WHO has released a first set of Climate Change and Health Country Profiles that provide a snapshot of up-to-date information about the current and future impacts of climate change on human health. The Climate and Health Country Profile project is an ongoing initiative that supports interested WHO Member States in finalising country profiles through a country consultation process.

This report entitled “Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 from a Climate Perspective” is the fourth in a series of annual reports published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  It provides an assessment of how climate change may have affected the strength and likelihood of individual extreme events.

Following up on the 2nd Webinar of the Climate Change Urban Food Initiative “Food, Climate change and the City” the presentations of the three speakers Tara Garnett (FCRN), Jane Battersby-Lennard (University of Cape Town) and Matthew Thomas (Greater London Authority) are now available online here.

This new report “Planetary Health: Safeguarding Human Health in the Anthropocene Epoch” launched by The Rockefeller Foundation - Lancet Commission argues that changing environmental conditions such as increased carbon dioxide emissions, rampant use of fertilizer and the acidification of the oceans could lead to major health challenges for millions of people. Increasing population, unsustainable consumption and production and the over-exploitation of natural resources are also factors straining the planet's resources and having an impact on human health. 

Tracking intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs):  what are the implications for greenhouse gas emissions in 2030? is the title of a policy paper produced by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at London School of Economics and Political Science.  Parties to the UNFCCC agreed to set out their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) at the 20th Conference of the Parties (COP20) in Lima, Peru, in December 2014. The policy paper, which is intended to inform decision-makers in the public, private and third sectors, considers whether the INDCs submitted so far are consistent with the 2°C limit.

This report is the result of the work of a Taskforce of academics, industry and policy experts commissioned to examine the resilience of the global food system to extreme weather. The summary report is built on three detailed reports: Climate and global production shocks (Annex A); Review of the responses to production shocks (Annex B) and the Country-level impacts of global grain production shocks (Annex C). The report concludes that the global food system is vulnerable to production shocks caused by extreme weather, and that this risk is growing. It suggests that climate change and a growing population will increase the likelihood of food "shocks" - where the production of staple crops such as rice, wheat and soybean fall by 5-7%, arguing that it will triple in likelihood in just 25 years. The preliminary analysis of limited existing data suggests that the risk of a 1-in-100 year production shock is likely to increase to 1-in-30 or more by 2040.

In a survey carried out by the International Trade Centre, ITC exporters reveal widespread concerns about reduced competitiveness due to climate change. Based on surveys of exporting firms in both Peru and Uganda, the new publication, Climate Change and the Agri-Food Trade: Perceptions of Exporters in Peru and Uganda, identifies threats arising from climate change and seeks to develop solutions to help the agriculture sector adapt.  The publication concludes that climate change makes existing challenges in the agri-food sector even more difficult to overcome, and argues that it is already having a highly negative impact on competitiveness.

This article from Nature Climate Change discusses a research project that investigates the impacts of both traditional and transitioning Indian diets on the climate. Funded by Wellcome Trust, the goal is to obtain a detailed picture of what people are eating throughout India and calculate both the climate and health impacts of different types of diets.