Action on climate change needs people. The People’s Climate March that took place in New York and other major cities around the world at the weekend is the best possible example of this. At a time when the clicking of a like-button can give the tempting illusion of having done something, we need to remind ourselves that nothing replaces the physical presence of people, together in the same space, demanding the same thing. However, the key ingredient for creating action is communication. I have recently become involved with the Adopt a Negotiator project and I am one of about 300 people who are engaged in the #Call4Climate writing challenge in preparation for this year’s climate change negotiations in Lima and the crucial negotiations in Paris at the end of 2015. For the most part, it is a virtual activity as we all set out to blog, write for online news papers, and cook up some viral posts on twitter and social media. As part of the #Call4Climate, we are climate communicators. This is a hard task and here I set out to reflect on it. I argue that it is about people, people, and people.

Effective climate communication, by that I mean communication that leads to action, is hard. The recently published Don’t even think about it: why our brains are wired to ignore climate change makes this point eloquently and is depressingly convincing. Generally, research from the social sciences and psychology suggests that moving people to act on climate change is difficult. Most importantly, we learn that knowing does not equal acting. The focus should not be on how to present more facts in the hope that people will finally change. The science is clear and this is important. But science does not translate straight into action. This is where we need to think and think harder to find approaches that work.

People I Though, as part of Adopt A Negotiator, we are not marching together in the streets, we are working on the same issues and offer virtual support. We share each other stories with our own networks, we share on twitter and meet online for skill-ups where we talk through various options of how to create effective messages. Being part of a community, even as it is virtual, is tremendously important. A group, people next to you doing the same thing, is irreplaceable in keeping momentum and keeping motivation throughout challenging times. This is the first sense in which climate communication is about people.

People II Climate change is incredibly abstract and feels incredibly far away from most of us, most of the time. We need to remember that we create messages for people, about people. Looking at what my fellow Adopt a Negotiator trackers have published so far, many stories are about the plights people face as a result of climate change. This is the second sense in which climate communication needs to be about people.

People III I think that there is a third aspect that we haven’t fully tapped into yet. We all have heard and seen the stories of people affected by climate change. We have heard stories of catastrophes and remarkable human resilience and ingenuity in the face of it. But what about those people who work on climate change? Let me be clear, I am not suggesting that activists, scientists, and diplomats are as important as the people most affected by climate change. However, what I am suggesting is that by looking at the people who spent their lives mobilizing for climate change, researching climate change, and negotiating climate change, we can learn a lot and we can be inspired. They might not be as sexy as a celebrity delivering a one-liner on why we need to address climate change but they are the ones actually doing something.

We live as people in a world of people; we are social beings all the way down. How our fellow women, men, and children are doing matters. It affects us; we feel compassion and are, hopefully, moved to act. What they are doing matters just as much. I am suggesting that seeing and understanding the people who already work on finding solutions to climate change can move others to become involved as well. We are moved by what moves other people.

Why have the various organisers and supporters of the climate march spent night after night preparing for this event? Why are some protesters willing to face arrest to support their cause, as it happened at the Copenhagen summit in 2009? Why does the scientist continue to research and publish despite receiving hate mail and even death threats? And why does the diplomat return to the negotiation table despite knowing that her room for manoeuvre is small because she has nothing to offer but a moral appeal and that coming from a small island state she is vastly outnumbered in the negotiations unable to face "negotiation by exhaustion" effectively? I think that these are the questions we should be asking.

One recent project that follows this direction is "Scared Scientists" by Nick Bowers whose portraits of climate scientists combined with their statements on what they fear the most about climate change are beautiful and haunting at the same time. The logic is this: if these people are so deeply moved to do something, why shouldn’t I be? If it matters for them, shouldn’t it also matter for me? Let’s bring on these kinds of stories and make climate communication ultimately about people, people, and people.

Katharina Hone is part of the #call4climate writing challenge at Adopt a Negotiator. With DiploFoundation she has been teaching online courses on climate change diplomacy since 2008 and was recently involved in running a capacity development program for participants from Pacific Island States. On twitter: @kathone

Twenty-three African experts, including academics and journalists, took time to review the UNESCO publication entitled “Reporting on Climate Change in Africa: A Practical Guide for Journalists”. The Connect4Climate Visualising A Warming World Africa maps designed by Laura Canali have been reproduced in the publication.

