This year, the annual Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP24) is happening with a high sense of urgency instilled by the release of the IPCC 1.5 report. This report highlights the need for accelerated and immediate action to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C, which will require reaching net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. It also sheds new light on the steps that are still within reach to achieve that goal.
Every year the world comes to a standstill to attend COP meetings and share knowledge and experiences in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. But what is COP and why is it so important? COP is the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This year marks the COP 24 in Katowice, Poland from December 3rd to 14th.
Calling all Blue Technologies innovators in the Caribbean, there is finally space for you to innovate in the blueness of the Caribbean sun. We present the IDB’s Blue-Tech Challenge: New technologies or solutions to foster sustainability of the ocean economy in the Caribbean (#BlueTechChallenge). The aim of this initiative is to foster innovation in the Caribbean for a better sustainable usage of what we call the Blue Economy. You may be asking yourself, what is the Blue Economy?
The need for more and better information is a growing demand for the policy makers and officials in the public sector the academia and companies, also for international organizations and producers themselves as well as many other stakeholders in the agricultural sector. All of them require data to analyze the performance of agricultural activities and the rural world. Having information brings knowledge, but its availability implies having adequate measurement instruments, and performing statistical studies that guarantee the timely collection of quality data.
Since the remarkable “Breaking the Tragedy of Horizon” speech by Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, in 2015, climate-related risks entered the agenda of concerns for the financial supervisor and regulator. Two years later, in December 2017, eight central banks and supervisors (including Banco de Mexico) established the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has the most biodiverse habitat in the world, the Amazon rainforest. In addition, this region is the most humid in the world, contains the most extensive wetlands on the planet and has more than 30% of the world's drinking water reserves. Over 10% of its land surface is protected (211 million hectares). Unfortunately, this region suffers from an increasing pressure on biodiversity due to poor development management, including unsustainable use of natural resources, pollution, degradation and change of land use.
Most people have heard the old Indian parable of how six blind men construe an elephant to be respectively a wall, spear, snake, tree, fan, and a rope because of their physical experience with the animal. A lesson of the parable is that people can easily interpret the same concept in different ways based on their own experiences. Interpretations can be so dissimilar as to lead to arguments as individuals advance their own partial interpretations over those of others.
When we talk about women’s empowerment, it is difficult to grasp what we actually mean. Does it refer to women’s attitude towards gender violence? Or does it mean women’s economic independence and decision-making power? Does it perhaps imply access to productive resources, education and other opportunities? Or might it mean control over time? Or does it concern all these aspects?
The Mané Dendê River Basin in the western part of Salvador (the capital of Bahia) has a population of about 44,000. Eighty percent of households in the area have incomes below the minimum wage, and 32 percent of the Salvador population lives in informal settlements, sometimes in areas prone to flooding and with poor access to public services.