Thẻ: Climate change

How to protect infrastructure from a changing climate

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

blog.worldbank

Every other month the news seems to flash images of extreme weather – disastrous heat waves, floods of biblical proportions, and epic storms.  On the rise as a result of a changing climate, these weather events can cause a myriad of damages and put the world’s critical infrastructure at risk. This costs money. The devastating 2010 floods in Pakistan caused close to $2 billion in damages to physical infrastructure, according to World Bank estimates. And Hurricane Sandy wreaked $1.13 billion in damages on New York City’s infrastructure alone (New Jersey and other parts of New York State saw significant damages as well).

Examples like these are endless.

Alongside these increasing climatic risks to the world’s existing infrastructure assets, the fact remains that many countries desperately need more and better infrastructure. This is particularly true for developing countries.  To meet the future infrastructure demands of these economies would require investment of at least an estimated additional $1 trillion a year through 2020. Tiếp tục đọc “How to protect infrastructure from a changing climate” →

UN calls for global response to effects of El Nino weather extremes

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

DW

Over 60 million people are affected by the atmospheric phenomenon, the head of UN’s humanitarian response agency said. But billions of euros are needed to stave off the deadly catastrophes caused by El Nino.

A woman walkingin the desert in Ethiopia

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) chief Stephen O’Brien on Tuesday called on governments, organizations and regional bodies to increase their efforts at tackling the ensuing crises from the atmospheric phenomenon known as “El Nino.” Tiếp tục đọc “UN calls for global response to effects of El Nino weather extremes” →

Meeting Southeast Asia’s ambitious clean energy targets

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 1 bình luận

Southeast Asian countries have set themselves renewable energy targets that are even more ambitious than some European countries, but they are behind schedule in reaching these goals. Government policies and private money are key to its progress.

chiangmai solar
Solar panels against a backdrop of mountains in Chiangmai, Thailand. Southeast Asia is set to meet its exploding energy demand mostly with coal, but many countries in the region have pledged to significantly increase their share of renewable energy. Image: Shutterstock
By Vaidehi Shah and Jessica Cheam

Thursday 26 March 2015

eco-business – Southeast Asia, along with Asian giants China and India, is shifting the centre of gravity of the global energy system to Asia. Its population boom, along with economic growth, is set to fuel energy demand and send it rising by 80 per cent by 2035, predicts the International Energy Agency.

Tiếp tục đọc “Meeting Southeast Asia’s ambitious clean energy targets” →

Climate Change Vulnerability Mapping for Greater Mekong Sub-Region

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

01.02.2016

UNESCOBKK –  Thailand’s adaptive capacity to climate change is high among Mekong countries, while the western coastline of Myanmar and the Cambodian Mekong lowland region are the areas of the sub-region most vulnerable to the phenomenon’s effects.

These were among the key findings of the report, “Climate Change Vulnerability Mapping for the Mekong River Basin”, based on a study carried out by UNESCO Bangkok and the Water Resources and Environment Institute (WREI) of Khon Kaen University’s Faculty of Engineering in Thailand.

The study sought to identify the areas most vulnerable to climate change and climate-induced water problems in five Mekong countries: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. The study used a framework developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which conceptualizes vulnerability to climate change by looking at the exposure to and sensitivity of a system to a climate hazard and the ability of the system to cope with, adapt to or recover from the effects of hazardous conditions.

The study finds that Mekong countries are adversely affected by major natural hazards, such as tropical cyclones, floods and droughts. The study also mapped adaptive capacity and areas that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which can be a useful tool for determining degrees of adaptation and mitigation responses at the provincial level. The findings of this study will be valuable for the five Mekong countries in ensuring sustainable adaptation to climate change.

Download PDF

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Climate Change Vulnerability Mapping for Greater Mekong Sub-Region
Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok; Khon Kaen: Water Resources & Environment Institute, Khon Kaenn University, 2015, 49p.

TH/SC/15-01

Viet Nam’s farmers suffer as El Niño contributes to widespread drought

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Published: 4 April 2016 11:48 CET
A Red Cross staff conducts an assessment with a household in Ben Tre province in Viet Nam. Photo credit: Viet Nam Red Cross Society
IFRC – By Ly Nguyen, IFRC

Since the end of 2015, unusually dry conditions and a shortage of rainfall have seriously affected Viet Nam. These conditions which are associated with El Niño, have led to severe drought  in parts of the central, central highlands and southern regions of the country, including the Mekong Delta. Some water levels are at the lowest recorded in 90 years.

“In 2015, there was lower than average rainfall during the rainy season which ended two months earlier than in previous years. Water shortage has been compounded by saltwater intrusion. Salinity is four times higher than seasonal averages,” said Phan Duy Le, Vice Chairman of Quoi Dien commune in Thanh Phu district, Ben Tre province. “The consequences are very concerning. The drought and salty water have been threatening crops and agricultural production, and most importantly, access to drinking water for local people.”

