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This manual aims at introducing concepts, exercises and good practices on disaster preparedness and response to teachers. It is organized around four steps to becoming a disaster risk reduction educator. This teachers’ guide is part of a three-book compendium that also includes a students’ guide, for students aged 11–18, and a parents’ guide. 

This guide is intended to serve as a resource guide for ports intending to develop or improve their air pollutant and/or GHG emissions assessments. It focuses on planning and key decision steps related to port emissions assessments.

This report shows how uranium resources could create a platform for innovative engagement with the integrated challenge of natural resource management and climate action. The United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC), the comprehensive resource management scheme, provides the necessary tools and conditions for the redesign of the uranium resource pathway. 

This report argues that the conventional model of uranium as a mineral commodity needs to give way to a new model of uranium as a “critical energy material” for meeting the global sustainability objectives on energy and climate action.

This technical document aims to assess potential opportunities and options to promote a green economy, with a focus on key economic sectors set out by South Africa’s National Development Plan – Vision 2030. It presents a modelling exercise that compares a scenario of investments directed to “business-as-usual” (BAU) with scenarios of investments allocated to four critical sectors for a transition to a green economy in South Africa, namely: natural resource management, agriculture, transport and energy. The findings from this assessment using the parameters of economic growth, poverty, employment, resource efficiency and climate change, show that the strengthening of natural resource management and environmental protection is fundamental for sustained economic growth and well-being.

This flyer introduces the main points of one of the UN System Joint Initiatives: UN CC:Learn. This project aims to foster knowledge sharing and strengthening of climate-change learning and skills development. The UN system has much to offer in supporting the learning and skills development needed by leaders to meet the challenge of building climate friendly and resilient economies and societies. UN CC:Learn seeks to capture this contribution in a structured and easily-accessible way.

This activity report presents a summary of the UN CC:Learn partnership challenges and successes during 2014 – 2017.  The report outlines the efforts of the UN CC:Learn partnership on upscaling a well established partnership for climate change learning, advancing global climate literacy, and promoting a strategic approach to climate change learning at the national and regional level.

This activity report presents a summary of the Green Development and Climate Change Programme challenges and successes during its second year (March 2015 – February 2016).  The report outlines the efforts of the UN CC:Learn partnership on upscaling; on getting the free courses out to many more people in several languages; on continuing to expand the partnership of UN CC:Learn countries – now at 16 in total; and on increasing its visibility so as to provide the necessary knowledge and understanding about climate change related issues.

In the framework of the 2020 review of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, this guide aims to provide countries with advice on how to enhance ambition and address the six elements of  ‘Action for Climate Empowerment’ (ACE) – Education, Training, Public Awareness, Public Access to Information, Public Participation and International Cooperation – in their respective NDCs. 

In five simple questions and answers, it provides suggestions for elements that can be integrated into the NDCs in order to make ACE an integral part of countries’ climate responses. The guide also shows why ACE is key to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and its greenhouse gas emission targets.

Greening Technical and Vocational Education and Training: a practical guide for institutions is designed to help leaders and practitioners of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in improving their understanding of, and implementing, education for sustainable development (ESD).

It is guided by a whole-institution approach, and uses a step-by-step process that can be applied in an institutional setting. The process consists of four steps: understanding, planning, implementing, and monitoring and assessment. The Guide identifies several key elements to assist TVET leaders and their institutional teams in understanding the steps in greening their institutions and programmes. It explains the need for, and the institutional benefits of, greening. It also addresses key elements for creating the rationale and strategy prior to launching the first step. The core elements of creating an institutional greening plan (IGP), addressing short, medium and long-term goals, are outlined in Step 2. Then Steps 3 and 4 address suggestions for implementing, developing and assessing the e greening process.

This guidance document provides advice on the evolving concept of Strategic Green Industrial Policy (SGIP) for policy practitioners. It details tools that can be applied to what industrial policymakers may consider to be relatively under-explored territory. And indeed, some of the changes required for a transition to a green economy imply significant restructuring (if not disruption of technological paths). This guide also aims to ease this transition by providing detailed guidance, highlighting a number of changes that are relatively easy to implement.

