ClimatePrep

By Carina Bachofen Last year marked the three-year anniversary of Cyclone Sidr, which ravaged the southern coast of Bangladesh and claimed the lives of 3,500 people. Loss of life was exacerbated by loss of development potential as the fierce storm decimated the mud and thatch homes of countless families, destroyed key infrastructure, and damaged productive land, [...]

By Carina Bachofen and Edward Cameron The Maldives is a country with many pseudonyms and identities. The great Venetian explorer Marco Polo referred to the Maldives as the “flower of the Indies”; to the scores of holidaymakers and honeymooners the island nation is popularly known as the “pearls of the Indian Ocean”. In recent years, as the [...]

By Eliot Levine, WWF-US We recently had the great pleasure of meeting with New York Times bestselling author Jared Diamond (Collapse; Guns, Germs, & Steel) for a wide-ranging conversation, and will post a video of that interview soon. However, to set the stage for our meeting we wrote to Dr. Diamond with some initial questions. This [...]

By Carina Bachofen and Edward Cameron Assessments of the global cost of adaptation have varied drastically, ranging from $4-109 billion per year. The World Bank recently released the summary reports of the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change study, which estimates it will cost between $70-$100 billion each year from now until 2050. Why do cost estimates [...]

By Eliot Levine, WWF-US Periodically on ClimatePrep we like to draw attention to new and interesting publications that we feel are worth highlighting. This week we would like to point out Flowing Forward, a new report written by WWF for the World Bank. Flowing Forward provides guiding principles, processes, and methodologies for incorporating climate change adaptation [...]

By Eliot Levine, WWF-US A recent UN policy brief discusses why water-related climate change adaptation is critical for achieving sustainable development around the world. As significant water shortages already exist, water is the medium through which climate impacts are going to be felt most immediately and most severely by many people. “Adaptation to climate change is urgent. Water plays [...]