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Pick Up144. Science: High-impact Marine Heatwaves Attributable to Human-induced Global Warming
On September 25, 2020, a report entitled “High-impact marine heatwaves attributable to human-induced global warming” was published in Science magazine. The report warns that anthropogenic climate change is causing unusually increased ocean temperatures, and the frequency of marine heatwaves has increased more than 10-fold which could have a tremendous impact on the marine ecosystem.
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143. Additional 0.5°C can have a significant impact on global aridity
The risks due to increased aridity and drought have become major global concerns. However, there have been few studies on risk assessment based on controlling levels of warming. According to an article in Environmental Research Letters published on September 15, 2020, it is possible to reduce the frequency extreme dry-year and mitigate aridification in some regions by controlling the temperature rise from the pre-industrial levels within 2°C or 1.5°C.
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142. World Bank Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Progress over the past decade may be compromised
The World Bank published the “The Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Human Capital in the Time of COVID-19” on September 16, 2020. The Human Capital Index (HCI) is an international metric that measures the human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by the age of 18, taking into account the current health and education situation of the country. The impact of the new coronavirus could slow down the progress in improving human capital.
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141. One Earth: Change in Terrestrial Human Footprint Drives Continued Loss of Intact Ecosystems
On September 18, 2020, One Earth journal published an article “Change in Terrestrial Human Footprint Drives Continued Loss of Intact Ecosystems” with an analysis showing that between 2000 and 2013, a land area of pristine nature approximately the size of Mexico became highly modified by human activities.
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140. Global Biodiversity Outlook 5
The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (Montreal, Canada) released the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 (GBO-5) on September 15, 2020. This year marks the final year of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, which include the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets (Aichi Targets) around the strategic goals. However, assessment of the progress showed that none of the targets were completely achieved.
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139. FAO: The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2020
On September 23, 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched the latest edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO 2020) report with the underlying theme of “Agricultural markets and sustainable development: Global value chains, smallholder farmers and digital innovations”.
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138. World Meteorological Organization: Second Lowest Arctic Sea Minimum
The Arctic sea ice, which is an important climate change indicator, has reached its annual minimum extent after the summer melt season this year. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that this year the Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the second lowest extent in history. It is believed that the heat caused the sea ice to melt over a wide area from above and below due to the extremely high air and water temperatures.
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137. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers Report
On September 15, 2020, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released the 2020 Goalkeepers Report with an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on progress being made around the globe on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the introduction, Bill and Melinda Gates noted that the spillover effect has become devastating and the vaccination rate has been set back about 25 years in about 25 weeks. CEO Mark Suzman calls for the world to unite more than ever to mark COVID-19 in history and rekindle progress towards the SDGs.
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136. IMF: Investing in a Green Recovery
In the Fall 2020 issue of Finance & Development magazine of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Professor Ulrich Volz contributed an article “Investing in a Green Recovery”, emphasizing the importance of enabling sustainable investment in preparing to a looming climate crisis as well as the return of the pandemic in the future.
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135. Africa’s Food Future at the Intersection of Agriculture and Conservation
On September 10, 2020, the article “Re-Imagining Africa’s Food Future at the Intersection of Agriculture and Conservation” was published on State of the Planet blog of the Earth Institute of Columbia University. The report emphasized the need to find a solution that balances improved food production, reduced climate footprint and conservation of natural capital to achieve resilience and sustainability.
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134. Progress Report on Food and Agriculture-related SDG Indicators 2020
The food and agriculture-related SDG targets under the jurisdiction of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are Goal 2 (zero hunger), Goal 5 (gender equality ), Goal 6 (clean water and sanitation), Goal 12 (responsible consumption and production), Goal 14 (life below water), and Goal 15 (life on land). The second report on the indicators for the 6 SDGs under FAO custodianship “Tracking progress on food and agriculture-related SDG indicators 2020” was published on September 15, 2020.
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133. Renewable Energy Plays a Central Role in Eliminating CO2 Emissions in Industry and Transport
On September 9, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) published a summary of the new upcoming report “Reaching Zero with Renewables”. It is expected that seven industry and transport sectors (steel, chemicals, cement, aluminum, aviation, shipping, road freight transport) will account for 38% of total CO2 emissions in 2050 unless renewable energy solutions become available. Renewable energy plays a central role in reducing CO2 emissions from these so called hard-to-decarbonise sectors in order to limit global temperature rise at 1.5-degree target.
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132. Living Planet Report 2020: Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), one of the world’s largest and most experienced independent conservation organizations, has published “Living Planet Index 2020: Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss”. The report which uses the Living Planet Index (LPI), a measure of the state of the world’s biodiversity, showed that the population of vertebrate species has decreased by as much as 68% between 1970 and 2016. In order to recover from this decline in biodiversity, the report is proposing efforts that combine measures for environmental conservation with measures for sustainable production and consumption.
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131. The Future(s) of Digital Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems: An Analysis of High-level Policy Documents
The paper "The Future(s) of Digital Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems: Analysis of High-Level Policy Documents" was published in the journal Ecosystem Services. Many researchers and policy makers look forward to the potential to bring about a paradigm shift in the current food production through data-based decision making. However, the fact remains that there is no clear vision yet on what the future of digital agriculture will look like, and the article pointed out the need to include ecosystem researchers to contribute to the evaluation of the environmental impacts of digital agriculture.
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130. Science Advances – A “Global Safety Net” to Reverse Biodiversity Loss and Stabilize Earth’s Climate
On September 4, 2020, a research article entitled - A “Global Safety Net” to Reverse Biodiversity Loss and Stabilize Earth’s Climate - was published in Science Advances. Conserving areas indicated on global safety nets can be expected to prevent further biodiversity loss and reduce the potential for zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19 from emerging in the future.
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129. United Nations: United in Science 2020
On September 9, 2020, a group of key global partner organizations of the United Nations led by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) jointly announced “United in Science 2020”, a multi-organization high-level compilation of the latest climate science information. With the spread of COVID-19, there is no sign that the progress of climate change has stopped, and the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to increase.
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128. Reset SDGs for a Pandemic World – Two-thirds of SDGs may not be achieved
On July 9, 2020, a commentary article entitled "Reset Sustainable Development Goals for the Pandemic World" by Robin Naidoo and Brendan Fisher was published in the international journal Nature. Due to the impacts of COVID-19, two-thirds of the 169 targets under SDGs are unlikely to be met by 2030, more so, 10% of the SDG targets could worsen the impact of future pandemics.
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127. Biofortification: Benefiting More Than 42 Million People in 63 Countries
One of the solutions to combat the deficiencies of micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals is biofortification. Biofortification, unlike supplement intake and nutrient addition to foods, is an effort to promote intake of micronutrients by making crops with a high content of micronutrients that tend to be deficient in the area. HarvestPlus, one of the pioneers of biofortification, released a updated global map of biofortified staple crops showing that 63 countries have released or tested biofortified varieties as of the end of 2019.
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126. Joseph Stiglitz—Conquering the Great Divide
In the fall 2020 issue of Finance & Development magazine of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Professor and 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, Joseph Stiglitz shared his views on COVID-19 pandemic in an article entitled “Conquering the Great Divide”.
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125. Visual Capitalist: 3D Mapping the Largest Population Density Centers
On August 21, 2020, Visual Capitalist, an online publisher on topics such as markets, technology, energy and the global economy, introduced 3D mapping of the largest population density centers. The maps visualize population density in squares, with the height of each bar representing the number of people living in that specific square.