Blog - S20 South Africa

3 July 2025

Experiencing extreme weather and disasters is not enough to change views on climate action, study shows

Source: https://theconversation.com/experiencing-extreme-weather-and-disasters-is-not-enough-to-change-views-on-climate-action-study-shows-260308

Climate change has made extreme weather events such as bushfires and floods more frequent and more likely in recent years, and the trend is expected to continue. These events have led to human and animal deaths, harmed physical and mental health, and damaged properties and infrastructure.

Will firsthand experience of these events change how people think and act about climate change, making it seem immediate and local rather than a distant or future problem?

CLIMATE CHANGE

2 July 2025

Global climate security atlas developed as tool to help prepare for the impacts of climate change

Source: https://phys.org/news/2025-07-global-climate-atlas-tool-impacts.html

Irina Marinov, associate professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Science, leads a research community focused on understanding global climate impacts, risks, and vulnerabilities to enable local action.

“The Global Climate Security Atlas is a place to start searching for answers,” says Marinov, associate professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Science and leader of the Environmental Innovations Initiative (EII) research community Global Climate Impacts, Risks, and Vulnerabilities.

Addressing climate impacts requires informed actions at local, national, and global levels. As a result, there is a growing demand for data visualization tools that can help navigate information related to climate science, its impacts, and potential solutions.

CLIMATE CHANGE

2 July 2025

Green Climate Fund and UNEP boost climate adaptation with USD 120 million for new projects

Source: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/green-climate-fund-and-unep-boost-climate-adaptation-usd-120-million

Port Moresby, 2 July 2025 – The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has approved over USD 120 million in new funding to strengthen climate resilience in Ghana, the Maldives, and Mauritania. At the request of the three countries, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) developed these projects to help vulnerable communities anticipate and adapt to increasingly severe impacts of climate change through nature-based solutions, climate-resilient agriculture, early warning systems and improved water security.

Henry Gonzalez, Chief Investment Officer of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), said: “The approval of these projects demonstrates how GCF is supporting country ownership of national climate action priorities in Ghana, Maldives, and Mauritania. These investments will positively impact key areas of climate resilience in all three countries.”

CLIMATE CHANGE

2 July 2025

Uncertainty in climate change and climate action

Source: https://www.unescap.org/blog/uncertainty-climate-change-and-climate-action#

There is broad consensus on certain aspects of climate change – the “certainties”. These include rising global temperatures, increasing sea levels, and shifting weather patterns. These also include hard evidence that the multifaceted socio-economic impacts of climate change, though vary significantly across regions and countries, are predominantly negative.

However, as ESCAP’s Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2025 argues, beyond these broader points of agreement lies a far more complex reality – a world of uncertainty. This is the world in which people live, and where most economic activity and climate action unfold. Disagreement is rife, and consensus is rare. Will global temperatures rise by 2°C or 3°C by the end of this century? Will sea levels increase by 40 or 80 centimetres by then? How drastically will rainfall patterns shift? How severe the impact will be on economic output, growth and productivity?

CLIMATE CHANGE

2 July 2025

Scientists show how smarter flight decisions could help fight climate change

Source: https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/5381494-flights-fight-climate-change-aviation/

A team of University of California (UC) researchers say they have developed a tool that could help steer the aviation sector toward making smarter decisions when it comes to climate-related impacts.

The Global Warming per Activity tool, highlighted Wednesday in the journal Nature, measures how long and how strongly each aviation activity affects the atmosphere — whether that activity lasts hours or a century.

CLIMATE CHANGE

2 July 2025

Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/02/droughts-worldwide-pushing-tens-millions-starvation-report

Drought is pushing tens of millions of people to the edge of starvation around the world, in a foretaste of a global crisis that is rapidly deepening with climate breakdown.

More than 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa are facing extreme hunger after record-breaking drought across many areas, ensuing widespread crop failures and the death of livestock. In Somalia, a quarter of the population is now edging towards starvation, and at least a million people have been displaced.

CLIMATE CHANGE

1 July 2025

Climate change is changing the geography of infectious disease

Source: https://www.france24.com/en/environment/20250701-climate-change-changing-geography-of-infectious-disease-environment-global-warming

Europe is unusually hot. Several cities in France have been placed on an ‘unprecedented’ high alert on Tuesday, Spain recorded a scorching high of 46 degrees Celsius on Monday while wildfires in Turkey caused by a heatwave have forced more than 50,000 people to be evacuated from five regions in the western province of Izmir.

While the heat is uncharacteristically strong, extreme weather is no longer a surprise. Science agrees that climate change caused by steadily increasing greenhouse emissions has been the primary factor for the scorching new reality that the world is forced to adapt to, be it heatwaves, floods, droughts or extreme cold.

CLIMATE CHANGE

11 June 2025

African women entrepreneurs are a smart bet for climate change investment: research shows why

Source: https://theconversation.com/african-women-entrepreneurs-are-a-smart-bet-for-climate-change-investment-research-shows-why-252821

Women in Africa are often framed as especially vulnerable to climate change. Our earlier research suggested that women entrepreneurs often face a “triple differential vulnerability” to climate risk compared to men.

What we mean is that there are three possible reasons for their additional vulnerability. First, their livelihoods are often in climate sensitive sectors. Second, they face additional barriers to accessing resources for adaptation in the business environment – such as finance, new adaptation technologies and markets for climate smart goods and services. Last, they also hold primary responsibility for managing climate risk at the household level.

CLIMATE CHANGE

2 June 2025

Climate change is threatening the sexual health of young adolescents in Kenya

Source: https://www.aidsmap.com/news/jun-2025/climate-change-threatening-sexual-health-young-adolescents-kenya

Climate change is worsening sexual and reproductive health risks for young adolescents in Kenya, according to a recent study published in BMJ Global Health. Children aged 10 to 14 are facing rising threats as food, water, and sanitation insecurities contribute to sexual violence, transactional sex, and exploitative relationships − factors closely linked to unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.

“The adolescent has sex with the boy just to get one kangumu (half-cake) so that she can add to what the mother gave her. The boy will leave the girl and go to another and another. And in that state, they end up contracting the disease that causes cervical cancer… HPV… And all that is caused by the drought.” − Female elder, Naivasha

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CLIMATE CHANGE

2 June 2025

Nearly 40% of the world’s glaciers are already doomed, scientists say

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/02/climate/worlds-glaciers-future-study-intl-scli

The world’s glaciers are in dire health with almost 40% of their total mass already doomed, even if global temperatures stopped rising immediately, a new study has found.

Researchers estimate glaciers will eventually lose 39% of their mass relative to 2020, a trend that is already irreversible no matter what comes next and will likely contribute a 113-millimeter increase to global sea level rise.

S20 South Africa

Experiencing extreme weather and disasters is not enough to change views on climate action, study shows

Global climate security atlas developed as tool to help prepare for the impacts of climate change

Green Climate Fund and UNEP boost climate adaptation with USD 120 million for new projects

Uncertainty in climate change and climate action

Scientists show how smarter flight decisions could help fight climate change

Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report

Climate change is changing the geography of infectious disease

African women entrepreneurs are a smart bet for climate change investment: research shows why

Climate change is threatening the sexual health of young adolescents in Kenya

Nearly 40% of the world’s glaciers are already doomed, scientists say

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