This manual aims to support least developed countries (LDCs) in designing the implementation of national adaptation programmes of action (NAPAs), and to guide country teams in accessing existing funding from the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) for implementing their NAPAs. In particular, the guide was developed to address the obstacles that LDC Parties face in accessing the LDCF. It has been developed for a very specific audience, in particular, the LDC NAPA teams, including officers in government agencies and the non-governmental community, as they plan the implementation of NAPAs, and Global Environment Facility (GEF) agency officers working on NAPA projects at the country level.

This manual is an explanatory guide to the method used by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) to identify all possible sources of emissions resulting from postal activities. It describes the procedures to be followed in order to participate in and contribute to the UPU inventory. It  also enables the harmonization of the data received, the calculations made and, consequently, the results obtained. The manual aims to assist UPU members in the first phase of the sector-wide survey of greenhouse gas emissions. The guide can also be used by all operators wishing to draw up an inventory and then reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

This practical guide demonstrates how buildings and community spaces can be constructed to increase their resilience to climate change, especially in developing countries where structures are largely self-built. The publication provides an overview of the fundamental types of interventions at the building scale, including the use of nature-based solutions.

This technical document provides background information on groundwater protection with particular reference to its use in emergency situations as result of natural hazards and hydrological extremes. It also outlines the governance policy framework in which groundwater as an emergency resource may be integrated into overall emergency management and service provision. To illustrate the principles and techniques presented in the Guide, a varied number of real world case studies from widely differing regions is presented.

This manual aims to assist United Nations (UN) organization offices in becoming ‘climate friendly’, meaning that offices will generate lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during their operation than would be standard practice. With the UN currently maintaining offices in more than 530 locations worldwide, the guide is a resource for all those who are interested in energy efficient buildings. Though primarily aimed at assisting UN facility and property managers, this manual is also applicable to other building mangers who are looking to reduce office-related energy and GHG emissions.

This manual is a guide on how facilitators, peer educators, project officers, teachers or youth workers can support young people in non-formal learning settings, both in and out of school, to take action in addressing the challenges of climate change. It aims to support the reader to focus the energy and ideas of children and young people into effective activism. This can take a range of forms, from practical projects such as tree planting or making solar cookers, to awareness-raising workshops or performances, community mapping and preparing for natural disasters. This resource can be used with any group: large or small, formal or informal, girls, boys or mixed-gender groups. However, it places special emphasis on the power and potential of girls and young women as catalysts for change in their communities.

This manual is intended as a practical reference tool to guide implementation of a Weather Index-based Insurance programme. It translates the WRMF into practical decision-making steps for donors and practitioners, covering phases of project design and management processes. It also highlights the need to use weather index-based insurance within an integrated approach that also considers constraints such as lack of access to finance, improved seed, inputs and markets. The manual includes background information, explanations and resource recommendations to help inform decision making.

This policy document sets out 10 core principles to guide International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)’s support for clients in environment and natural resource management (ENRM). The principles include both the core issues to be addressed and suggested approaches. In summary, IFAD will: 1) scale up multiple benefit landscape approaches; 2) strengthen governance of natural assets; 3) promote valuation of the national environment; 4) build smallholder resilience; 5) promote green innovative financing; 6) promote a climate smart IFAD; 7) promote value chains to drive green growth; 8) promote gender and indigenous peoples; 9) promote livelihood diversification; 10) reduce IFAD’s environmental footprint.

This first report of the International Resource Panel presents basic facts and figures on natural resource flows worldwide, as well as four country studies, which show that consumption of natural resources is still rising rapidly. Drawing on these data, the report attempts to outline the issues that now need to be addressed to decouple material and energy flows from social and economic progress.

The study, Learn for Our Planet, analyzed educational plans and curricula frameworks in close to 50 countries across all regions. More than half make no reference to climate change while only 19% speak about biodiversity. The study notes a lack of attention to socio-emotional skills and action-oriented competences that are central to environmental and climate action. In an on-line survey of some 1,600 teachers and education leaders conducted for the study, one third of respondents indicated that environment-related issues were not part of teacher training.