Tackling issues
World News Day: Stories from over 20 global hot spots in ST's Climate Of Change series
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A squid swimming over mostly dead plate coral on one of the reefs off Port Douglas in Queensland, Australia. Marine ecosystems are under severe threat from ocean warming.
PHOTO: MARK CHEONG/THE STRAITS TIMES, SINGAPORE
The latest United Nations scientific report on climate change puts it bluntly: Waters are rising, the ice is melting and species are leaving their habitats due to human activities. As oceans turn from friend to foe, freshwater supplies could dry up and ecosystems such as coral reefs - underwater gardens of the sea - could turn white in the face of marine heatwaves.
But amid all the gloom, there is a silver lining - some of the impacts could be prevented if carbon emissions are cut sharply.
More than 100 scientists from 36 nations compiled the report based on nearly 7,000 publications, with the goal of summarising the latest science for policymakers around the globe.
The reality, however, is that climate change is here and now.
To track the change and its impact, The Straits Times commissioned a series of multimedia packages on global warming around the world, with a special focus on Asia, last year.
Our correspondents were tasked with bringing home the stories of how climate change is playing out, in one of our biggest journalistic efforts ever.
Over six months, about 20 Straits Times journalists travelled to more than 20 hot spots around the world which are feeling the greatest impact - where taps threaten to run dry, where homes are being washed out to sea in their thousands, where rice crops are dwindling and where deadly disease, fuelled by a warmer planet, is spreading.
Their reports - in words, pictures, videos and graphics - formed part of The Straits Times' six-week series, Climate Of Change.
