Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The United Nations has launched a ten-year campaign to reverse and prevent desertification and to soften the effects of drought in affected areas in order to support poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. The proportions of the problem require a global response, according to secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. "More than two billion people live in the world's drylands. The vast majority live on less than one dollar a day and without adequate access to freshwater," he said. The United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification, which will run to December 2020, aims to raise awareness and prompt action that will protect the world’s drylands from further deterioration and degradation.

Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) stressed that "the path of business-as-usual will worsen the speed of degradation with devastating impacts on livelihoods, families and communities, and will further cause more extinction of life and jeopardize the future of humanity." He underlined the need for an alternative route that “will embrace and undertake the formidable challenges of sustainability." The UNCCD has warned that half the world's population may be living in areas of limited water supply by the year 2030.

Four nations of the eastern Himalayas - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal - have met in Kathmandu to create a roadmap leading to the Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas in 2011 in Bhutan and a regional adaptation framework. The aim of the initiative is to reduce the vulnerability of local populations of the region, including the lowlands. Individual country roadmaps on the water, energy, biodiversity and food security sectors will now be prepared.

Madhav Kirki from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Nepal suggested four key areas for developing a climate-resilient region: livelihood diversification, diaster preparedness, climate risk assessment for infrastructure development, and improved management of natural resources. He also stressed the importance of sharing scientific understanding and addressing knowledge gaps. Pema Gyamtsho, agriculture and forest minister of the Royal Government of Bhutan, noted the need to gain a clearer picture of the changes taking place in relation to temperature rise and its local effects. "There are heavy fluctuations in weather patterns and their implications at the local, national, and regional levels are going to be significant. We have to work towards developing our own adaptive strategy at the regional level," he said.

Global plant growth has declined since the year 2000, following a period of increasing productivity from 1982, according to a new analysis. The increase had been attributed to rising temperatures and higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "This is a pretty serious warning that warmer temperatures are not going to endlessly improve plant growth," said Steve Running of the University of Montana, who co-authored the study.

Satellite data indicate that, over the recent period, a continued increase in growth over the northern hemisphere has been offset by a decrease in the southern hemisphere, linked to drought. "This past decade's net decline in terrestrial productivity illustrates that a complex interplay between temperature, rainfall, cloudiness, and carbon dioxide, probably in combination with other factors such as nutrients and land management, will determine future patterns and trends in productivity," commented Diane Wickland at the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration.