Hidden in the food we buy every day, from chocolate to ice cream, are commodities like palm oil and soy that are driving deforestation across the world. From Indonesia to the Peruvian Amazon, vast areas of carbon-rich forest are being cleared to produce these agricultural commodities, contributing to climate change and social conflict.

It is encouraging to see that the United Nations Security Council is beginning to acknowledge the transboundary dimensions of fragility and conflict, as demonstrated by its newly launched Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the Lake Chad Basin region.

Bolivia: Mujeres amazónicas castañeras y su lucha permanente y grupal pese a la sequía
 
                                                         Claudia Soruco
 
INTRODUCCIÓN 

"There is no peace without tackling food security and eliminating hunger and there will be no food without tackling climate change.” A couple of days ago, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has published a new and all-encompassing framework on climate change. The organization acknowledges the enormous threats posed by climate change, and outlines how it will tackle environmental changes in the future.

Las simulaciones del modelo HadCM3 fueron de las primeras disponibles para el análisis de proyecciones futuras, reflejándose en la literatura que describe principalmente variables de temperatura y precipitación para Sudamérica. El objetivo de ese trabajo es investigar los cambios en la circulación atmosférica en el sudeste de Sudamérica asociada a eventos extremos fríos, en el escenario de emisiones futuras más crítico denominado A2, para el periodo 2081-2100 respecto a un periodo climatológico de referencia 1961-1990, considerando el modelo HadCM3 y los datos del reanálisis NCEP/NCAR.

These case studies were developed as part of the World Bank's Results Monitoring and Evaluation for Resilience Building Operations (ReM&E) project, which aims to develop and increase the application of systematic, robust, and useful approaches to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for resilience-building projects/programs within the World Bank. The case studies propose to foster a grounded understanding of good ReM&E practices through real-world examples.

The Philippines faces a breadth of social and environmental challenges that threaten its economic and political stability. A long history of violent conflict stemming from ethnic, religious, and political tensions is further complicated by changing weather patterns that cause severe drought and damaging storms. Millions of people in Mindanao have been displaced by violence and extreme weather events, and their migration from rural areas leaves room for the expansion of terrorist groups that threaten regional stability.

The impact of climate change on drought main characteristics was assessed over Southern South America. This was done through the precipitation outputs from a multi-model ensemble of 15 climate models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The Standardized Precipitation Index was used as a drought indicator, given its temporal flexibility and simplicity. Changes in drought characteristics were identified by the difference for early (2011-2040) and late (2071-2100) 21st century values with respect to the 1979-2008 baseline.

Restoration interventions to combat land degradation are carried out in arid and semi-arid areas to improve vegetation cover and land productivity. Evaluating the success of an intervention over time is challenging due to various constraints (e.g. difficult-to-access areas, lack of long-term records) and the lack of standardised and affordable methodologies. We propose a semi-automatic methodology that uses remote sensing data to provide a rapid, standardised and objective assessment of the biophysical impact, in terms of vegetation cover, of restoration interventions.

Climate change in Afghanistan is not an uncertain, “potential” future risk but a very real, present threat— whose impacts have already been felt by millions of farmers and pastoralists across the country. In this report, it is shown how drought and flood risks have changed over the past thirty years, and what impact this has had on rural livelihoods and food security in the country. The aim is to inform national-level prioritisation of areas and livelihoods groups for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction programmes.