The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines drought as “a period of abnormally dry weather long enough to cause a serious hydrological imbalance.” The definition is however flexible, as drought is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, whose impacts are influenced by social, economic, and environmental factors.
We know a lot about the crisis. We know that it is time to progress from understanding the problems to solving them. However, we also know that there is no perfect solution. It is a matter of shifting understanding and knowledge from science to society, from data to stories, from facts to solutions.
Accurate, timely, and reliable: the availability and management of information in an emergency are crucial to reduce damages and improve recovery efforts. With Chiara Menchise, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, we explore the world of information technologies applied to disaster risk reduction, including social media, remote sensing, satellite imageries and Artificial Intelligence.
It is the most intense tropical cyclone in terms of energy released by a tropical cyclone during its lifetime and the third-deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere: scientists at work with machine learning and climate intelligence to allowing an optimal response and preparedness to events like Freddy.
The year without a summer showed the world how volcanoes can affect climate with severe consequences on human societies and economies. Today – while climate deniers use eruptions as a tool with which to cloud the truth about anthropogenic causes of climate change – volcanoes remain important monitors of “our impacts on the climate (which) are so large they even have the potential to affect volcanic eruptions themselves”.
Available, accessible, safe. A set of tools and definitions to navigate the complex world of food security, a concept that has evolved constantly in the past decades, reflecting shifts in approach and point of view, and adapting to changes in international policy, environmental awareness, and scientific evidence.
Money moves the attention of people, investors, and capital owners. Money is part of many solutions to the climate deadlock. But numbers are not enough to calculate the economic value of the climate issue. Numbers are only the final step on a pathway that passes through many crossroads. Climate change has huge economic, social and cultural costs. Assessing these costs is challenging yet vital for our planet’s future. And when it comes to climate policies, responding to different climate emergencies requires different lenses.
Top ranking representatives of international institutions, opinion leaders, diplomats, scientists and civil society: from emotional reactions to pragmatic comments, the international community hails the Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBJN) treaty. After almost two decades of negotiations, a two-week-long conference, more than 48 hours of talks, international efforts led to an agreement for the conservation and protection of ocean areas that fall beyond national borders.
The Urgenda case was the game changer. It opened up a new dialogue between human rights law and climate science, while it marked a watershed moment for climate justice: from then on, we saw new measures to protect people from the harms posed by climate change. From there, we start with the voices of those who experienced the Urgenda case on the front line.
We tell the story of climate litigation and why it is a crucial aspect of the future planet.
If the winters disappear can we engineer them or do we need to start looking into alternative approaches? As more and more evidence piles up against the demise of the ski industry as we know it, mountain communities and researchers start to explore new heights.
Knowledge is power. It is the backbone of an alliance that spans the farthest corners of the planet to the laboratories of the most advanced scientific research. In this episode, we explore the terrain where science meets civil society that triggers climate action. With stories of people in the Global South where natural resources ‘are being used as a weapon’.
The news is record-breaking temperature. Media coverage swings from talk of “astonishing luck”, to alarm and concern from those who look at the bigger picture, identifying heatwave’s impacts on health, ecosystems and the economy. The point is: are we able to connect the dots between the energy crisis, climate change and increasing extreme events? From the New York Times to the Washington Post, from the Guardian to the most influential scientists on social media, a review of the temperature anomalies affecting Europe and beyond.
