© UNFPA, WEDO14 October 2009: The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), together with the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), has launched a resource kit on climate change connections, focusing on gender and population and advocating that women are uniquely positioned as innovators, educators, caretakers, leaders and agents of change to address the risks of a changing climate.

The resource kit provides policy guidance, finance and adaptation plans, advocacy tools and best practices related to increasing educational opportunities for girls, economic opportunities for women, and access to reproductive health and family planning, recognizing their role in reducing vulnerability to climate change. Women, population and climate change are the focus of the UNFPA's flagship report, State of World Population, to be released on 18 November 2009. UNFPA Resource Kit: Climate Change Connections - Gender and Population https://www.unfpa.org/public/site/global/lang/en/pid/4028

LEAD Africa, supported by the Royal Danish Embassy and COP 15, has just released a new report “Leading the way: A role for regional institutions” around African leadership on climate change that can be downloaded at the LeadInAfrica.org Website

By : Clive Mutunga and Karen Hardee

This paper reviews 41 National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) submitted by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and identifies the range of interventions included in countries’ priority adaptation actions. The review found near-universal recognition among the NAPAs of the importance of population considerations as a central pillar in climate change adaptation.

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

Drylands cover 41 percent of the earth’s terrestrial surface. The urgency of and international response to climate change have given a new place to drylands in terms both of their vulnerability to predicted climate change impacts and their potential contribution to climate change mitigation. This book aims to apply the new scientific insights on complex dryland systems to practical options for development. A new dryland paradigm is built on the resources and capacities of dryland peoples, on new and emergent economic opportunities, on inward investment, and on the best support that dryland science can offer.

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

Key policy advice from World Development Report 2010 and Making Development Climate Resilient: A World Bank Strategy for
Sub-Saharan Africa - Act Now, Act Together, Act Differently

"Over the past ten years, Sub-Saharan Africa has made a great deal of progress in terms of economic growth. In fact, Africa has the potential to emerge as an exciting new center of growth in the evolving global economy. However, to continue on an accelerated growth path, the region needs to tackle climate variability and climate change, which now pose a daunting risk to growth, development, and poverty reduction. Climate is hardly a new factor in the region's history, but with global warming, Africa's vulnerability is deepening, making it the most exposed region in the world to the impacts of climate change. The hard-won progress of recent years could be reversed with extreme weather, crop failures, and outbreaks of hunger and disease."

Attempts to clarify the relationship between adaptation and development by analyzing 135 projects, policies, and other initiatives from the developing world that have been labeled by implementers or researchers as "adaptation to climate change." Confusion about the relationship between adaptation and development has meant that funding mechanisms may create redundancies or leave gaps in the landscape of critical adaptation and development activities.

Drawing on Internet resources, Weathering the Storm attempts to clarify this relationship by analyzing 135 projects, policies, and other initiatives from the developing world that have been labeled by implementers or researchers as "adaptation to climate change."

Planet Action provides satellite imagery, geographic information and technology support to local projects that investigate and assess climate change issues focusing on human issues, drought & desertification, water resources, forestry, biodiversity,
oceans, ice, and awareness. This year, Planet Action will support additional projects while following up on current projects
and their results on the ground. Planet Action supports projects involved at least in one of the following domains:

• Awareness

• Biodiversity & Conservation
• Drought & Desertification
• Human Issues
• Forest & Deforestation
• Ice & Snow
• Oceans & Coastlines
• Water Resources

AIDS and climate change (CC) are two of the most important "long wave" global issues of the recent past, the present and the future. They share similarities, interactions, and present possibilities for a more united response. Yet these links have received little analysis. This paper seeks to address that gap. It first focuses on scientific issues, identifying major, minor, and speculative pathways by which AIDS and CC are likely to interact. These interactions are, here, called the HIV and Climate Change Complex (HACC).

This paper focuses on the impact of climate change on water resources and the affect it has on human society. Millions of people are at risk from the impacts of climate change associated with the socio-political dimensions of global change and demographic changes.

A model to link the climate and social sciences is developed in a policy-oriented approach to make a holistic assessment of human vulnerability to climate and other drivers of social change. The Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) uses water as a focus as it is a key factor of human and ecological well-being. Though it is not a new concept, it has been developed to encompass variations within countries and it is not limited to specific communities.

The publication warns that the UN negotiations aimed at tackling climate change are based on substantial underestimates of what it will cost to adapt to its impacts. The real costs of adaptation are likely to be 2-3 times greater than estimates made by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Professor Martin Parry, a former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and his co-authors look at the estimates from a range of perspectives, and conclude that:

• the current cost assessments do not include some key sectors, such as ecosystems, energy, manufacturing, retailing, and tourism

• some of the sectors included have been only partially covered in cost estimates