Obama launches new $34 million climate change initiative

President Obama on Tuesday joined with the U.K. government and private partners such as Google to launch a $34 million project to help developing countries better prepare for the effects of climate change.

The effort, dubbed Climate Services for Resilient Development, comes just after the president met with other world leaders at the G-7 summit in Germany, where the group made new commitments to address global warming. The G-7 said it will phase out carbon-based fuels this century and will reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 40 percent by 2050.

The group also said it would commit additional resources to help poor countries shore up infrastructure and take other steps to get ready for the consequences of climate change.

Tuesday’s announcement will provide about $34 million in financial and in-kind contributions to developing nations, the White House said, with the U.S. and U.K. partnering with Google, the American Red Cross, the Asian Development Bank and other entities to deliver money, goods and services.

“The impacts of climate change — including more intense storms and storm surge damage, more severe droughts and heat waves, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and biodiversity losses — are already being experienced around the world. These impacts can be particularly damaging in developing countries, which often lack the resources and technical capacity to effectively prepare for and adapt to the effects of climate change,” the White House said in a fact sheet announcing the initiative.

“No single entity is capable of addressing the vast needs for improved climate services in these nations: for everything from projections of future sea-level rise that help planners identify places to build and develop that are out of harm’s way, to maps that overlay population, infrastructure and climate data to help decision makers target resources to areas of greatest vulnerability,” according to the fact sheet.