Environment and natural resources
Climate change
Warmer oceans bringing more severe tropical cyclones to land
Human-caused climate change has made certain typhoons more frequent and severe. Tropical cyclones can cause devastating and lethal damage to East and Southeast Asian countries. But accurately tracking changes in the frequency and intensity of typhoons is challenging in part because the data on these storms hasn’t ...
Provinces prepare for worst amid downpour
With the rainy season in full swing, authorities in Oddar Meanchey and Kampong Thom provinces are taking measures to cope with flooding that has resulted from three straight days of downpour. Chea Piseth, spokesman for Oddar Meanchey Provincial Hall, on September 14 said that National Road 67A ...
Climate change adaptation project launched to sustain wetlands
A project valued at US$4.7 million was launched on September 12 in Vientiane, aiming to help communities in and around the Xe Champhone, and Beung Khiat Ngong wetlands to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s Department of Environmental Quality ...
Why natural gas is a bridge fuel to nowhere
For decades, coal-fired power dominated the U.S. energy supply—and was a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. But a combination of factors including cheap natural gas, stronger pollution controls, increasing investment in renewable power and improved energy efficiency have pushed coal’s share of the energy market ...
Domestic firms step up efforts to cut emissions
Domestic energy-consuming companies will get the chance to improve their core competitiveness and sustainable development ability, but still face many challenges after China and the US ratified the Paris climate deal, experts said on September 11. China and the US, the world’s two largest emitters of ...
How to increase REDD+ benefits to indigenous peoples and other traditional forest communities
To meet the target of limiting global warming to 2-degrees-Celsius established in the Paris Climate Agreement, it is crucial to curb tropical deforestation and encourage the reforestation of tropical forests that have already been cut down. Not only is tropical deforestation and forest degradation the source ...
Ocean warming is “greatest hidden challenge of our generation,” according to IUCN
Global warming is changing Earth’s oceans and those impacts will last for decades even if we rein in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, according to new research. A report released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on September 5 finds that the effects of ...
Melting glaciers may impact hydropower plans
The World Water Week has put the focus back into shrinking glaciers but the jury is still out on the impacts they will have on the flow in snow-fed rivers and hydropower generation. Glaciers are retreating due to climate change. What does that mean for water ...
Climate change could cause rice prices to nearly double by 2030: study
Climate change is threatening the Cambodian rice industry, and it is marginalised communities that will be worst affected unless the government takes action, according to a new study. The study’s authors, Sokuntheavy Hong and Jun Furuya, took historical climatic, socioeconomic and rice-yield data as their benchmark, ...
Human-induced climate change began earlier than previously thought
Signs of warming appear as early as 1830 say researchers, whose analysis will help build accurate baseline of temperature before influence of human activity. Continents and oceans in the northern hemisphere began to warm with industrial-era fossil fuel emissions nearly 200 years ago, pushing back the ...
