Climate adaptation

Southern African project builds toolkit to guide reforestation with indigenous trees

Camel Thorn tree (Photo: Wikipedia) A regional initiative is developing a digital toolkit to help policymakers, farmers, and urban planners choose the right tree species for climate resilience across Southern Africa. The Southern African Trees for Climate Adaptation and Resilience project, in partnership with Stellenbosch University, is creating an open-access bioinformatics platform designed to guide reforestation and urban greening in the SADC region. Guy Midgley, a leading climate scientist at […]

4 September, 2025

Environment

At-risk groups in Indonesia demand greater say in climate policymaking

By Hans Nicholas Jong, via Mongabay Civil society groups and communities most affected by the effects of climate change are calling on the Indonesian government to include them in the decision-making process of climate policies. Groups such as those representing the urban poor and the disabled say they haven’t been meaningfully involved in the process, particularly the drafting of Indonesia’s revised goals and commitments for reducing greenhouse gas […]

15 August, 2024

Environment

Urban greening in Africa will help to build climate resilience – planners and governments need to work with nature

By Sintayehu W. Dejene, CGIAR System Organization and Razak Kiribou, Haramaya University Nature-based solutions are actions that use nature to solve environmental problems. Examples in cities would be setting up a wetland near a group of buildings to absorb floodwater, or building permeable pavements. The world’s developed countries have been implementing nature-based solutions since 2015 but Africa has fallen behind. We are part of […]

26 July, 2024

Environment

Wildfires in South Africa are set to increase: how legal action can help the country adapt better to climate change

By Tracy-Lynn Field, University of the Witwatersrand As climate change drives temperature increases and lower precipitation in southern Africa, research has found that there is likely to be an increase in the number of wildfires in regions that are already hot, dry and water scarce. Massive wildfires broke out in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province on 12 and 13 July 2024, killing six firefighters who were […]

18 July, 2024

Africa

Lake Victoria: why so many fishers are dying and what can be done about it

By Ranaivo Rasolofoson, University of Toronto and Kathryn Fiorella, Cornell University Small-scale fishers on Lake Victoria (Africa’s largest freshwater lake, shared by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) are drowning. Safety issues such as storms, a lack of available life jackets, and a shortage of navigational equipment and rescue services are a major cause of this. Existing studies have found that climate change is projected to […]

26 June, 2024

Africa

Climate change could cost Africa billions by 2030

Africa currently loses between $7 billion and $15 billion a year because of climate change. If that trend continues, African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina tells the Zero podcast, that number could reach $50 billion by 2030. That’s why Adesina is focusing the bank’s efforts on financing climate adaptation, which he describes as the “forgotten cousin” of climate mitigation.

2 May, 2024