Posts by Neena Bhandari

Climate change a major threat to global health: WHO

0 Comments read Environment & Development, Health & Science
Climate change is impacting health. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 11.04.2022 (SciDev.Net): Climate change poses a serious threat to human health that calls for urgent action and global collaboration on scales seen in the COVID-19 response, says the World Health Organization (WHO).

“If we don’t take action today on planet health, we are putting our future health at risk. And when health is at risk, everything is at risk. That’s what we have learned from COVID-19,” Takeshi Kasai, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific Region said addressing a virtual press conference from Manila on 7 April, World Health Day

“Climate crisis is also a health crisis since climate change affects health in many different ways,” Kasai said, emphasising the need to build sustainable, climate-resilient health systems.

Continue reading →

Post-pandemic Asia Pacific lags on climate SDG – UN

0 Comments read Environment & Development
Impacts of COVID-19, climate change and human-made crises have further disadvantaged vulnerable groups, including rural populations, poorer households, women and people with severe disabilities, says a UN report. Tai O fishing village on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 25.03.2022 (SciDev.Net): The Asia Pacific region has significantly regressed on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to climate action and responsible consumption and production, moving the region further away from the 2030 goalpost, according to a UN report.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific’s (ESCAP) 2022 Asia-Pacific SDG Progress Report, launched on 17 March, notes that inequality in the region has widened due to impacts of COVID-19, climate change and human-made crises. It says vulnerable groups, including women, rural populations, poorer households and people with severe disabilities, have been disadvantaged the most as a result.

“The sole focus on economic recovery post-pandemic is likely to hinder progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, which was already lagging to begin with,” Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, UN Under-Secretary-General and ESCAP’s executive secretary, tells SciDev.Net. “As the region strives to build back better and recover, the 2030 Agenda can serve as a guiding mechanism for both economic and social development”.

Continue reading →

Scientists develop wheat types to resist heat, drought

0 Comments read Climate Change, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 21.03.2022 (SciDev.Net): Australian scientists have identified a novel combination of genetics that may help wheat survive in hot and dry conditions, thereby increasing yields and assisting farmers to adapt to climate change-induced heat and drought stress.

Wheat is the third-largest grain crop in the world, supplying about 20 per cent of the total calories and protein in the human diet worldwide, notes the research by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, published in Nature Climate Change on 7 March.

Researchers have identified three novel alternative dwarfing genes that enable wheat seeds to draw moisture stored twice as deep from the soil than current varieties. “We have genetics that can allow us to sow earlier and deeper up to 120 millimetres while keeping the plants short and allowing for very long coleoptile, which is the shoot that grows from the seed to the soil surface,” says Greg Rebetzke, co-author of the study and chief research scientist at CSIRO Agriculture and Food.

Continue reading →