Many look at the world’s melting ice and see glacier basins as half-empty. Swiss researchers see them as half-full of opportunities for hydropower and freshwater storage. 

FAO today launched a new $7.1 million project supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to make forest data more accessible, transparent and available, and, in particular, help developing countries to meet the Paris Climate Agreement's enhanced transparency requirements.

An international team of scientists has issued a clear and unequivocal warning that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency. In a declaration endorsed by more than 11,000 signatories from 153 countries, they stress that “untold human suffering” is unavoidable without deep and lasting shifts in human activities that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

The world’s carbon budget—the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that humans can still pump into the atmosphere before we no longer have a chance of keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius—is almost used up.

Current conditions
Over South Africa, it is clear that winter rain lingered somewhat longer than usual over the winter rainfall region with abovenormal rainfall in October – including significant rainfall resulting in dam levels making a remarkable recovery

The Climate Action Summit at the UN last month was widely considered a disappointment, failing to garner the kinds of government actions needed to address the climate crisis.