According to Fackson Banda, programme specialist at UNESCO Headquarters, “The publication is meant to contribute towards developing transnational and interdisciplinary climate literacy among media professionals and especially journalists, in an attempt to demystify efforts at climate change mitigation and adaptation”.

The review workshop on the publication brought together various African experts from Botswana, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Co-authored by the International Institute for Environment and Development and INTERNEWS, the manuscript stimulated intense debate focused on the “interdisciplinary” basis of climate change knowledge, and how it could be appropriated by journalists in the “African” context.

The publication responds to a very real need in African journalists’ reporting of the complex phenomenon of climate change. Climate change poses a clear danger to lives and livelihoods across Africa. Journalists there have critical roles to play in explaining the cause and effects of climate change, in describing what countries and communities can do to adapt to the impacts ahead, and in reporting on what governments and companies do, or do not do, to respond to these threats.

Yet research on public understanding of climate change and surveys of journalists reveal that across Africa the media can and should do more to tell the story of climate change. UNESCO produced this book to help fill this important gap.

The authors of this guide represent the organizations that have trained hundreds of journalists around the world to report more effectively on climate change. They consulted 44 journalists from 17 African countries and 38 climate-change specialists, who provided their insights into what was missing from African media coverage and how this book should help to fill those gaps.

The publication is available on UNESCO's website and on our climate resources page

 

Wind energy plays an influential role in addressing climate change on a global level. Many countries around the world have been working hard to lower their carbon emissions during the last decades. Some of the world’s leading markets, such as the US, Denmark, Australia and the UK have recognized the power of clean energy in reducing carbon pollution, and this can include wind.

By increasing the proportion of electricity generated from wind energy, we can lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Wind farms do not emit greenhouse gases when they generate electricity, in contrast to coal and gas stations. An additional negative side in relation to both coal and gas as sources of energy is the amount ofwasted heat that cannot be easily transformed into electricity. Almost half of the energy used to produce electricity from gas and coal is lost during the production process, which is not the case with energy generated by the wind.

[video:https://vimeo.com/90993308]

A group of young Canadians take it upon themselves to strive for a more sustainable way of life by building their own wind turbine from scratch. Video credit: Jake Beed (Action4Climate Competition)

The impact of climate change will be especially acute in the  Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, according to a new World Bank Group report, and immediate action will be needed to avoid the projected consequences of worsening water shortages and rising food insecurity. Adaptation to a Changing Climate in the Arab Countries provides a comprehensive assessment of the threat to the region posed by increasingly severe weather, and offers a set of policy options for the urgent task of managing current effects and building resilience against those yet to come.

“Reducing vulnerability to climate change will require concerted action on multiple levels,” said Rachel Kyte, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development. “Political leadership now, will be critical in establishing climate change as a national and regional priority.”

The Arab world has been adapting to climate change for centuries. There is a long history and tradition of coping with the associated challenges, such as changes in temperature and rainfall. New climate change risks are emerging at a much faster rate, including the prospect of a world that is four degrees hotter, and resilience built up over years is being severely tested.

These risks have been identified and assessed in the new climate report which was prepared in partnership with the League of Arab States, involving specialists, researchers, policymakers and civil society organizations from across the region. The report reinforces the warning that decades of poverty reduction efforts could be reversed as contained in the recent World Bank publication, Turn Down The Heat: Why a 4° C Warmer World Must be Avoided.

Over the past 30 years, climate disasters have affected 50 million people in the Arab world, costing about $12 billion directly and many multiples of that indirectly. Recent trends suggest that dry regions are becoming drier and flash floods have become more frequent. The 2006 flooding of the Nile River Basin led to 600 deaths, with a further 118,000 people affected, while in 2008 a record five-year drought finally ended in the Jordan River Basin.

Globally 2010 was the warmest year since records began in the 1800s, and of the 19 countries that set new record temperatures, five were in MENA. Regional temperatures are projected to reach new record highs, coupled with less rainfall which, in a region with the world’s lowest endowment of freshwater, could make this precious natural resource even scarcer.