Tiếp tục đọc “Viet Nam’s farmers suffer as El Niño contributes to widespread drought” →

The Effects of Fukushima Linger after Five Years, but Not from Radiation

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

While hundreds died in the evacuation, none perished as a result of exposure to radiation.

technologyreview : The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, which began on March 11, 2011, uprooted thousands of Japanese people, set the worldwide nuclear power industry back a decade, and caused a run on potassium iodide (said to help ward off thyroid cancer). What it didn’t do was kill anyone from radioactive fallout.

A Greenpeace report released this week, “Nuclear Scars: The Lasting Legacies of Chernobyl and Fukushima,” takes a harsher view, saying that “the health consequences of the Chernobyl and Fukushima catastrophes are extensive.” But most of the report dwells on Chernobyl, and it notes that the primary effects of Fukushima were “mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Put another way: fear and panic resulting from the accident (and from the loss of homes and livelihoods) were more dangerous than the radiation.
Tiếp tục đọc “The Effects of Fukushima Linger after Five Years, but Not from Radiation” →

Vietnam Plans Move Away From Coal

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

January 28th, 2016 by

cleantecnica – Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has announced his government’s intention to “review development plans of all new coal plants and halt any new coal power development.”

Vietnam prime minister

Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, Prime Minister of Vietnam

According to Solarplaza, the Premier stated that Vietnam needs to “responsibly implement all international commitments in cutting down greenhouse gas emissions; and to accelerate investment in renewable energy.”

The announcement comes in advance of the Solar PV Trade Mission, scheduled April 18 – 22 in Hanoi and Bangkok. It is hoped the trade missions will assemble diverse high-level delegations of stakeholders from around the world into emerging markets to jointly explore and create business development opportunities.
Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam Plans Move Away From Coal” →

2015 Was the Warmest Year on Record, and It Wasn’t Even Close

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Warming oceans and a sharp rise in air temperatures show that climate change is in full effect – and may be outstripping predictions.

By Michael Reilly on January 20, 2016

technologyreview – The numbers are in, and they are unforgiving: 2015 was the hottest year on record, and it wasn’t even close. The announcement was expected—scientists monitoring global temperatures predicted before the end of the year that 2015 would set a record for warmth, in part because of the massive El Niño event currently under way in the Pacific Ocean. But the data released today confirm that human-induced global warming is pushing temperatures higher at an alarming rate: 2014 was the previous record holder for global average surface temperature, clocking in at 0.57 °C above the 1960 to 1990 average, but last year was 0.75 °C above that average.

If that doesn’t sound like a big jump, consider that the agreement reached at the U.N. climate summit in Paris last year aims to limit warming to 2 °C above preindustrial levels. The good news is that the agreement represents the first global effort to try to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions. The bad news is we’re already half way to that 2 °C target. Worse, the figures released today could be underestimates, and even if the Paris agreement is upheld we could be headed for much more warming, unless we get even more ambitious in our emissions targets.

(Source: New York Times, Guardian, New Scientist)

2016 will be even hotter than 2015 – the hottest year ever

2015 Was Hottest Year in Historical Record, Scientists Say

2015 smashes record for hottest year, final figures confirm

 

This Buddhist Monk Is An Unsung Hero In The World’s Climate Fight

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
 01/22/2016 04:04 pm ET
  • Jo ConfinoExecutive Editor, Impact & Innovation, The Huffington Post

The architect of the historic Paris climate negotiations credits the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh with helping broker the deal.

huffingtonpost – DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — One of the guiding forces behind the scenes of theParis climate agreement is an 89-year-old Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk.

Christiana Figueres, who led the climate talks, has credited Thich Nhat Hanh with having played a pivotal role in helping her to develop the strength, wisdom and compassion needed to forge the unprecedented deal backed by 196 countries.

Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, says the teachings of Thay, as he is known to his hundreds of thousands of followers around the world, “literally fell into my lap” when she was going through a deep personal crisis three years ago.

She says the Buddhist philosophy of Thay, who is currently recovering from a serious stroke, helped her to deal with the crisis while also allowing her to maintain her focus on the climate talks.

CYRUS MCCRIMMON VIA GETTY IMAGES
Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

Figueres said she realized that “I have to have something here, because otherwise I can’t deal with this and do my job, and it was very clear to me that there was no way that I could take a single day off,” she told The Huffington Post this week at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

“This has been a six-year marathon with no rest in between,” she said. “I just really needed something to buttress me, and I don’t think that I would have had the inner stamina, the depth of optimism, the depth of commitment, the depth of the inspiration if I had not been accompanied by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.” Tiếp tục đọc “This Buddhist Monk Is An Unsung Hero In The World’s Climate Fight” →

In Asia, supporting women farmers crucial to fighting poverty, hunger and climate change

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Oxfam International – Tue, 12 Jan 2016 11:35 GMT

Author: Airah Cadiogan, Oxfam Philippines

At the first Asia Women Farmer Forum, women farmers from 14 developing countries came together to exchange experiences on securing their right to land and enhancing their resilience in the face of climate change. Diah Dwiandani/Oxfam

Thomsonreutersfoundation – At the first Asia Women Farmer Forum, women farmers from 14 developing countries came together to exchange experiences on securing their right to land and enhancing their resilience in the face of climate change. Diah Dwiandani/Oxfam

On that same evening, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, women farmers from 14 developing countries – leaders and climate experts in their own right – were getting ready to head back home. They had just attended the first Asia Women Farmer Forum organized by Oxfam as part of its Asia GROW Campaign to bring women together to discuss the challenges they have faced in securing their rights and enhancing their resilience in a changing climate.

