Topic: asia

The Mekong River Basin (MRB) Study provides details of the data, sources, methodology, and maps for 14 water-related indicators across the Mekong River Basin in Southeast Asia. The MRB Study is primarily designed for research organizations for analysis and research purposes.

This case study documents the issues related to accessing, processing, and applying climate information in order to help farming communities take robust, low-risk agricultural adaptation measures. The study focuses on central India’s Bundelkhand region, which straddles the provinces of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

The Nepalese government lacks crucial information and evidence necessary for climate change adaptation decision making. Despite this challenge, there has been significant movement around climate change adaptation in the country, most notably the successful development of the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) in September 2010 by the Ministry of Environment. This case study examines how Nepal’s NAPA process identified urgent and immediate priorities in a situation of significant data gaps and uncertainty.

By examining the HighNoon project in north India, this case study explores how adaptation-relevant information can best be packaged and disseminated to different users and audiences at the state, district, and block levels. It also explores what kinds of information are of most interest to various stakeholders and how different types of information can contribute to adaptation decision making.

Governments, businesses, and citizens in South Asia all need access to good information to make decisions in a changing climate. However, the uncertainty of climate change’s impacts, complexity associated with climate vulnerability, and the lengthy time-frame along which global warming will unfold make the “adaptation information agenda” unclear. This paper, which served as background for a South Asian regional workshop on information use in climate adaptation decision-making, aims to identify barriers to information use for climate adaptation in South Asia and proposes four areas of further inquiry, which were discussed at the workshop. Read more

The Open Climate Network (OCN) is an independent, international partnership that tracks and reports on the progress of key countries on climate change. OCN analysis is prepared by partners around the world covering climate finance, mitigation policy, and clean technology.

The story of the Chinese wind power industry is remarkable. From a small number of demonstration projects at the beginning of the century, the Chinese wind power market has grown to become the world’s largest. At the end of 2010, it overtook the United States to become the leader in terms of cumulative installed capacity. Even though China used to import 80% of its wind energy equipment, domestic manufacturing has exploded since 2006 and now supplies more than 70% of the domestic market. In 2010, China’s wind power market attracted investments of RMB 89 billion (US$14 billion) and employed over 150,000 people.

Bangladesh is afflicted by a multitude of natural hazards including tropical cyclones, tornadoes, tsunamis, drought, earthquakes, riverbank erosion, landslides, salinity intrusion and arsenic contamination. In an average year, roughly 10 million Bangladeshi citizens are affected by one or more such hazards, and their frequency and severity is projected to increase as a result of climate change. The impacts of these disasters are exacerbated by the fact that almost one third of the nation’s population lives below the poverty line and has little capacity to adapt.