Four years after its first workshop held in Bonn, 2009, which led to the publication “The Role of Ecosystems in Disaster Risk Reduction” (2013), the Partnership for Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction (PEDRR), the Centre for Natural Resources and Development (CNRD) and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) is inviting researchers, policy makers and practitioners to a Science-Policy workshop to share success stories and discuss how the science and evidence-base of ecosystem-based DRR/CCA could more effectively inform and influence development decisions.

El Programa UE FAO para la Aplicación de las leyes, gobernanza y comercio forestales (Programa UE FAO FLEGT) ahora acepta propuestas de proyectos de instituciones gubernamentales, organizaciones del sector privado y de la sociedad civil en los países elegibles productores de madera que no estén comprometidos en un AVA. Se pondrán a disposición subvenciones de hasta 100 000 EUR a través de esta convocatoria.

As the first part of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which deals with the physical science of climate change, is launched this week (30 January), SciDev.Net speaks to Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, the panel’s chair, about science and the climate policy challenges ahead.

While the private sector brings much needed know-how to REDD+ there are challenges about how investments in ecosystem-based commodities — such as carbon in trees — will play out. To assess the ways in which the private sector has already engaged with REDD+, Marisa Camargo at the University of Helsinki and I studied 115 projects in 33 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Mediante la firma de un convenio llevada a cabo en la sede de CAF -banco de desarrollo de América Latina- en Caracas, el Gobierno de la República Federal de Alemania otorga a la institución financiera la posibilidad de obtener del KfW, banco de desarrollo alemán, préstamos en términos concesionales por un total de 285 millones de Euros. Este monto se suma a las líneas de crédito que ha aprobado el KfW a CAF por más de USD 800 millones en los últimos 10 años.

With the energy and fiscal reforms passed, the industry will come together to discuss the next steps for solar, wind, geothermal and all renewable energy sources in Mexico and Central America. Following a highly successful MIREC2013, the event returns with an exclusive focus on the regulatory, fiscal and technological news in the sector. With600 attendees in 2013 we plan to expand on this for the 3rd annual event in 2014. 

The Mexican International Renewable Energy Congressis Mexico's leading renewable energy event, focused exclusively on the Mexican Wind and Solar industries

Costa Rica's great experiment with payments for ecosystem services helped restore millions of hectares of forest and shaped the nation into a laboratory for climate mitigation mechanisms. Costa Rica is now establishing a domestic carbon market with plans to link it to international markets in the future-all as part of its plan to become carbon neutral by 2021.

The constitution, which has been widely acclaimed as one of the most progressive in the region, obliges the state to “contribute to the protection of the climate … for future generations.” 

“Through policy reforms, we can divest and tax that which we don’t want, the carbon that threatens development gains over the last 20 years,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in an address at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland.

Ban Ki-moon, theUnited Nations secretary general, on Friday called on banks and other financial companies to increase financing for development of sustainable energy sources and businesses with low carbon footprints.

The new centre will be officially opened by the EU commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard, on 7 February 2014, and will be embedded in the Technical University of Denmark’s Lyngby campus – 15 kilometres north of Copenhagen.

In a whirlwind of events at the World Economic Forum in Davos todaySecretary-General Ban Ki-moon highlighted the vital need for Governments, business and civil society to cooperate whether in erasing gender inequality and harnessing “girl power” to reach development goals, combatting climate change, or eliminating hunger.