A harsher climate threatens livelihoods throughout the region. Extreme weather could affect both the annual US$50 billion tourism industry and agriculture, already under severe climate stress. The combination of higher temperatures, lower rainfall and increased frequency of drought could cause more crop failures and lower yields putting MENA’s rural population, nearly half the region’s total, under growing stress. Migration to already overcrowded cities and vulnerable costal zones would accelerate. Yet a further consequence of climate change could be the upending of traditional social roles, as it is usually the men who migrate for low-wage, low-skill jobs, and the women who remain behind with all the farming and community responsibilities.

“Climate change is a reality for people in Arab countries,” said Inger Andersen, World Bank Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa region. “It affects everyone – especially the poor who are least able to adapt – and as the climate becomes ever more extreme, so will its impacts on people’s livelihoods and wellbeing. The time to take actions at both the national and regional level in order to increase climate resilience is now.”

The report stresses that adaptation should be integrated into all national policies and actions to ensure they are climate resilient. This spans efforts from collecting climate data to strengthening basic services. Accurate weather information is critical for preparing for extreme events. Improved access to services such as education, health and sanitation, along with effective social safety nets to compensate for sudden loss of livelihood, will give citizens the skills and resources to navigate climate challenges. 

The World Bank Group is currently engaged across the region in supporting countries and communities in coping with the effects of a changing climate. A project in Morocco is financing the integration of adaptation measures into the national agriculture strategy, while in Yemen more effective land management is being promoted, along with research into drought resistant crops. Moreover, sustainable development, increasing social and economic inclusion and improving governance – the essential ingredients for building and maintaining resilience – are overarching goals of all Bank activities throughout the region.

Contacts:

In Washington: Lara Saade, (202) 473-9887, lsaade@worldbank.org;
In Doha: Ashraf Al-Saeed, +974 7790 5578, aalsaeed@worldbank.org

For more information, please visit: http://www.worldbank.org/mna

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Be updated via Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/worldbank
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Before I introduce today’s topic of discussion, I think we need a quick recap on what has been presented this week in order to put today’s topic into perspective. We have so far talked about the effects climate change has on agriculture, energy, gender and health.

Underlying each of those discussions was the topic of water. It is necessary and sometimes harmful to human health. It is used to create hydroelectricity. In most of rural Africa, it is left to women to gather water. And rain is the mechanism used to sustain agriculture on the continent. It used to be that rain seasons were predictable to the week. For centuries, Africa’s farmers used this predictability to their advantage. They knew when it was time to harvest or when it was time prepare the land for planting because predictable changes in wind patterns, cloud formations and temperatures signaled the coming rain season.

Today, long extremes of rain and drought are the norm, not the exception. Many communities that are dependent on natural systems for survival are now more vulnerable than ever. This is not just in Africa, it is a world-wide problem:

“What we are seeing is there are more floods, more extreme weather events, higher temperature, more variable rainfalls and we believe that is caused by the climate change.

And we should expect this to increase, sadly,” Andrew Steer, the World Bank’s special envoy for the climate change, told reporters in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

Thailand’s worst floods in half a century have killed 533 people and damaged the homes and livelihoods of millions around the country.

In the neighboring Cambodia, the deadliest floods since 2000 have killed at least 247 people while more than 100 have died in Vietnam, mostly in the southern Mekong Delta.

Water is the glue the to the planet’s ecosystem balance. But everywhere we read, it seem like the planet is at war with itself. According to the World Bank’s page on climate change and water:

Extreme variability of precipitation is expected to place 2.8 billion people at risk of water shortages.
...
The effects on natural systems will be widespread: from accelerated glacier melt, altered precipitation, runoff, and groundwater recharge patterns, to extreme droughts and floods, water quality changes, saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers and changes in water use.

As important as water is to humanity’s survival, it is telling that we don’t put more emphasis on ensuring that all sources of water are free from human interference. There is no room for man’s interference with the planet’s water supply. Examples of disregard for the purity of this life source, as depicted in this photo taken by Ida Horner on a recent trip to Madagascar, point to a complete lack of sensitization on how critical water sources are to developing countries.

But this is not just about our disrespect for the environment. It also illustrates exactly how critical to survival access to clean water is. The photo above illustrates that it is easier to bring the clothes and wash them in the lake than to find water near the home.

Pay close attention to the heavily deforested hills in the background. I can’t say that there’s a better picture illustrating how naked and vulnerable the environment has become. With water being an ingredient necessary to the survival of every living being on this planet, why are so irresponsible in taking care of it?

