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Key Documents archive results 1-20 of 114 in Climate Change & Energy
Energy in national decentralization policies: A review focusing on least developed countries and Sub-Saharan Africa
This report, published by the UN Development Programme, reviews more than 600 online documents to consider how energy is included in national decentralisation policies and programmes in least developed countries and Sub-Saharan Africa. The authors argue that decentralisation can significantly...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: August 2009 | EN
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
Climate change: A call to action for African leaders
This policy brief, prepared by the Africa Progress Panel, African Development Bank and UN, outlines the implications of climate change for Africa, emphasising the need for a strong and cohesive negotiating position at the December 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen. The authors argue that African...
KEY DOCUMENT | EN
Agrofuels and the use of genetic modification
This report from GeneWatch UK describes the use of genetically modified (GM) crops as agrofuels and makes policy recommendations on their use. Civil society groups have raised concerns over the sustainability of using food supplies to produce biofuel. Industry and government have responded by...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: July 2009 | 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
Small-scale bioenergy initiatives
This report, published by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN and Policy Innovation Systems for Clean Energy Security (PISCES), presents fifteen case studies of small-scale bioenergy initiatives across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The authors assess to what extent these...
KEY DOCUMENT | EN
Small-scale bioenergy initiatives
This report, published by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN and Policy Innovation Systems for Clean Energy Security (PISCES), presents fifteen case studies of small-scale bioenergy initiatives across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The authors assess to what extent these...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: January 2009 | EN
The road to REDD
This feature article, published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal, uses the Cordillera Azul national park in Peru as an example to introduce mechanisms for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) that are under global discussion. The author discusses...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: January 2009 | EN
Moving ahead with REDD: Issues, options and implications
This book, written by researchers at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), poses several critical questions that must be addressed in designing a global framework for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) to be implemented after 2012, when the first...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: November 2008 | EN
Measuring and monitoring forest degradation for REDD
This information briefing, published by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), focuses on the implications of different country circumstances for measuring and monitoring forest degradation within activities for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). ...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: November 2008 | 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
