Harvested News

Research by National Hydraulic Research Institute Malaysia (Nahrim) shows that changing climate patterns are making both dry spells and heavy storms more intense. Although Malaysia has abundant rainfall all year round, it is unevenly distributed, said Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas) technical development executive director V. Subramaniam. In a nutshell, it does not always rain in rivers that supply raw water to treatment plants…

Climate change has become malignant. It threatens to blunt Asia's growth and upend our development. Climate scientists are increasingly certain that catastrophic weather events -- such as the 2011 floods in Thailand, one of history's costliest disasters, or last year's Typhoon Haiyan, which killed and displaced thousands of people in the Philippines -- will become more frequent and intense. From small island states to delta…

He was speaking at the fourth Indonesia Climate Change Center (ICCC) Coffee Morning, themed “The UK Green Experience – Climate Change Act, Green Investment, Energy Reform” presented by Sir David King, the UK foreign secretary’s special representative for climate change. Rachmat said Indonesia could hopefully learn lessons from the UK’s experience in dealing with climate change impacts, such as the flooding currently affecting several regions…

Data from the University of Maryland and Google shows that around 230 million hectares of forest – the equivalent of 50 soccer fields a minute – were lost between 2000 and 2012. On Thursday, the Washington D.C.-based World Resources Institute (WRI), in partnership with 40 other organizations, including Google and the University of Maryland, launched Global Forest Watch, an online forest monitoring and alert system…

"Tree planting and preservation activities can help ensure food provision and ground water reserves," he told students gathered at the event. As part of the government's commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent by 2020, Indonesia has pledged to plant billions of trees across the country. From 2010 to 2013, the country planted at least one billion trees under a tree-planting programme. The…

Indonesia, as a developing country that will benefit from the flow of international climate finance, has shown great interest in the GCF and has continued to strive to ensure that its interests and those of other developing countries are properly represented. In fact, Indonesia has secured a seat on the GCF board, composed of an equal number of members from developing and developed countries, with…

The immediate answer is that the UK is “stuck” in a weather pattern – a common feature of our climate. But what is uncommon is the exceptional intensity of the rain and waves. There is a perfect so-called “storm factory” in the Atlantic caused by warm, moist air from the tropics coming up unusually close to the very cold polar air. The jet stream is…

Rummer added that many species in that region only experience a very narrow range of temperatures over their entire lives, and so are likely adapted to perform best at those temperatures. This means climate change places equatorial marine species most at risk, as oceans are projected to warm by two to three degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century, researchers said in a…

“The installation of the said devices is in line with Project NOAH (Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards). Most of the devices were installed in parts of the region mostly affected with bad weather condition,” Bartolome noted. Under the Preparedness Committee through the leadership of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), various trainings on disaster risk reduction and management and disaster preparedness and…

Research of land and sea surface temperature from 1960 and 2009 shows these changes are already taking place, with the CSIRO’s map highlighting that shifting climate conditions are most pronounced in central and eastern Australia, covering swathes of Queensland, as well as north-west Western Australia. Arrows on the maps show the flow of localised condition changes, with blue areas indicating areas of significant change and…

The good news, from the climate’s standpoint, is that while global demand for energy is continuing to grow, the growth is slowing. The bad news is that one energy giant predicts global carbon dioxide emissions will probably rise by almost a third in the next 20 years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says greenhouse gas emissions need to peak by 2020 and then decline…

1. More intense El Niño The El Niño phenomenon occurs when the surface of ocean waters in the southern Pacific becomes abnormally warm. The energy created by this warming is so great that it can create an imbalance in the weather in different parts of the world. In Southeast Asia, it can lead to abnormally dry conditions. El Niño can also make other weather events…

A new report by the Interim Forest Finance Project has called on the international community to inject US$12 billion to stimulate demand for the flagging global REDD+ initiative under the United Nations. The report, launched by Global Canopy Programme (GCP), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and UNEP Finance Initiative on Friday, calls on governments, donor agencies and financial institutions…

Reading about the floods in the east coast states of Malaysia and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines clearly left us disheartened. A recent study by the Asian Development Bank shows that disaster losses have outpaced the region’s economic growth and will continue to threaten any development gains in the emerging markets. Governments, businesses and even individuals play an equal role in mitigating GHG emissions. In…

The “frequency and severity of extreme weather events” brought about by climate change expose the vulnerabilities of a nation and its “preparedness” to deal with the consequences of global warming, Lim reported in “Under siege,” which introduced the special report series on Feb. 4. Educate Located along the Pacific Ocean, the country will always be besieged by calamities. There is still no way to predict…

Energy use patterns and fossil fuels - a mounting problem The research project was aimed at performing analysis of likely future climate conditions, energy use patterns and how those energy deployment methods will impact the climate as it develops. According to the news source, the team found that as of 2010, coal, oil and gas still represented approximately 80 percent of energy use. Furthermore, if…

That number may sound small, but this visualization shows just how dramatically temperatures around the globe have changed: “Long-term trends in surface temperatures are unusual and 2013 adds to the evidence for ongoing climate change,” GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said in a press release. “While one year or one season can be affected by random weather events, this analysis shows the necessity for continued, long-term…

“This study changes the way we think about climate change vulnerability of plants and animals,” says study co-author Mary O’Connor, an assistant professor in the University of British Columbia’s Dept. of Zoology. “Until recently, we believed that tropical species were more at risk of extinction because generally they cannot tolerate increasing temperatures. We also thought that many plants and animals in colder climates like in…

So what exactly is geoengineering then, a concept given some unexpected attention and increasing legitimacy by its mention in the most recent IPCC report? It refers to methods that “aim to deliberately alter the climate system to counter climate change.” The rather controversial area of engineering Earth’s climate seems to now be firmly planted on the scientific agenda. Some climate models suggest that geoengineering may…