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East Asia & Pacific is facing some great development challenges today: urbanization, protection of the environment, the need to find renewable energy sources and many others. This site wants to create a conversation around those important issues. More »

Climate change

Perlu pencarian terobosan inovasi, kirim ide anda sekarang

Submitted by Jean-Louis Racine on Tue, 2012-03-13 10:47

Available in English

Henry Ford pernah berkata, ketika ia bertanya kepada para konsumen apa yang mereka mau, mereka menjawab kuda yang lebih cepat. Andai saja ia mendengar permintaan konsumennya, mungkin saja Ford Motor Company tidak akan pernah ada, atau ada tetapi dengan nama Ford Faster Horse Company. Pada saat itu mobil menjadi apa yang disebut “pencarian terobosan inovasi”, yang berarti secara radikal menggantikan teknologi yang ada (kuda dan kereta kuda), tidak dengan mendengar permintaan sebagian besar konsumen tapi mencoba mencari tahu kebutuhan mereka yang sebenarnya.

In Queensland, no great barrier to flood recovery

Submitted by Henrike Brecht on Thu, 2011-05-05 15:56

The New Year was not so happy in Queensland, Australia. In December 2010 and January 2011, floods swept across the state and at the beginning of February 2011, cyclone Yasi, a category 5 storm, struck near Cairns. Dozens died, hundreds were evacuated, thousands were affected and an excess of US$15 billion of damages were caused. A state of emergency was declared in all but one of the 75 councils. Seventy percent of the state was impacted; an area five times the size of the United Kingdom. 

Looking to the skies in Kiribati—La Niña and rainfall variability in the Central Pacific

Submitted by Carlo Iacovino on Tue, 2011-01-25 15:47
Rainfall is essential to recharge the freshwater lens that lies beneath coral atolls in Kiribati. Without it, the i-Kiribati people would not be able to grow plants and crops vital to their livelihood.

Freshwater can be extremely scarce in the Republic of Kiribati, home to over 100,000 people scattered across 22 islands in the Central Pacific. Each year after a long dry season, significant rainfall is generally expected to arrive during November or December. Yet over the last few months only a tiny amount of rain has fallen. The islands are dry.

This is consistent with forecasts that predict La Niña conditions will result in below normal rainfall during the 2010-11 wet season across the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati.

Time to wake up to disaster prevention, Asia

Submitted by Abhas Jha on Thu, 2010-10-28 17:41
A power substation in Yingxhou, Sichuan Province was almost totally destroyed in the magnitude 7.9 Sichuan-Wenchuan earthquake in 2008.

The statistics are startling. 75% of global flood mortality risk is concentrated in only three Asian countries: Bangladesh, China and India. 85 % of deaths from tropical cyclones are in just two Asian countries: Bangladesh and India. Indeed, Bangladesh alone accounts for over three-quarters of people dying from tropical cyclones. 85% of global earthquake risk is concentrated in only 12% of the earth’s surface—a large part of it in Asia. In 2009, six of the ten countries with the highest mortality rates and GDP losses from natural disasters were in Asia.  82% of all lives lost in disasters since 1997, are in Asian countries.

Blog Action Day on Water --plus its ties to climate change, sanitation and hygiene

Submitted by Christopher Walsh on Fri, 2010-10-15 13:36
Change.org|Start Petition

 

Working in the World Bank-administered Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), I often ghostwrite opinion articles and web content about sanitation and water challenges in developing countries.  Today is a little bit different.  You see, today is Blog Action Day 2010, which this year is dedicated to creating global discussions about water.  Not only that, but today is also Global Handwashing Day, which aims to raise awareness about how the simple act of washing hands with soap can stop the spread of disease, improving health and saving lives.  Add the fact that today is TGIF (Thank God It's Friday), and you have the recipe to render this ghostwriter corporeal again.

Though I myself am not a water and sanitation expert, I would like to bring to the global discussion three points of knowledge that I have come across in working with such experts, which can be used by academics, civil society organizations (CSOs), water utilities, and others in East Asia and the Pacific, and around the world to make a difference.

Water: A source of death and life

Submitted by Jaehyang So on Wed, 2010-09-22 17:19

With the recent MDG summit in New York, I think it’s a good time to stop and take a look at the big water and sanitation picture. We know the numbers of people without access are daunting: 2.5 billion with no sanitation, 887 million without access to safe water. But more and more people are indeed gaining access. Since 1990, 1.6 billion have gained access to safe water. The world will likely even reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) set in 2015 to halve the number of people without access to clean water, according to the UN.

