Why Development Should Focus on Climate Adaptation?
One of the biggest threats to a thriving world today is that the world’s poorest people face disproportionate risk from climate change. …
COP21: A Chance in Paris to Save Lives and Improve Livelihoods through Climate Adaptation
I wouldn’t miss the United Nations conference on climate change that begins Monday in Paris, even though it’s the event’s 21st birthday and there’s little to toast from past events. Why is COP21 a must-attend confab for me? This is...
Countries on the rebound making significant climate adaptation progress
Originally published at news.nd.edu and…
Buffering Against Climate Risk: Lessons for the Refugee Crisis
This blog was initially published by our partner, the RANE network. As the world watches countless economic migrants and war refugees journey perilously from their volatile homelands…
The Insurance Industry: Adaptation Drivers
View Joyce Coffee's Blog An edifying conversation with Tom Herbstein, programme manager for the ClimateWise…
The World’s Poor: Pope Francis Clarifies Their Disproportionate Risk to Climate Disruption
View Joyce Coffee's Blog The Papal…
Cities in Emerging Markets as Investment Meccas
I enjoyed great conversations last week with delegates and speakers from around the world at the first Chicago Forum on Global Cities, http://www.chicagoforum.org/ held in partnership with the Financial Times, and I hope it becomes an annual event. I drew…
Shifts in thinking in our unbalanced world
At the World Bank’s recent Financing Urban Resilience Workshop, I grasped three clear trends – indeed, shifts – occurring that are changing how adaptation leaders and others are managing an unbalanced world. (The workshop was led by Stephen Hammer, Lead...
ND-GAIN connects on climate adaptation at regional conferences
Members of the ND-GAIN team recently attended the European Climate Change Adaptation (ECCA) Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark as well as the North American National Adaptation Forum (NAF) in St.…
Burundi Analysis: Vulnerability, Readiness, and Recommendations
Highlights: Burundi's low ND-GAIN score reflects the nation's standing as one of the fifth poorest nations in the world. Because over 30% of Burundi's GDP depends on agriculture, and most of the population lives in rural areas, climate change could...
Preparing for New Realities: Planners Weigh in on Adapting to Climate Change
This post originally appeared on Triple Pundit: http://www.triplepundit.com/2015/05/preparing-new-realities-planners-wei... With climate uncertainty a new normal, planners from around…
Advancing Climate Resilient Development
USAID and its Climate Change Resilient Development project hosted a symposium in mid-March on Advancing Climate Resilient Development at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The project, led by Engility/IRQ, was tagged as a project…
UNISDR Launches RISE Initiative for Disaster Risk-Sensitive INVESTMENT
“Economic losses from disasters are out of control and can only be reduced in partnership with the private sector.” ̶ United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon The United Nation’s Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, or UNISDR, and PwC, the global...
Brazil drought – the Readiness Prophylactic
A demonstrator dressed as a bather protests against the rationing of water, outside the official residence of Sao Paulo’s Governor Geraldo Alckmin in Sao Paulo, on Jan. 26. The banner behind him reads, “Planet Water, Dry Lives.” Andre Penner/AP Last...
Lunar New Year Predictions from the Climate Leadership Conference
At a session this week (2-23) organized by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions at the Climate Leadership Conference, C2E Staff Scientist Joe Casola facilitated a discussion that asked the 60-plus corporate, nonprofit and government leaders attending to foresee 2035...
Building Global Health Resilience: Pursuits in Haiti and Bangladesh
Blog compiled with help from Sophia Chau, ND-GAIN Intern ND-GAIN focuses on building resilience to climate change as a critical component to better prepare humans and their environment for the next 100 years. Our mission lies in enhancing the world’s...
Emerging Global Risk: Failure to Adapt to Climate Change
While the world still smarts from the global recession, experts now identify climate change risks as bigger threats to our stability than economic ones. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk 2015 Report ranks failure to adapt to climate…
Increasing Water Security: Enlivening Communities in Africa and Asia
Blog compiled with help from Sophia Chau, ND-GAIN Intern More frequent and severe droughts triggered by climate change place significant stress on the regions of the globe already most arid. That’s why South Pole Carbon and HSBC India, in partnership...
China’s Role in Adaptation?
This infographic in Fast Company got me thinking: Is China the answer to African resilience? Anyone worried about climate change would be agog…
Cocoa Climate Crisis
Blog compiled with help from Sophia Chau, ND-GAIN Intern The International Cocoa organization has reported a 75,000-ton cocoa shortfall for this growing season and that figure is expected to reach the million-ton mark by 2020 unless swift action is taken....
Adaptation Potential: Africa’s Hope and Promise
Blog compiled with help from Sophia Chau, ND-GAIN Intern Hope for building communities resilient to climate change around the world emerges from the unlikeliest of places—Africa. Shortly after release of the ND-GAIN…
Unsung Heroes – Government Statisticians Who Need the Space to Be Honest
At a Social Capital Markets SOCAP 2014 panel in San Francisco in Fall 2014 about Resilience Investing Informed by Global Data I had the pleasure of presenting with Dr. Mirza Jahani, the CEO of the Aga Khan Development Network’s U.S.…
Urban Adaptation Questions To Explore, with thanks to Joann Carmin
Attending the Carmin Symposium on Urban Climate Adaptation last month, I had the pleasure of being reminded over and over again why experts the world over looked to Dr. Carmin for insights and guidance to galvanize urban adaptation. Here are...
Reflecting Post Sandy
Two years have now passed since Superstorm Sandy crashed into the northeast of the United States, showing Americans the need for climate action. Sandy remains one of the most…
Disproportionate risk vs. human resilience
I continue to mull over several 2014 New York Times articles with the general view that Americans don’t share an affection for communal giving and living. One sage contended that New Yorkers could never respond as the Dutch do under...
Index Inquisition, Incursions, Insides, Insights
Earlier this month, the Economist warned about the vagaries of Index. I’ve written about this, too. And I agree we must be careful about reading too much into Index. But, as a journalist who interviewed me recently pointed out, “Journalists...
Corporate Adaptation Stories: Risky Business
Risky Business Data tell great stories With mid-term U.S. elections less than two months away, I have been scanning the news eagerly to locate any references to the significant Risky Business Project report on climate change released in June. I...
Another Season of Climate Risk Looms: Southeast Asian Coastal Storms
As the global hurricane and typhoon season begins, a critically important gathering of the World Economic Forum on East Africa has just concluded in Manila, with nearly every session expounding on the tragic consequences and lessons learned from last year’s...
Bridging the Climate Adaptation Gap: From Recognition to Action
Recent data indicate that a gap exists between corporations understanding the big-picture risks of climate change and their actions to address those risks to shore up their bottom line. MIT’s…
The Climate Adaptation Gap: How to Create a Climate Adaptation Plan
This article originally appeared in Triple Pundit: The Climate Adaptation Gap: How to Create a Climate Adaptation Plan Editor’s note: This is the third…