“Water is practically an issue tied with the existence of life because of its importance in nearly every area of development including sustaining life on the planet earth” (Akiyode, 2010).

In what ways can we be more responsible in taking care of our limited fresh water resources? How can we better provide clean water for those that need it? If we can’t build infrastructure to the last mile to make sure everyone has access to piped water, how far can distributed solutions like rain water harvesting schemes go to making sure vulnerable communities have access to water?

Once again, let’s hear your thoughts to this critical discussion. Next week, we’ll begin looking at some of the solutions you have contributed and discuss them at length.

Densely populated and low-lying, Bangladesh is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. How can millions of Bangladeshis protect their families and incomes from rising sea levels, erratic rainfall and temperature extremes? That’s the topic of a new film by tve: Television Trust for the Environment, commissioned by CDKN. The filmmakers follow a group of researchers from Bangladesh and the UK as they investigate how climate change is causing people to migrate within Bangladesh, as a way of coping.

They follow communities in the Gabura, Satkhira region that were affected by Cyclone Aila in 2009.  Some families, exasperated by the damage to croplands, decide to migrate to inland cities for good, while others try their hand at seasonal work in the city, returning to their home village every few weeks or months.

“When people are in stress, they use migration as a climate change adaptation tool,” said Dr Tasneem Siddiqui, the study lead and a founding chair of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) at the University of Dhaka.

The research team investigates whether public policy options are available to protect migrants’ livelihoods, in facing such climate-related stress.

One of the team’s key conclusions, says Dr Siddiqui, is that once internal migrants arrive in cities, they lack some of the basic employment rights and social support mechanisms of established residents. The government could do more to recognise migrants’ vulnerability and protect them: “Mega city development [should] take into account that these people should have their rights. All this can be done through preparing an internal migration policy and following it up with the employers, so that [there is a] certain type of rights protection.”

Join the film crew and the research team as they travel down the Kholpetua River to Gabura and talk with climate-affected families, then visit migrant workers in the cities, to hear how they are making ends meet.

 

Watch the short version of the film: Climate change and migration – Living on the Go  (12 minutes)

Watch the longer feature version with more material from Bangladesh’s climate-affected villages: Climate change and migration – Living on the Go (20 minutes)

With its scenarios of increasing risks as a result of climate change – from sea level rise to disappearing fish populations, food insecurity, and forest diebacks from extreme heat – the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) paints a picture of a complicated future where no one gets by unscathed, where existing vulnerabilities are exacerbated, and where, as Fred Pearce so aptly puts it, we need to “prepare for the worst.”

But, as the scientists rightly point out, it doesn’t have to be like this.

Climate change, the report concludes, is a challenge in managing risks and planning under increased uncertainty. It says the effects of climate change that have already occurred are widespread and “consequential”. Its emphasis on risk makes plain that the world is largely ill-prepared for climate risks.

It is not the job of the IPCC scientists to propose solutions, but scalable solutions are close at hand. The challenges are replication, the pace of innovation, and how quickly behaviors can change.

A new genre, born from novels and movies about climate change, has surfaced. "Cli-fi," short for "climate-change fiction,” are novels and movies set in the present or the near future that put the true story of climate change in fictional settings and scenarios. They help us better understand our climate not with scientific statistics nor government charts but by engendering raw emotions with stories that are relatable.

I coined the cli-fi term to serve as a platform for writers and film directors who create art about the biggest existential threat humankind has ever faced. We need novels and movies that go beyond abstract predictions and statistics to show the moment-by-moment reality of a possibly painful future, and the tragic price we may have to pay for our passionate devotion to all the wrong things.

Climate Change is one of the most important challenges facing the world in this century in all the four dimensions of sustainable development (ecological, economic, social and cultural). Europe takes a leading role in the necessary response to these challenges. Severe impacts are unavoidable and European adaptation strategies must be supported by a coherent base of knowledge on its key vulnerabilities and response options. Such a base can only be generated by European, national and regional policy-relevant research.

CIRCLE-2 is focused on the interface between Climate Change science and policy. Through the promotion of networking activities it aims to maximise the degree to which research outcomes address both national and European climate policy needs.

