the world. These two areas are also home to many indigenous groups and have special autonomous governance status and exceptional biodiversity.

• 09/24/2020
• Dr. Eric Hyman

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