Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka of South Africa has called for "desperate measures to be put in place as these are desperate times" at a national consultative conference on climate change. Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza said that climate change is a "serious" risk to poverty reduction, threatening decades of development. "South Africa's climate is highly variable and vulnerable to climate change as farming depends entirely on the quality of the rainy season," she continued. Given the link between food insecurity and the prevailing climate, "any long or short term changes thereof are paramount to our ability to feed the nation with high quality affordable staple foods."

The conference launched plans for a national research and development strategy, as part of the National Climate Change Response Strategy. South Africa is the African continent's largest greenhouse gas emitter. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister, argued that it was "much too early" for countries such as South Africa to limit greenhouse gas emissions, "but while we put pressure on the developed world, we must put our own house in order." "We stand ready to do more to decarbonize our development," he said. There was some criticism that the conference organizers had neglected South Africa expertise. In a letter to the Cape Times, Philip Lloyd of the University of Cape Town claimed that the meeting "did not represent the climate change debate in South Africa."

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• AllAfrica
• AllAfrica
• AllAfrica
• AllAfrica

• All Africa
• ABC
• SciDev.Net
• Conference background, Government of South Africa

Hurricane Wilma approached Belize and Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula Friday October 21st, forcing residents and tourists to flee or take shelter. Weakening to Category 3 as it hit land, the slow-moving storm generated a 3m storm surge causing flooding in the resort of Cancún. Heavy rains and high winds also affected Playa del Carmen and the resort island of Cozumel. Ten people died in mudslides on Haiti earlier in the week.

Cuba evacuated over 600,000 people in preparation for the storm, with six-metre waves pounding parts of the southern coast of the Isle of Youth. The storm made landfall in southern Florida Monday October 24th. At least six people lost their lives and three million homes and businesses were left without power.

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• BBC
• ABC
• Star Tribune
• CNN
• Science Daily

• Alertnet
• CNN
• Latest advisory, Florida Division of Emergency Management
• On the Web

"The severity of the impacts of extreme events will increase in concert with global warming," according to a report delivered to the annual assembly of the International Council for Science (ICSU). The report marks the announcement of a new ICSU research programme to reduce the threats posed by natural and human-induced disasters. "It's time to change the mindset of governments, who tend to plan too little for natural disasters," concludes the study's leader, Gordon McBean of the Institute of Catastrophic Loss Reduction at the University of Western Ontario. According to the report, there are now 2,800 natural disasters per decade and, last year, natural disasters were estimated to have cost $US140 billion.

"Around the globe, population growth in hazardous areas means more and more people are at risk," the report observes, and human activity is increasing that risk. "Destruction of mangroves increases the susceptibility of coastal areas to storm damage, and emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases can increase the frequency of extreme weather events." Calling for politicians to be better informed and for more interaction between policy makers and scientists, the study's authors report that "we have found ample evidence to suggest that policy makers may at times act in ignorance or disregard of the relevant scientific information and thereby significantly exacerbate damage resulting from natural hazards."

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• AlertNet
• ABC Online

• SciDev.Net
• Press release, ICSU