The CIRCLE-2 Climate Adaptation INFOBASE, is a publicly accessible, online database on Climate Adaptation research. The INFOBASE includes relevant information on European research projects funded at national and local levels as well as transnational projects funded within the framework of CIRCLE1 and CIRCLE-2 ERA-Net. The INFOBASE is limited to projects with a completion date subsequent to 2005, and by the end of CIRCLE-2 (set to 2014) it will cover a timeframe of 10 years (2005-2014) of European Climate Adaptation research.

The INFOBASE aims to contribute to the mapping of national, local and transnational CCIVA projects in a larger Europe, as well as other countries that want to contribute. The information at InfoBase will allow to address the fundamental gaps in the understanding of how Climate Adaptation science has evolved over the past decade and to provide policy-makers, the scientific community and research managers, with relevant facts and figures on the larger Europe research landscape on climate change adaptation.

If you are aware of climate adaptation research projects in your country please insert them using the INFOBASE user interface or contact the CIRCLE-2 coordination at circle2infobase@fc.ul.pt

Energy use (kg of oil equivalent per capita)

Energy use refers to use of primary energy before transformation to other end-use fuels, which is equal to indigenous production plus imports and stock changes, minus exports and fuels supplied to ships and aircraft engaged in international transport.

This past week, we discussed with you the different categories of our campaign. We had also previously asked our audience of African writers to pen their thought on climate change based on these very same categories.

Not so surprisingly many of you chimed in on the topic of energy. Energy drives a lot of human activity these days and is a necessary fuel for some of the fastest growing economies in Africa and the world; both as a domestic resource and as a revenue stream.

We also discussed how Africa could better balance the attack on solving energy poverty and environmental degradation. Just today there was a brief discussion on Uganda’s deepening energy void. Jared Ombui, had this to say on Twitter following never-ending black outs and loading-shedding in the country:
“Nuclear will end blackouts. Ask France…”

This got us thinking. Access to nuclear energy might work in Africa and could possibly be a great solution, but it is a solution whose time is not yet ready on the continent. If the near-meltdowns that plagued Japan’s nuclear facilities after this year’s earthquake are any indication, nuclear power may be too far down the road to be an effective remedy for the continent’s energy poverty.

If we follow the continent’s pattern of innovation leap-frogging that redefined computing and telecommunications industries, can we posit that solar and wind are solutions waiting for an appropriate distribution strategy for the continent?

Katherine Lucey, founder of C4C partner, Solar Sister, is hopeful about solar technology on the continent:

Solar is the most democratic source of energy that we have. We all live under the same sun. It is available freely and abundantly. Especially for those living on or near the equator, solar is a renewable, distributed energy source. And especially where the lack of infrastructure investment means that there are no wires for a grid system, solar is an energy solution that people can access themselves, today, without waiting for government or NGO interventions that may never come.

The reduction in infrastructure expenditures for mobile network operators made it easy for mobiles to surpass land lines in the last decade on the continent. The marriage of 3G internet wireless modems and laptops has ushered in a quick death to location-based internet access.

Like communications technologies, could solar be the next technology to help the continent leap-frog traditional energy? Like land-lines, hydro, and nuclear energy sources are centralized and require large investments in delivery mechanisms, making them less favorable energy solutions.

Hydro-power currently makes up the lion’s share of renewable energy produced globally, while solar accounts for only a sliver. Africa, on the other hand, has managed to only tap into 20% of it’s total available hydro capacity. Some of the biggest barriers to faster hydro-energy adoption include lack of adequate infrastructure to move this energy to the last mile, the high cost of building dams, and the accompanying disruption of sensitive ecological systems. A recent HYDROPOWER RESOURCE ASSESSMENT OF AFRICA noted as much:

The total installed capacity of Africa is about 20.3GW and a total generation of 76 000GW/year. A comparison with the Gross theoretical hydropower potential of about 4 000 000 GWh/year indicates that the current production from hydropower plants in Africa is about 20% of the total potential.

Of course, the solar revolution is not going to happen overnight, or without its own investment requirements. But if a financial bet similar to mobile platform investment can be targeted towards upscaling the solar industry, imagine the possibilities. And it requires less investment than you might think.

Katherine Lucey again,
Education, awareness, distribution - a presumption that it is expensive and a luxury, when in fact it is extremely economical and appropriate for all levels of income, from the $20 lamps that replace families expenditure of up to $100 of kerosene in one year, to larger scale systems appropriate for the rising African middle class.