July 2023: we are living through Earth’s warmest three-week period on record. A round-the-world media tour to enter the narrative of the period that will mark the history of the climate change public discourse. At least until the next record is broken.
Europe’s “summer of hell” is impacting people, assets and the environment with exceptional intensity. Extreme weather and climate-related events lead to economic losses in different sectors. An overview of the estimates and projections of Europe’s economic toll from extreme climate events.
Land is a critical resource. It is under pressure from human activities and climate change, but it is also part of the solution. According to the IPCC, keeping global warming below 2°C can be possible only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors, including land and food. The way we use land impacts climate change and, in turn, climate change deeply affects our land.
Climate change and global warming affect humans, nature and the environment at a global scale. However, their impacts are often not equally and uniformly distributed. People living in Urban Heat Islands are more likely to experience higher levels of heat-related risks for their health, often enhancing existing social inequalities.
The human body can perceive a one-degree difference in air temperature, although most of us not aware of this sensitivity. Experiments conducted in EURAC climatic chambers contributes sheding light on the reasons why climate change awareness is so hard to reach and how psychology can offer new strategies to moderate heat stress. Because “we cannot talk about problems involving humans without understanding how humans work”. An interview with psychologist Laura Battistel.
A look into the future of water, justice and inequalities: 1.6 billion people without access to safe drinking water at home; 2.8 billion without safe sanitation services; 1.9 billion without basic handwashing. Water issues are making existing inequalities worse and there is no improvement in sight due to the expected impacts of climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines drought as “a period of abnormally dry weather long enough to cause a serious hydrological imbalance.” The definition is however flexible, as drought is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, whose impacts are influenced by social, economic, and environmental factors.
We know a lot about the crisis. We know that it is time to progress from understanding the problems to solving them. However, we also know that there is no perfect solution. It is a matter of shifting understanding and knowledge from science to society, from data to stories, from facts to solutions.
Accurate, timely, and reliable: the availability and management of information in an emergency are crucial to reduce damages and improve recovery efforts. With Chiara Menchise, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, we explore the world of information technologies applied to disaster risk reduction, including social media, remote sensing, satellite imageries and Artificial Intelligence.
It is the most intense tropical cyclone in terms of energy released by a tropical cyclone during its lifetime and the third-deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere: scientists at work with machine learning and climate intelligence to allowing an optimal response and preparedness to events like Freddy.
The year without a summer showed the world how volcanoes can affect climate with severe consequences on human societies and economies. Today – while climate deniers use eruptions as a tool with which to cloud the truth about anthropogenic causes of climate change – volcanoes remain important monitors of “our impacts on the climate (which) are so large they even have the potential to affect volcanic eruptions themselves”.
Available, accessible, safe. A set of tools and definitions to navigate the complex world of food security, a concept that has evolved constantly in the past decades, reflecting shifts in approach and point of view, and adapting to changes in international policy, environmental awareness, and scientific evidence.
