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The document examines Durban's 'learning-by-doing' approach to climate adaptation through its Municipal Climate Protection Programme (MCPP). It highlights that sector-specific Municipal Adaptation Plans (MAPs) for water, waste, and disaster management were more effective at driving action than high-level integrated strategies. The city's efforts include making its 75,000 ha open space system 'climate smart', testing community-level food security and reforestation projects, and implementing urban management pilots like green roofs. The text emphasizes the need for direct adaptation funding for local governments, arguing that while climate causes are global, impacts and necessary actions are local.

The document highlights a gap in policy attention toward slow-onset climate processes in Latin America and the Caribbean, despite the region's experience with extreme weather. It calls for integrated risk-management approaches and international cooperation to address loss and damage, noting similar challenges in Asia and the Pacific.

The document consists of personal reflections from CDKN staff and partners on the impact of Professor Saleemul Huq (1952-2023). It highlights his role as a champion of climate justice, his commitment to mentoring young climate professionals, and his advocacy for southern leadership and locally-led adaptation. Contributors emphasize his generosity, his ability to center the voices of the 'majority world' in global climate negotiations, and his instrumental role in creating learning events such as the Community-based Adaptation (CBA) conference and Gobeshona.

The document highlights South Asia's vulnerability to climate change and criticizes developed nations for attempting to shift the burden of mitigation through offsets and Carbon Capture and Storage. It details India's eight national climate missions, including ambitious solar power targets and energy efficiency schemes, while noting that India's dependency on coal could be reduced from a 'business as usual' projection of 69.5% to 57.7% under a low-carbon strategy. The author emphasizes that after 2020, India will exhaust 'low hanging' options, necessitating revolutionary technology and drastic emission reductions in industrialized countries based on the principle of equity.

The report argues that for climate change actions to be successfully implemented, they must be integrated into national planning and finance regimes rather than remaining isolated within environment ministries. It presents ten propositions across three domains: policy and planning effectiveness, institutional effectiveness, and resource effectiveness. Evidence from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru, and Uganda suggests that while policy frameworks are generally supportive, challenges remain regarding institutional capacity, inter-agency coordination, and the transparency of NDC financing.

The report argues that gender-sensitive approaches lead to more sustainable climate compatible development by recognizing the distinct needs of men and women and addressing power imbalances. Using case studies from urban areas in India, Kenya, and Peru, it finds that women's active participation in decision-making improves the effectiveness of resilience-building activities, such as water and sanitation projects. However, the report notes that significant obstacles remain, including patriarchal cultural norms, lack of political will, and limited women's access to land and financial assets. It emphasizes that gender equality must be an explicit goal from the start of a project to move beyond addressing practical needs toward transforming strategic power relations.

This policy brief describes the Global Islands’ Vulnerability Research Adaptation Policy and Development (GIVRAPD) Project, an interdisciplinary research initiative focused on understanding the socioeconomic, governance, and environmental factors that influence the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of small and medium-sized coastal communities in Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

This policy brief from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network argues that climate change adaptation in the Caribbean is fundamentally a governance challenge requiring a multi-level approach. It advocates for the creation of networks and hybrid partnerships between state and non-state actors to bridge jurisdictional scales and sectors, using case studies from St. Lucia and Jamaica to illustrate how community-based organizations and public-private partnerships can enhance adaptive capacity.

The Caribbean Climate Online Risk and Adaptation TooL (CCORAL) is a web-based system developed by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre to help government officials and other organisations embed climate resilience into their decision-making. Part of the Caribbean Risk Management Project, the tool supports the goals of the Regional Framework for Achieving Development Resilient to Climate Change and the associated Implementation Plan. It aims to promote 'no-regret' actions and flexible solutions to protect sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals from climate change impacts. The tool's development involved consultations in Belize, Suriname, Barbados, and Jamaica, with a primary focus on anchoring the system within ministries of finance and planning.

The document identifies the Belizean tourism industry as highly vulnerable to climate change, particularly due to its reliance on coastal and reef assets. It proposes a comprehensive set of technical, managerial, policy, and educational adaptation strategies, emphasizing the need to mainstream these options into national frameworks like the National Climate Change Policy and Integrated Coastal Zone Management to ensure long-term economic robustness.

The CDKN's Africa START research call provides £300,000 for 16 projects and £150,000 for management and a learning forum. The funded research addresses diverse climate risks across Africa, including forest degradation in Nigeria and Cameroon, water management in Benin and Ethiopia, and coastal lagoon sensitivity in North Africa, all aimed at enhancing food security and rural livelihoods.

