Environment and natural resources
Climate change
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 ...
Battambang rice-farming families fear floods
About 40,000 Battambang rice-farming families already suffering steep losses from a severe drought are at risk of seeing their crops wiped out entirely by devastating floods as late seasonal rains start to kick in. A drought that meteorologists have blamed on the tail-end of an El ...
China promises to shore up border as foreign minister’s trip ends
Foreign Minister Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has ended her five-day trip to China, returning to Yangon on August 21st. The visit, which came after an invitation from China’s Premier Li Keqiang, was Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s first major overseas trip since the National League ...
China’s three parallel rivers national park threatened by illegal mining
China’s best preserved forests in south-west China’s Yunnan province are under threat from illegal mining, according to a new report. The study by Greenpeace shows mining and industry activity in the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan protected area is destroying pristine forests in one of the world’s most biodiverse regions. ...
ADB sells $1.3 billion in global green bonds to spur climate financing
The Asian Development Bank has raised $1.3 billion to help finance climate change mitigation and adaptation projects with the issue of dual-tranche 3-year and 10-year green bonds, following its inaugural green bond issue in 2015. Last year, ADB announced that it will double its annual climate ...
Southerners have new jobs thanks to rising levels of seawater
Sea water rise and saline intrusion have damaged crops this year, but they have offered opportunities for farmers to breed shrimp on rice fields. According to the Ca Mau provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, at first, when farmers began trying to breed shrimp, the ...
River of change: hydropower dams and the Mekong River’s uncertain future
From the snowy plateaus of Tibet to the mountain gorges of China’s Yunnan province and beyond to the jungled borders of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and down to the plains of Cambodia and paddy fields of Vietnam – the Mekong River is of crucial importance to ...
As clouds head for the poles, time to prepare for food and water shocks
A changing climate means less rain and lower water supplies in regions where many people live and much of the planet’s food is produced: the mid-latitudes of the Northern and Southern hemispheres, including the U.S. Southwest, southern Europe and parts of the Middle East, southern ...
The business of achieving the sustainable development goals
By 2030, poverty and hunger should be history, every human being should have access to clean energy, and the impacts of climate change should be reduced. These are just three of the 17 promises the global community made last September when it adopted the Sustainable Development ...
