Climate Change

One of INESAD’s specialties is to work together with the Bolivian Government and donors to facilitate the design of effective, efficient, and equitable development policies and projects in Bolivia. We are pleased to announce the latest example of this.

INESAD is currently partnering with the Danish Embassy to help them work with the government to formulate the Program for Integral and Sustainable Management of Forests and Energy in Bolivia for the period 2014-2018. This Program supports the Joint Mechanism of Mitigation and Adaptation for the Integral and Sustainable Management of Forests and Mother Earth with about US $26 million. It will also support the development of renewable energy sources in order to reduce the use of highly subsidized and contaminating diesel for the generation of energy in northern Bolivia. Read More »

Welcome to the April 2013 edition of Bolivia Climate Change Monthly where you will find the latest research, policy and news related to climate change in Bolivia*.

Accessing adaptation: Multiple stressors on livelihoods in the Bolivian highlands under a changing climate by Julia McDowell and Jeremy Hess, published in Global Environmental Change.

Current state of knowledge regarding South America wetlands and their future under global climate change by Wolfgang Junk, published in Aquatic Sciences.

An International Network on Climate Change Impacts on Small Farmers in the Tropical Andes – Global Conventions from a Local Perspective by Andre Linder, published in Sustainable Agriculture Research. Read More »

Does climate change exist and are humans to blame is a question that still manages to liven up many a dinner conversation. Believers can be short on facts and figures to be quoted in the face of deniers who tend to distrust the science, the politicians, and the activists. Luckily, Mother Jones has a secret weapon: A light-hearted flowchart that can be used as a handy cheat sheet to help put the matter to rest: Read More »

The world’s farming and transportation sectors are some of the biggest contributors to global warming and climate change since they emit around 14 percent of total global greenhouse gases each. Emissions are counted mainly from agricultural production and from the fossil fuels burned in road, air and sea freight, respectively. However, the two are also increasingly interlinked because of rapid growth of international trade in agricultural goods—such as foods, natural fibers and bio-fuels—over the last few decades. Agriculture’s impact on atmospheric pollution is rising because of the energy needed to move agricultural products between more and more countries around the world.

In theory, international trade is a good thing because it can reduce the price of goods for consumers and increase sales for producers, making everyone better off. However, this is a purely economic perspective that does not take important environmental issues into consideration. While goods will always continue to flow across national borders, if we are serious about reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and halting climate change, then we need to make sure that they do so in the most environmentally sound way possible. Read More »

Throughout the months of November and December, Development Roast will share with you a series of INESAD Live Research updates on how different institutions and individuals are rallying behind the call for green growth by trying to integrate the environment in national and sectoral accounting calculations. In Part I we discussed how the governments of Latin America are experimenting with green accounting. Today, we complete the two part live research update by taking a look at other efforts making the environment count in the region.

Where there is a dearth of government resources to compile green accounts (see our previous discussion of theory behind the techniques involved), international organizations, universities, and independent research institutions often fill the gap. Some environmental accounting studies are limited to calculating environmental costs of specific industries like logging in the Brazilian Amazon and mining in Chile. Others, like the Institute of Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)’s Bolivia’s green national accounts, take on the entire economy. Read More »

I tend to get pretty down after reading many economic, international development and environmental books—factual, fiction or otherwise. If you do not know what I mean, I highly recommend reading Daniel Quinn’s 1992 novel Ishmael. Set up as a conversation between a teacher and student, where the former happens to be a hyper-intelligent, talking gorilla, the book slowly takes the reader through environmental philosophy on how we have managed to get ourselves into the present day environmental mess. Read More »

Today there are 8 billion human beings, speaking around 7000 different languages, sharing the Earth with 8 millions different species of plants and animals. This is the amazing diversity of life on our planet, which is sadly under threat from deeds of large-scale environmental damage. Some are calling these ‘acts of ecocide’ and fighting for them to be punishable by international criminal law.

The word ‘ecocide’ is derived from the Greek oikos (dwelling place, habitation) and the Latin -cida (one who kills). A legal definition, proposed by international barrister Polly Higgins in her campaign Eradicating Ecocide is “the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished.” Read More »

To coincide with INESAD’s November Environmental Sustainability month, today’s Monday Graphics series is investigating pollution and sustainable innovations in Latin America.

The first infographic, entitled Pollution in Latin America, was compiled by Hispanically Speaking News using reports from the Economist Intelligence Unit, Yale and Columbia University, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), to show how pollution is affecting Latin America. In addition to illustrating the health hazards of pollution, such as the two million deaths a year attributed to it, countries like Nicaragua and Costa Rica are exemplified as countries heading towards environmental improvement. In fact, along with ranking fifth globally for its positive treatment of the environment, Costa Rica ranks first in a recent Happy Planet Index released by the New Economics Foundation, which measures how happy people are in relation to their ecological footprint. Read More »

As part of a new Weekend Links series, Development Roast brings to you the following Press Release, originally published earlier this year, by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) describing a study that shows direct connections between climate change and diabetes.

IDF has launched its pioneering Diabetes and Climate Change Report to the backdrop of the United Nations’ Rio+20 meeting on sustainable development. Written by global experts from the health and environment sectors, the Report calls for greater policy alignment to mitigate the risks of type 2 diabetes and climate change. The Report also identifies direct linkages between diabetes and climate change. It urges governments to put both these issues at the heart of sustainable development and to adopt a unified response. Read More »

To coincide with INESAD’s November Environmental Sustainability month, today’s Monday Graphics series is making a case for the worth of stable ecosystems.

 Assessing Forest Growth and Air Quality.

         The first infographic based on a UN Seminar on Energy for Sustainable Development conducted in 2011, despite the increase in Europe’s paper production over the past 20 years, forest growth has exceeded the harvest of forest goods by 45 percent. This translates to an increase in air quality as un-harvested forests provide valuable ecosystem services such as carbon capture. Read More »