Happy New Year!  2014 happily brought unexpected success for one of the photos appearing on Tuvalu Odyssey, with its publication on front cover of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report.

My previous post announced that my photo of a climate change adaptation project taken at Funafala Island had been selected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to appear on the front cover of the Working Group 2’s Fifth Assessment Report on the impacts of, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change.

This continued with the image again being used on the front cover and imagery for the IPCC’s final Synthesis Report, which brought together the three working group reports.  The Synthesis Report was launched by the UN secretary-general in early November 2014, with a backdrop image including mangroves being planted in Tuvalu.

The content of the Synthesis Report is sobering reading. Rather than me summarising, here’s the IPCC’s “Headline Statements” about the report:

As a low-lying island nation, Tuvalu is at great risk from the effects of climate change.  I’m pleased that my photo has been used in a way that highlights Tuvalu’s precariousness, but also provides some hope that adaptation projects – even those undertaken by community groups – can go some way toward mitigating the effects.