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Year in Review
Environmental events and developments

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2011 was a year of environmental extremes. Major droughts and flooding were prominent in the news, and leading climate scientists continued their work to establish whether there is a clear relationship between extreme weather events and climate change. In the ocean, as few as 9 per cent of all species may have been identified, yet new studies show that overfishing, pollution and climate change severely threaten the future of ocean life. Despite the economic recession, global investments in green energy grew by nearly a third to US$211 billion in 2010. An investment of 2 per cent of GDP in ten key sectors could significantly accelerate the transition to a more sustainable, low-carbon economy.
Box 1: Drought response in the Horn of Africa

Some 13 million people in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia have been experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades. The region’s most severe drought in 60 years has caused widespread starvation and made access to clean water and sanitation extremely difficult (Box 1). These conditions not only directly affect local communities today, but also weaken their resiliency to cope with future droughts, diminishing prospects for water and food security in the years to come (Munang and Nkem 2011). Temperatures in the region are expected to continue rising while rainfall patterns change (Anyah and Qui 2011). The crisis in the Horn of Africa is only one of the events in 2011 that exemplify the challenges to be met in the face of an increasingly variable and changing climate worldwide. Many regions need innovative strategies to address pressures on land and water resources and on agricultural productivity – from building resilience in small-scale farming communities to global commitments to mitigate climate change.

In 2011 the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya became the home of 400 000 people fleeing drought and famine. Credit: Linda Ogwell, Oxfam

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