The report identifies a pool of 147 potential CSA technologies for Nepal, categorizing them into water-smart, energy-smart, nutrient-smart, carbon-smart, weather-smart, and knowledge-smart interventions. Using climate analogue tools, the study maps the suitability of these options across the country, finding that districts like Nawalparasi are representative of the Terai region. Key findings indicate that precision nutrient and water management can significantly increase rice and wheat yields, while zero-tillage in wheat improves profitability despite potential yield decreases. The report argues that scaling out requires a combination of knowledge-transfer, market-based, public-private partnership, and community-based 'Climate-Smart Village' approaches, supported by an enabling environment including credit access and gender-responsive mechanization.

The document outlines the high cost of natural disasters in the Caribbean, noting $33bn in damages from 2000-2009. It identifies sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and changing rainfall patterns as primary threats to the tourism and agriculture sectors, while suggesting micro-insurance, irrigation, and spatial planning as adaptation strategies.

The document highlights that global warming, driven by greenhouse gas emissions, is causing a loss of oxygen and increased acidity in the global ocean, with the Peruvian sea being particularly susceptible due to its high productivity and circulation patterns. It notes that the South East Pacific OMZ has expanded in recent decades, and warns that if these low-oxygen waters reach coastal areas, they could synergize with human-induced pollution (such as agricultural runoff and sewage) to create 'dead zones'. The brief emphasizes that while the global ocean has lost approximately 2% of its oxygen over the last 50 years, the specific temporal variation of the OMZ off the coast of Peru is not yet fully understood. To mitigate these risks, the authors recommend expanding oceanographic monitoring across the Peruvian coastline, strengthening multidisciplinary research to improve climate models, tightening laws on organic waste disposal, and using this data to establish marine protected areas.

The document assesses future climate projections for Belize City using a Weather Generator tool, finding that while June, July, and August may see decreased rainfall and increased temperatures, October and November are projected to experience higher intensity and more variable rainfall. These changes, combined with the city's flat elevation and poor drainage infrastructure, increase the risk of severe flooding and associated health hazards. The study emphasizes the need for updated building codes, better land-use planning, and integrated climate change considerations in infrastructure design to mitigate these risks.

The case study evaluates the PRECIS Regional Climate Model (RCM) and Tropical Storm Model (TSM) to project wind climate trends in Barbados. While the RCM showed some biases in baseline simulations, projections from the aenwh-driven model suggest small increases in mean wind speed and a higher frequency of days exceeding 8 ms-1 by the 2080s. The TSM 'what if' scenarios indicated that Hurricane Katrina would cause the most damage due to the longest persistence of maximum wind speeds. These findings highlight risks to coastal infrastructure, utility plants, and port operations, suggesting a need for updated building codes, extended setback limits, and the restoration of natural buffers like reefs and mangroves.

The CARiDRO tool enables the assessment of meteorological and hydrological droughts at regional and grid-point levels. It utilizes the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation-Evaporation Index (SPEI), the latter of which incorporates water balance to evaluate the impact of warming. The system processes data from seven PRECIS regional climate model experiments (1961-2070) and two observed datasets (1901-2009). While designed to support policy and planning in agriculture and water resources, the tool currently requires users with a technical background in climatology.

The study uses the CARiDRO tool and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) to analyze the 2009-2010 drought in the Eastern Caribbean and project future risks. It finds that the 2009-2010 event was a 1 in 40 years occurrence, but future droughts are projected to be more frequent, with an average recurrence of 1 in 5 years. The report suggests that the area affected by drought will increase after the middle of the 21st century, necessitating improved planning in water management and agriculture.

The study finds that drought events in Las Tunas province, similar to the severe 2003-2005 event, are projected to become more frequent and intense through 2050, driven by reduced precipitation and increased evaporation from rising temperatures.

The report finds that potential yields for dry beans, maize, pepper, and tomato in the Cayo District are projected to decline over the 21st century, with maize production potentially falling to just over 25% of 20th-century values. Livestock are expected to face increased thermal stress and reduced natural food availability as grassland biomass decreases. However, the study emphasizes a significant 'yield gap' between potential and actual yields due to poor technological efficiency, suggesting that improving management practices and irrigation could lead to a net increase in actual production despite declining potential yields.