Blog

Since its inception in 2019, the Climatelinks photo gallery has grown to host more than 400 images of climate and development across 54 countries. Through community submissions and annual photo contests, the photo gallery has matured into a resource for the entire Climatelinks community. Images found in the photo gallery are available for viewing, download, and use by the Climatelinks community (with proper credit).

• 12/07/2021
• Stephan Hardeman

According to the recently released Amazon Vision 2020 Report, USAID and its global partners improved the management and conditions of key landscapes in the Amazon, working on more than 48 million hectares.

• 06/10/2021
• USAID

The convergence of tropical atmospheric currents generate a steady wind across Northern Colombia. This persistent climatic phenomenon provides the potential for a very reliable and expansive source of wind-generated power.

• 04/22/2021
• Tedi Rabold

Congratulations to the 13 winners of the 2020 Climatelinks Photo Contest!

This year’s theme, “Healthy Forests for a Healthy Future,” focuses on nature-based solutions to climate change such as active reforestation, plantations, agroforestry, and natural regeneration. The winning photos tell the stories of individual and community change agents for sustainable development, forest protection, and a climate-secure future.

• 01/25/2021
• Steve Hardeman

Uptake of low emissions agriculture research outputs by policymakers and other stakeholders requires time. Even when researchers are interested in pursuing the scaling and use of research outputs, most are not incentivized to take this on. Allocating targeted resources and donor support, while involving science communicators and outreach specialists can be effective in overcoming constraints to delivering low emission development research to policymakers.

• 10/21/2020
• Arun Khatri-Chhetri

Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) recently completed its first successful renewable energy auction, enabling the government to obtain variable renewable energy (VRE) at globally low-cost prices. The auction awarded contracts that are estimated to attract more than $1.3 billion of private sector investment and will enhance the country’s capacity to provide reliable electricity supplies to its communities.

• 06/23/2020
• Andrew Fang, Kristen Madler, Sarah Lawson

The Amazon region is home to 1.6 million Indigenous Peoples, all of whom depend on the region’s forest and water resources for their material and cultural survival. Studies have shown that deforestation rates are much lower in places where Amazonian Indigenous Peoples have strong land tenure rights, making Indigenous Peoples important allies in biodiversity conservation.

• 05/12/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Integration Case Studies

Illegal alluvial gold mining in Colombia is a complex phenomenon that not only sweeps away vegetation but alters the balance of ecosystems through aggressive mechanical extraction methods that create deserts. In Antioquia, Colombia, this has degraded over 45 thousand hectares of land, stripping away valuable trees that can absorb carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases.

• 04/09/2020
• Climatelinks

The transformative process involved in implementing climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices can be well observed in the villages of Los Cerrillos and El Danubio in the Cauca department of Colombia where a Climate-Smart Village (CSV) site is located. CSV is an initiative of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) in conjunction with the Ecohabitats Foundation and these two communities were chosen to be part of the project due to their vulnerability to climate change and high dependence on agricultural activities.

• 03/11/2020
• CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

South America may be sitting, unaware, on a pile of climate gold, ammunition in efforts to forestall global warming. New maps of tropical and subtropical peatlands suggest these carbon-rich wetlands are more widespread in South America than on any other continent, with significant deposits in the Andean mountains.

• 11/25/2019
• CIFOR

Climate change poses a significant global threat to food security and nutrition, largely through its impacts on agricultural production.

• 09/24/2019
• Agrilinks Team

Transparent greenhouse gas emissions accounting is essential for monitoring global progress in the fight against climate change. While many countries are implementing ambitious mitigation actions, measuring and reporting of the greenhouse gas impacts of those actions within national inventories remains a persistent challenge.

• 04/02/2019
• Marian Van Pelt

A USAID/Colombia program that concluded in 2017 saved manufacturing facilities hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to an assessment of the environmental benefits and cost savings associated with the project’s energy efficiency interventions.

• 02/08/2018
• Derina Man, John Venezia, Kevin Kurkul