This is no small feat, and the world should take a moment to celebrate this success, and learn from challenges encountered along the way so that we continue beyond 2015 until everyone can access clean water and sanitation.

Mongolia: Turn around for the world's oldest nature reserve

Submitted by Tony Whitten on Tue, 2010-07-27 02:04
View to Ulaanbaatar from a tourist camp on the slopes of Bogd Khan Uul

Okay, so we changed our minds, but we did so for good reasons.

Some 15 months ago I posted a blog about the difficult decisions which led to our dropping Bogd Khan Uul Strictly Protected Area—the world’s oldest nature reserve—from the forest landscapes project we were preparing in Mongolia. In addition I mentioned that the money that was going to be used for the community forestry parts of the project was going to be shifted to give additional support to a $40 million Development Policy Credit to help Mongolia weather the impacts of the global financial crisis. There was a chance that our forest landscapes project might be resurrected in mid-2011 but that would have been too late for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funding of the conservation activities planned. So, the forest landscapes project was cancelled.

The GEF money was, however, still available for a good conservation project in Mongolia but there was absolutely no thought that Bogd Khan Uul with all its allegedly illegal apartment blocks and houses would be part of any new project.

Drilling for water in Kiribati

Submitted by Carlo Iacovino on Sun, 2010-07-11 23:12

Binataake Nawere stands bucketing water from his well in the strong afternoon sun at Betio in South Tarawa, Kiribati. "We use well water for washing clothes and dishes," says 60-year old Binataake as he fills a large container with groundwater. The residents of Betio and many of Kiribati’s residents often rely on well water to meet their needs. Fresh water is in short supply in Tarawa. The average house in Betio only receives tap-water for an hour and a half every 2 days.

The population of South Tarawa has grown from only 3,013 in 1931 to over 40,311 by 2005. Such rapid growth has led to a population density as high as 15,000 people per square kilometre on the narrow atoll islands. Tokyo, famous for overcrowding, has a population density almost three times lower.

A KAPII (Kiribati Adaptation Program – Pilot Implementation Phase II) working crew recently completed a two month long project to drill boreholes required to assess the thickness of the underground freshwater lens in Tarawa. The lens is made up of rain water that has infiltrated the soil of the atoll. This freshwater then actually floats on top of a layer of saltwater directly beneath each island. 

Carbon Expo highlights China's experience in Clean Development Mechanism

Submitted by Florian Kitt on Thu, 2010-05-27 17:56

Ok. We are back again @ Carbon Expo. This year in Cologne. The German weather cannot really keep up with Barcelona (were Carbon Expo was held in 2009) but we are keeping the spirits up and the opening event proved to be very interesting with a speech by the German Environment Minister, Norbert Roettgen.

On his round across the fairground the Minister then visited the China booth and the East Asia Pavilion, where Thailand, Mongolia, Lao, and Indonesia and China are exhibiting. Jiao Xiaoping, Deputy Director General, CDM Fund, China, welcomed the Minister and presented him with the latest report on "Clean Development Mechanism in China". We'll soon have it up here.

How do we come up with $80 billion for clean energy in East Asia?

Submitted by Xiaodong Wang on Wed, 2010-05-12 10:55

The World Bank recently launched an East Asia energy flagship report in Singapore: “Winds of Change: East Asia’s Sustainable Energy Future” (full disclosure: I’m the lead author). This report recommends that six East Asian countries (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) shift to a low-carbon sustainable energy path that can stabilize CO2 emissions by 2025, improve local environment, and enhance energy security without compromising economic growth. The report calls for immediate government action on policy and institutional reforms to transform the energy sector towards much higher efficiencies and more widespread use of low-carbon technologies.

There was wide media coverage for the report’s launch in Singapore. Most of the news coverage focused on the price tag of $80 billion for the additional annual financing needs to shift to the sustainable energy path recommended in the report. Some suggested that the price tag is too expensive, while others compared it with the China’s green stimulus of $200 billion.  The good news is that the energy savings from energy efficiency and many renewable energy technologies will pay for this additional investment costs. The challenge is how to mobilize such a large amount of financing in a timely manner.