Scientific Program| Climate | Environment

Climate change: How mountain communities are scaling new heights

2025-04-28 - 2025-04

Mountain residents relying on family farming are among the world’s poorest people, said the agency’s Director-General Qu Dongyu.

Speaking at the International Conference of the Global Mountain Dialogue for Sustainable Development in Bishkek, the FAO chief explained that many alpine people struggle with food insecurity, as climate change, environmental degradation and unsustainable use of resources make it harder to access clean water, food and fertile soils.

Mountain communities, the stewards of mountain resources, have great potential for climate-resilient development.
Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian nation that is home to some of the world’s most diverse and significant mountain ecosystems, is gearing up to host a Global Mountain Summit in 2027.

How 50 years of climate change has changed the face of the 'Blue Marble' from space

2025-04-25 - 2025-04

"I'll tell you," said astronaut Harrison Schmitt as the Apollo 17 hurtled towards the Moon, "if there ever was a fragile-appearing piece of blue in space, it's the Earth right now".It was Thursday 7 December 1972, that humanity got its first look at our planet as a whole. In that moment, the photograph "The Blue Marble" was taken – one which changed the way we saw our world.
"I can see the lights of southern California, Bob," said Schmitt to ground control about one and a half hours into the flight. "Man's field of stars on the Earth is competing with

Militaries must adapt to climate change or risk being left behind, say experts

2025-04-23 - 2025-04

From responding to weather disasters to rising competition in the fast-warming Arctic, militaries are exposed to climate change and cannot let it become a strategic “blind spot”, security experts say.
Concerns have grown recently that climate action is being sidelined as Europe beefs up defence and the US retreats from allies and its green commitments.
But defence departments have already underscored that a warming planet poses major national security challenges, and militaries need to adapt to respond to these evolving threats.

Bleeding the planet dry Climate change could unlock new threat to the world's blood supply

2025-04-22 - 2025-04

Climate change might impact the supply and demand chain when it comes to blood transfusions, a new study has found.
Researchers from Red Cross Lifeblood and the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) in Australia believe that blood-borne diseases as well as natural disasters are likely to disturb current patterns.
"As well as limiting the mobility of large numbers of people, these events disrupt the storage, safety, and transportation of blood which has a short shelf life," Dr Elvina Viennet, one of the researchers behind the study, said in a statement.

How climate change could affect arsenic in rice

2025-04-21 - 2025-04

Rice is a staple food for more than half of the global population. It is consumed on a daily basis by more people than either wheat or maize, also known as corn.

So it is with some concern that scientists have unveiled a recent finding: that as carbon emissions rise and the Earth continues to warm, so too will arsenic levels in rice The presence of arsenic in rice has long been known as a problem. Almost all rice contains arsenic. The harmful, naturally occurring chemical can accumulate in the soil of paddy fields, leaching into the grains of rice grown there. But the amounts found in rice grains can vary considerably from well below the recommended limits set by regulatory bodies to several times higher.

Climate change is not just a problem of physics but a crisis of justice

2025-04-19 - 2025-04

When I first began my research, most scientists claimed that these questions couldn’t be answered. There were technical reasons for this: for a long time, researchers had no weather models capable of mapping all climate-related processes in sufficient detail. But there were other reasons that had less to do with the research itself.
Let’s imagine extreme flooding in Munich, Rome or London and heavy rainfall in the slums of Durban on the South African coast. How the people in these various places experience this extreme weather depends on the local economic and social conditions and, fundamentally, on their political situation.

Forest knowledge of Maharashtra’s Mahadev Koli tribe can help fight climate change: study

2025-04-17 - 2025-04

The Mahadev Koli tribe, an indigenous forest-dwelling community from Maharashtra’s North Western Ghats, remains largely absent from mainstream environmental discussions. However, a new study highlights the tribe’s rich reservoir of medicinal and ecological knowledge, expertise that could be vital in strengthening global climate resilience.

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