“A woman farmer who goes to bed hungry is just wrong,” said Janice Ian Manlutac, Resilience lead for Oxfam in Asia, “But this is a daily reality in many Asian countries, where women make up 50 per cent of the total agricultural workforce.”

Norly Grace Mercado, Oxfam’s Asia GROW Campaign Coordinator, added: “Women have far less access than men to productive resources like land, livestock, education, and agricultural extension and financial services. Our research has also shown that women farmers work up to 16 hours in the field but only share 10 per cent of the profit.”

To put faces to numbers, participants of the forum shared their struggles and, most importantly, their stories of courage in the face of unfavorable odds. Tiếp tục đọc “In Asia, supporting women farmers crucial to fighting poverty, hunger and climate change” →

Powering the Internet with renewable energy

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

December 3, 2015

Googleblog – Today we’re announcing the largest, and most diverse, purchase of renewable energy ever made by a non-utility company. Google has already committed to purchase more renewable energy than any other company. Now, through a series of new wind and solar projects around the world, we’re one step closer to our commitment to triple our purchases of renewable energy by 2025 and our goal of powering 100% of our operations with clean energy. 842 MW of renewable energy around the world Today’s agreements will add an additional 842 megawatts of renewable energy capacity to power our data centers. Across three countries, we’re nearly doubling the amount of renewable energy we’ve purchased to date. We’re now up to 2 gigawatts—the equivalent to taking nearly 1 million cars off the road. These additional 842 megawatts represent a range of locations and technologies, from a wind farm in Sweden to a solar plant in Chile.

These long-term contracts range from 10-20 years and provide projects with the financial certainty and scale necessary to build these wind and solar facilities—thus bringing new renewable energy onto the grid in these regions. For our part, these contracts not only help minimize the environmental impact of our services—they also make good business sense by ensuring good prices. Our commitment to a sustainable energy future Since we opened our very first owned data center in 2006, we’ve been working to promote renewable and sustainable energy use in several ways:

  • First, we’re building the world’s most efficient computer infrastructure by designing our data centers to use as little energy as possible.

Tiếp tục đọc “Powering the Internet with renewable energy” →

Carbon capture analyst: ‘Coal should stay in the ground’

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Date:December 2, 2015

Source:University of Michigan

Summary:Serious flaws have been found in a decade’s worth of studies about the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize the climate, report experts in a new article.

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Serious flaws have been found in a decade’s worth of studies about the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize the climate.

sciencedaily – The findings, from the University of Michigan, are released as world leaders at COP21 attempt to negotiate the globe’s first internationally binding climate agreement.

The U-M researchers have found that most economic analysis of carbon capture and storage, or CCS, technology for coal-fired power plants severely underestimates the technique’s costs and overestimates its energy efficiency. CCS involves sucking carbon out of coal-fired power plants’ flue gases, compressing it and then injecting it deep underground.

The new analysis puts the cost of reducing carbon emissions with CCS-equipped coal plants higher than any previous study — and most importantly, higher than wind and comparable to solar power. It’s the first study to confront the so-called ‘energy loop’ inherent in the CCS process. Tiếp tục đọc “Carbon capture analyst: ‘Coal should stay in the ground’” →

International Climate Negotiations Glossary

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

CSIS – This glossary provides an overview of terms used by negotiators and others when discussing international climate negotiations. While several excellent climate glossaries exist—including from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—that provide technical definitions of terms, this glossary also provides the political and economic context for understanding the developments leading up to the Conference of Parties 21 (COP 21) in Paris in December 2015. At COP 21, Parties to the UNFCCC will be negotiating an international agreement that provides the framework for greenhouse gas emission reduction beyond the year 2020.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Tiếp tục đọc “International Climate Negotiations Glossary” →

Obama’s nuclear play

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Allen Greenberg | Nov 29, 2015

Here’s a nice bit of irony:

Energybiz – James Hansen, the scientist who was first to raise the alarm about climate change, fueling calls to shut down coal-fired power plants, will later this week urge the expansion of nuclear power.

In other words, depending on how things work out, utilities that were forced to close down or convert their coal-powered operations because of Hansen’s work, could soon find themselves thanking him for encouraging policymakers and regulators to approve plans to build new nuclear plants.

Hansen will issue his call in Paris, during the two-week climate conference that kicks off Monday. The conference is expected to draw some 20,000 attendees, including President Obama and 120 or so other world leaders.

Also read: First U.S. small modular reactor inches ahead

The hope of the climate talks is to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. Few, however, expect the conference to deliver anything meaningful. That’s because the pledges being made to cut greenhouse gas emissions are voluntary and are unlikely to be enough to stave off environmental catastrophe. Tiếp tục đọc “Obama’s nuclear play” →