The point is setting priorities right, and for an agency like the World Food Programme, our focus is of course vulnerable people in the most vulnerable countries, countries where climate change is a multiplier of hunger risk. –- WFP’s Carlo Scaramella, in the fifth in a series of video interviews.
It’s terribly important that those who provide climate services are backed up by science and most importantly, link with and understand the problems of the user community. – says John Zillman, former president of the World Meteorological Organization, in the fourth in a series of video interviews.
“We need climate information to be able to see disasters coming ahead of time, not just hours, but also weeks, months, and even decades in terms of trends.” — Maarten Van Aalst, the Director of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre talks about the importance of climate services for humanitarian operations planning and preparedness, for the third in a series of video interviews.
“But we unfortunately are in one of the areas in which climate prediction is very difficult because we’re in the middle of two big oceans, and on the fringe between the interaction of Northern Hemisphere systems and Southern Hemisphere systems.” — Costa Rica’s Patricia Ramirez on the value of shared climate services across Central America for risk assessments in agriculture, health and other sectors.
“I think we have to get a lot more humble about what we can do with our science, and what is actually going to be useful with our science.” — US AID’s Edward Carr talks about the importance of climate services to local communities, for the first in a series of video interviews.
Climate scientist Simon Mason talks about the drought and the role of climate information in disaster preparedness and response.
A side event hosted by the IRI at this year’s U.N. climate conference will discuss a new Climate Services Partnership.
Video Short: IRI’s Madeleine Thomson discusses the short- and long-term health risks of the East Africa famine
In our latest video interview, climate scientist Tufa Dinku talks about his work on combining weather station data with satellite information to generate high-resolution data sets. These data could be used for making more accurate forecasts and can feed into other climate risk management activities, such as early-warning systems. With funding from Google.org, Dinku and [...]
Research economist Dan Osgood discusses index insurance and how it is helping some poor rural communities reduce hardships caused by drought in East Africa.
State of the Planet is a forum for discussion on varying viewpoints. The opinions expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Earth Institute or Columbia University.
