In a boost for global efforts to combat climate change and tropical deforestation, Finland, Germany, and Norway have each announced new financial contributions totaling approximately US$180 million to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), the World Bank administered facility that was set up to compensate developing countries for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions achieved by preserving their forests.

Read more: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/2013/01/10/new-funding-for-climate-fore...

In the cool, fertile highlands of the Rift Valley Province in western Kenya, the landscape is dominated by tea. Kenya is the world’s largest producer and the leading exporter of the caffeinated leaves, and the land around the township of Kericho and bordering the Mau Forest Complex is one of the country’s primary tea producing areas. But recent projections by tea industry group Ethical Tea Partnership show that, without substantial action, climate change will render most of the Kericho-Mau area unsuitable for tea production by 2050.

Read more: http://blog.ecoagriculture.org/2012/12/17/kerichomau/

Presented at the Philippine Flood Management Knowledge Sharing Forum at the Asian Development Bank headquarters in Manila on 4 December 2012.

FM-S101-Climate Risks in the Philippines by Nathaniel Servando

This presentation specifically explores how tropical wetlands can be included in REDD+, a global scheme through which developed countries reward developing countries for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. Because of the amount of carbon stored by wetlands, there are significant opportunities and challenges inherent in involving wetlands in REDD+.

This presentation was given during a symposium on ‘Sustaining Humans and Forests in Changing Landscapes’, organised by the IUFRO Working Group on Landscape Ecology. Around 200 people attended the symposium, which was held on 5–9 November 2012 in Concepcion, Chile.

A new study found that bicycle use as a means of transportation is growing 20 percent a year in Santiago. The study’s authors argued that, if public policies existed to guarantee the safety of and parking for cyclists, the numbers would grow even more.

Read more: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amaxwell/latin_america_green_news_chil...

Mainstreaming adaptation into development planning has been promoted as an effective way to respond to climate change. The expected benefits include avoided policy conflicts, reduced risks and vulnerability, greater efficiency compared with managing adaptation separately, and leveraging the much larger financial flows in sectors affected by climate risks than the amounts available for financing adaptation separately. This report reviews the main approaches proposed and lessons learned from relevant experiences in the Asia-Pacific region. A regional forum convened by the Adaptation Knowledge Platform and its partners, held at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok in 2010, provided the starting point for this analysis.

Download the report: http://weadapt.org/knowledge-base/adaptation-knowledge-platform-for-asia...

“Why Tackling Climate Change Matters for Development”
Lecture by Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator and UNDG Chair

In my lecture today, I will talk about key issues at stake in the negotiations, and why concerted international action to tackle global warming matters so much to poor people and poor countries on the front lines of climate change.

My hypothesis is that unless there is more co-ordinated global action to tackle climate change soon, it will be increasingly hard to reduce poverty, in all its dimensions, particularly in the world’s poorest countries. The costs of adaptation will also rise steeply everywhere.

Read more http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/speeches/2012/11/08...

Farming has always been a risky enterprise, but climate change is magnifying the risks, especially for smallholder farmers living on the precarious margins of the earth’s productive lands.

Over the centuries, smallholders have drawn on traditional knowledge and historical observations to manage the effects of a variable climate. Today, the speed and intensity of environmental change is outpacing their capacity to do so. Historical averages are no longer a reliable guide for the future. Losses and damages from extreme weather keep increasing, as the pattern of droughts, floods and tropical storms becomes ever more unpredictable.

Read more: http://www.ifad.org/climate/asap/smallscale.htm

This document is an output from RECOFTC’s case studies. The research and publication of these case studies was funded jointly by Adaptation Knowledge Platform, Climate Knowledge Development Network (CDKN), REDD-net and Raks Thai Foundation (CARE Thailand).

These case studies are based on local experiences in Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam in an attempt to explore how community forestry may contribute to adaptation and mitigation goals. They are exploratory and descriptive in nature and although not purporting to be representative of the region, they provide a foundation for a better understanding of these relationships.

Read more: http://www.climateadapt.asia/resources/publication/view/96