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Key Documents archive results 1-20 of 26 in Climate Change & Energy and Climate change impacts
The Earth Observation Handbook
This report, prepared by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), presents the main capabilities of satellite systems and their applications to detect, monitor and adapt to climate change, alongside plans for future relevant satellite missions. The report is divided into three parts....
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2008 | EN
Simply REDD: CIFOR's Guide to forests, climate change and REDD
This factsheet from The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) aims to answer common questions about the role of reducing forest emissions in tackling climate change. This includes explaining why reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is important and...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: June 2009 | EN
Malaria and its vectors in the Caribbean: The continuing challenge of the disease forty-five years after eradication from the islands
This journal article, written by three researchers in Trinidad and Tobago, looks at malaria in the Caribbean. It asks why there are still outbreaks -- including a big one in Jamaica in 2006/2007 -- when the disease was allegedly eliminated in the late 1950s. The authors review malaria and vector...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: November 2008 | EN
Using climate to predict infectious disease epidemics
This report from the WHO assesses the potential for creating early warning systems for vector-borne disease. It reviews the current state of research for several diseases such as dengue fever, leishmaniasis, malaria and West Nile virus. The report includes an algorithmic framework for developing...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2005 | EN
Climate change 2001: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability
The third IPCC assessment report, Climate Change 2001, includes this section on the links between climate change and health. It offers a detailed look at how variations in climate, such as temperature or rainfall, could affect vector-borne disease. In particular, it evaluates computer models that...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2003 | EN
El Niño Southern Oscillation and vegetation dynamics as predictors of dengue fever cases in Costa Rica
This journal article describes the first climate-based model used to predict outbreaks of dengue fever. Researchers from the University of Miami and the University of Costa Rica used climate data and vegetation indices from Costa Rica to predict disease outbreaks with 83 per cent accuracy. ...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: March 2009 | EN
Impact of regional climate change on human health
This Nature paper reviews evidence that a changing climate poses significant health risks and that global warming over the past few years has already increased illness and death worldwide. Infectious diseases are strongly affected by climatic variations because the vectors that carry the bacteria...
KEY DOCUMENT | EN
Refractory periods and climate forcing in cholera dynamics
A population's immunity to disease can greatly affect outbreaks of vector-borne disease, and isolating the influence of climate variability has proven difficult. This research study sets out to evaluate the effect of climate by accounting for population immunity. The authors collated data on...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: August 2005 | EN
Global climate change and extreme weather events: Understanding the contributions to infectious disease emergence
This extensive report from the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies takes on the considerable challenge of understanding how, and to what extent, climate change will affect infectious diseases. The report provides detailed summaries of current knowledge on diseases such as cholera...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2008 | EN
Global warming and malaria: Knowing the horse before hitching the cart
Paul Reiter, a researcher on insects and infectious disease at the Institut Pasteur in France, is not convinced that climate change will cause a rise in malaria in tropical regions. In this opinionated review he sets out to dispel widely held "common misconceptions" about the effect of climate...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: December 2008 | EN
Climate change and vector-borne diseases: A regional analysis
As global temperatures rise, vector-borne disease is set to increase in the developing world but patterns will vary across countries. This review looks at how the prevalence of vector-borne disease will change in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. As the authors...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2000 | EN
Managing the health effects of climate change
This report provides a policy framework for assessing the impacts of climate change on health, including vector-borne disease, by considering five challenges: informational, poverty and equity-related, technological, sociopolitical and institutional. It begins with a detailed outline of climate...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: May 2009 | EN
Guide on climate change and indigenous peoples
This guide, published by Tebtebba (Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education), outlines the expected impacts of climate change on indigenous peoples around the world, and showcases traditional methods of climate change mitigation and adaption. Following a basic...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: September 2008 | EN
Water in a changing world
This report, prepared by the World Water Assessment Programme under UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), assesses global freshwater resources including what drives the pressures facing them, how water is used, climate change's future effects on water supplies and options...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: March 2009 | EN
Climate change and food security in Pacific island states
This report, jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the University of the South Pacific, examines the likely impacts of climate change on Pacific island countries, with a focus on food security threats. Two...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2008 | EN
Atmospheric brown clouds: Regional assessment report with focus on Asia
This report, written by a team of international scientists and published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), explores the effects of 'atmospheric brown clouds'(ABCs) on regional climate, agriculture and human health. ABCs are large plumes of pollutant gases that result from burning fossil...
KEY DOCUMENT | EN
Sea level changes along the Indian coast: Observations and projections
The authors of this article analysed simulation results from a regional climate model for the northern Indian Ocean to predict likely changes in the strength and frequency of tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal from 2041-2060. They find that rising concentrations of greenhouse gases will lead...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: February 2006 | EN
ORCHID: Piloting Climate Risk Screening in DFID Bangladesh, Summary Research Report
This report by the Institute for Development Studies details the results of a pilot project in Bangladesh aimed at developing a screening process for the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to identify and manage climate change impacts on development investments. The authors...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2007 | EN
Tropical cyclones in a warmer climate
This paper discusses likely future changes in tropical cyclones, questioning whether they will become more intense following higher sea surface temperatures. The author outlines the different approaches currently taken to climate modelling and discusses the results of characterising current and...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: July 2007 | EN
Mapping climate vulnerability and poverty in Africa: where are the hot spots of climate change and household vulnerability?
This book-length report details a study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) that aimed to map vulnerability to the impacts of climate change in Africa. Climate change models of four different future scenarios were used and...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: August 2006 | EN
Information Services
Easier REDD than done
Designing a framework for reducing forest emissions that will live up to expectations will be hard
A climate for disease?
Will climate change worsen the burden of insect-borne disease? The scientific jury is still out
