A random round-up of climate change links to coincide with this week’s UN gabfest in Cancún An excellent overview on climate change adaptation from The Economist. Favourite quote? ‘The best starting point for adaptation is to be rich’. “The environmental issue in India has been seen to be largely an upper-middle class elitist issue. I believe that a larger number

Lured by its wonderful title, I’ve just been reading a new briefing about some successful adaptation work in Northeast Thailand. Here’s a summary: In 2007, farmers in Yasothorn Province, north-east Thailand, experienced the longest dry spell during a rainy season in decades. Yasothorn, one of the 10 poorest provinces in the country, is part of the ‘Weeping Plain’ named after

Cash will be king in the next few months as the crescendo of climate change negotiations builds to the big December summit in Copenhagen. In the words of Alf Wills, a South African negotiator, ‘no money, no deal’ (although European Commission President José Manuel Barroso is also credited with the soundbite). If developing countries are going to get anything like

The Asian Development Bank produces a remarkable amount of frequently high quality analysis. Here are two recent examples on climate change and the impact of the economic meltdown. On the meltdown, a recent ADB Economic Working Paper uses the latest national projections for growth and past poverty performance to refine the predicts that poverty across the whole of Asia will

For a chilling view of what is at stake in the climate change talks that culminate at Copenhagen this December, read a new report from the UK Institution of Mechanical Engineers (thanks to Cat Pettengell for pointing it out). (A similar doomsday tone is conveyed in the latest New Scientist cover story on what the world would look like with a