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A priority for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is effective planning and financing of actions to address the impacts of climate change. This paper examines the vital role that regional institutions play in sharing SIDS relevant approaches and knowledge, and in delivering specialist skills and knowledge to support national efforts. It goes on to highlight the work of the Climate Resilient Islands Partnership, which links the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Regions, and is working to rapidly scale-up cost-effective services to SIDS through inter-regional cooperation and exchange.

Green Climate Fund B.07/04: Recommended action of the Board, a. Takes note of the information presented in document GCF/B.07/05 Initial Results Management Framework of the Fund; and b. Adopts the draft decision presented in Annex 1 to this document

Assessing species' vulnerability to climate change is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to conserve them. The last three decades have seen exponential growth in the number of studies evaluating how, how much, why, when, and where species will be impacted by climate change. We provide an overview of the rapidly developing field of climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) and describe key concepts, terms, steps and considerations. We stress the importance of identifying the full range of pressures, impacts and their associated mechanisms that species face and using this as a basis for selecting the appropriate assessment approaches for quantifying vulnerability. We outline four CCVA assessment approaches, namely trait?based, correlative, mechanistic and combined approaches and discuss their use. Since any assessment can deliver unreliable or even misleading results when incorrect data and parameters are applied, we discuss finding, selecting, and applying input data and provide examples of open?access resources. Because rare, small?range, and declining?range species are often of particular conservation concern while also posing significant challenges for CCVA, we describe alternative ways to assess them. We also describe how CCVAs can be used to inform IUCN Red List assessments of extinction risk. Finally, we suggest future directions in this field and propose areas where research efforts may be particularly valuable.

This edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets focuses on the complex and underexplored intersection between agricultural trade, climate change and food security. It is clear that we cannot tackle hunger without finding adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change in agriculture and food systems. It is also clear that the uneven impact of climate change across regions and countries, and the corresponding changes in food availability and access will affect international trade patterns and trade routes. This report supports these discussions by providing an in-depth analysis of the Paris Agreement and the WTO agreements to enhance clarity and provide guidance on policy options that could strengthen the mutually supportive role of these accords in tackling climate change and hunger. Wide-ranging policy actions are necessary to ensure that trade will contribute to the efforts aimed at ensuring food security and promoting adaptation and mitigation to climate change. The uneven impact of climate change across the world and its implications for agricultural trade, especially for developing countries, underlines the need for a balanced approach to policies, which should enhance the adaptive role of trade, while supporting the most vulnerable.

THE ENERGY CHOICES WE MAKE TODAY ARE resulting in changes in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere that will be seen in the composition of the atmosphere for hundreds of thousands of years. Climate change is here; it’s happening and going to be with us for thousands of years.

The last two decades have seen an upsurge in research into the potential synergies between invasive species and climate change, with evidence emerging of increased invader success under climate change. All stages along the naturalization-invasion continuum are likely to be affected, from the introduction and establishment of alien species to their spread and transition to serious invaders. A key question is whether alien plants will have a relative advantage under climate change conditions. So far, evidence for differential responses of alien invasive and native species to climate change drivers (elevated CO2) and outcomes (increasing temperature, changing rainfall patterns, changes in disturbance regimes) is mixed. Although alien invasive plants appear to be more responsive to elevated CO2 than many native species, plant response to elevated CO2 and other climate change components is dependent on environmental conditions and resource availability. Similarly, correlative modelling of species-climate relationships has not revealed clear evidence that invasive plants are likely to be able to increase the extent of suitable habitat under future climates any more than their native counterparts. We suggest that the most important driver of a shift to alien-dominated vegetation under climate change will be the superior capacity of alien invasive plants to take advantage of colonisation opportunities arising from climate change, such as extreme climatic events, changes in disturbance regimes, and widespread reduction in vegetation resilience as range margin populations decline. There are substantial challenges ahead for managing invasive plants under future climates. Weed risk assessment and management approaches must incorporate consideration of future climatic conditions. Most importantly, we will need a shift in management approaches away from a focus on the control of undesirable alien plant species to building resilience of resident vegetation assemblages, in association with targeted monitoring and early eradication of alien plant species.

The biodiversity of the Solomon Islands, in general, is in good health. Low human population density, uninhabited islands, difficulties to access and use natural resources, and customary and legal protection, in various ways, can help explain this. Threats to the country’s biodiversity are mainly localized and vary across islands, biomes, ecosystems, corridors and taxonomy. In recent years habitat destruction and overexploitation of wildlife has had enormous pressure on all types of biomes. Uncontrolled and poor waste management practices have also been considered a threat to biodiversity. Emerging issues such as invasive species and climate change could only exacerbate these pressures. Coupled with capacity constraints or inadequate capacity (financial, human resources, technological and institutional capacity) to implement mandates and enforce legislation, biodiversity loss thus results from multiple causes in quite a complex way.

Invasive alien species (IAS) threaten human livelihoods and biodiversity globally. Increasing globalization facilitates IAS arrival, and environmental changes, including climate change, facilitate IAS establishment. Here we provide the first global, spatial analysis of the terrestrial threat from IAS in light of twenty-first century globalization and environmental change, and evaluate national capacities to prevent and manage species invasions. We find that one-sixth of the global land surface is highly vulnerable to invasion, including substantial areas in developing economies and biodiversity hotspots. The dominant invasion vectors differ between high-income countries (imports, particularly of plants and pets) and low-income countries (air travel). Uniting data on the causes of introduction and establishment can improve early-warning and eradication schemes. Most countries have limited capacity to act against invasions. In particular, we reveal a clear need for proactive invasion strategies in areas with high poverty levels, high biodiversity and low historical levels of invasion.

Although the term biodiversity emerged from the pool of obscure jargon quite a few years ago, it is still enshrouded with significant ambiguity. At one extreme, some people use it as a loose synonym for nature. At the other extreme, some people reduce biodiversity to simplistic parameters, such as the number of species. Conservation organizations, both private and public, must navigate these waters with great care. They need to engage a pulic that loves nature as embodied in beautiful places and charming creatures - elk in a Yellowstone meadow or snow leopards on a Himalayan snowfield - while expounding the values of species and ecosystems that have "swamp," "rat," or "spider" in their titles. A the same time, to undertake their work in a systematic and rigorous manner, conservation organizations need to be able to quantify their goals and accomplishments. Some things are easy to measure, such as the areas of new reserves, but biodiversity writ large is not one of them.