1. United States
Harbor porpoises have made a comeback after the banning of gill netting in key coastal communities of California, new research shows. Gill nets are a cheap and effective way for commercial fishers to catch loads of sea bass and halibut by the gills, but they also wreak havoc on other species, including sea otters, some sea birds, and the lesser-known harbor porpoise. The latter exclusively lives in shallow waters. Being unable to detect the nylon mesh using echolocation, the porpoises would frequently drown after getting tangled in gill nets. Aerial surveys for harbor porpoises, which began in 1986, allowed researchers to identify and track four distinct porpoise populations off California’s coast as gill netting bans rolled out over the following decade. The latest assessment of that data shows the groups affected by gill netting have doubled their populations since the bans were put in place, and are now beginning to stabilize. It’s the first documented case
Kerry was among world leaders who converged virtually on the Netherlands for the summit seeking to galvanize more action and funding to adapt the planet and vulnerable communities to the effects of climate change.
“We saw the heat waves. We saw the fires. We saw the (melting) Arctic,” top NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said earlier this month about the effects of the warming. Adaptation is not an option, it is an urgent task for this generation and those to come,” Chile President Sebastián Piñera said in a video message.
The Netherlands-based Global Center on Adaptation last week called on governments and financers around the globe to include funding for adaptation projects in their COVID-19 recovery spending.
The African Development Bank plans to deploy billions of dollars to help young people build a new digitally-driven model of agriculture that can feed the continent’s people and boost prosperity even as the planet heats up, its president said.
At a global summit this week, the bank and the Global Centre on Adaptation announced an initiative to strengthen African efforts to become more resilient to extreme weather and rising seas, threats worsened by fast-accelerating climate change.
The African Development Bank plans to put half of its climate finance towards the initiative – $12.5 billion between now and 2025 – and raise an equal amount from donor governments, the private sector and international climate funds.
GLOBAL BUSINESS
African Dev Bank backs young ‘agripreneurs’ to beat climate change
Farmers harvest maize crop facilitated by the Safaricom DigiFarm App, that helps agribusinesses and small holding farmers to share information and transact easily, in Sigor village of Bomet County, Kenya. Photo: Reuters/FILE Reuters, Barcelona Reuters, Barcelona
The African Development Bank plans to deploy billions of dollars to help young people build a new digitally-driven model of agriculture that can feed the continent s people and boost prosperity even as the planet heats up, its president said.
At a global summit this week, the bank and the Global Center on Adaptation announced an initiative to strengthen African efforts to become more resilient to extreme weather and rising seas, threats worsened by fast-accelerating climate change.
INTERVIEW-African Development Bank backs young agripreneurs to beat climate change Reuters 1/29/2021
By Megan Rowling
BARCELONA, Jan 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The African Development Bank plans to deploy billions of dollars to help young people build a new digitally-driven model of agriculture that can feed the continent s people and boost prosperity even as the planet heats up, its president said.
At a global summit this week, the bank and the Global Center on Adaptation announced an initiative to strengthen African efforts to become more resilient to extreme weather and rising seas, threats worsened by fast-accelerating climate change.
The African Development Bank plans to put half of its climate finance towards the initiative - $12.5 billion between now and 2025 - and raise an equal amount from donor governments, the private sector and international climate funds.