Library

This policy document includes a statement of the global insurance industry demanding public-private action on climate change adaptation in developing countries. The document stresses the huge potential benefits of using government action to enable the knowledge and expertise from the insurance industry to play its fullest role in risk management in developing countries, particularly those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This government action includes implementing national risk management processes and using limited government investment to measure and reduce those risks. Also available in Korean.

This policy document presents a global investor statement on climate change. It stresses that investors are concerned with the risks presented by climate change to regional and global economies and to individual assets. At the same time, they are interested in the large potential economic opportunities that the transition to a low-carbon economy presents. However, private investment will only flow at the scale and pace necessary if it is supported by clear, credible, and long-term policy frameworks that shift the risk-reward balance in favor of less carbon-intensive investment. In this document, investors call for specific policies and finance tools needed to catalyze private investment in the low-carbon economy. Also available in Portuguese.

This analytical report is a preview of “The Green Economy Report”, published in 2011. It uses economic analysis and modelling approaches to demonstrate that greening the economy across a range of sectors can drive economic recovery and growth and lead to future prosperity and job creation, while at the same time addressing social inequalities and environmental challenges.

This factsheet presents the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s strategies and activities to address climate change. The Climate Change sub-programme focuses on strengthening the ability of countries, particularly developing countries, to integrate climate change responses into national development processes. The sub-programme has four key goals: adapting to climate change, mitigating climate change, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), and enhancing knowledge and communication. A list of key projects is included.

This analytical report provides an overview of the opportunities and challenges for carbon sequestration activities in the forestry and agricultural sectors of both industrialised and developing countries. It outlines a set of strategies and approaches seeking to ensure that forest and other land-use climate change mitigation measures deliver sustainable development benefits in an equitable and cost-effective manner.  The publication aims to support governments, indigenous peoples, community-based organisations, United Nations partners, private companies, non-governmental organisations, and other stakeholders involved in land-use change and forestry-based activities in mitigating climate change.

This analytical report presents the Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) Analytical Framework (AF). The BEFS AF and its toolbox provide the means for examining the many varied consequences of bioenergy developments on food security, poverty reduction and rural development in specific countries. The document explains the rationale and structure of the BEFS AF, provides a general overview of the tools and their application, and illustrates how the analytical information generated assists policy makers in making informed decisions concerning the many varied consequences of bioenergy developments on food security, agriculture development and economic growth.

The technical document reports greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories submitted in 2011. It is prepared in two parts. Part I provides information to allow comparisons across Annex I parties, as well as descriptions of common methodological issues. Part II provides a preliminary analysis of individual Annex I party inventories. In particular, it identifies outstanding issues requiring clarification during the individual review stage of the process.

This manual highlights how planners and policy makers in local, national and regional governments can adopt an ecosystem-based management (EBM) approach to help ensure sustainable development for marine and coastal environments and the livelihoods that depend on them. It outlines operational steps in an accessible language, drawing on case studies and lessons-learned from tropical coastlines to temperate estuaries and polar ocean ecosystems. One of the key messages is that EBM is a holistic, integrated approach that looks at marine and coastal ecosystems as units with many ecological and social links. 

This analytical report initially summarizes the challenges facing agriculture and water without considering climate change. It then analyzes the broad and more specific impacts of climate change in different regions of the world and looks at options for adaptation and mitigation in some detail. The conclusion focuses on action needed to assist countries, in particular developing countries, in assessing probable climate change impacts on irrigated agriculture and on food production, and in adapting agricultural water management to cope with the range and depths of anticipated impacts.

This analytical report provides a comprehensive, up-to-date description of the status and trends of forests and forest management in Europe. It is structured according to the Pan-European Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management.  It also contains an assessment of progress towards sustainable forest management, derived from a new, experimental method. The report identifies four future challenges and opportunities for forest policy and forest management in Europe.

This manual outlines key approaches to help in assessing vulnerability to climate change in the context of other non-climatic issues and stresses such as environmental change and consumption levels, and their integration with other drivers and pressures. It aims to help identify impacts of changing climate and developing adaptive responses. It builds on the Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA) conceptual framework and analytic methods by providing guidance for their application to the case of climate change while preserving an integrated approach.

This analytical report provides an overview of new environmental science and recent developments in our changing environment. It looks at progress in environmental governance, the effects of continuing degradation and loss of the world’s ecosystems, and the impacts of climate change. It also analyzes how harmful substances and hazardous waste affect human health and the environment and discusses environmentally related disasters and conflicts and unsustainable use of resources. The chapters correspond to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s six thematic priorities.

This analytical report examines global emerging issues and latest developments and trends in environmental matters. The publication’s overview of events and developments during 2010 shows how cutting edge science reveals new opportunities to mitigate climate change while improving air quality. The report also gives numerous examples of practical measures that can be taken to prevent further pollution and resource depletion. However, the persistence of environmental problems tracked over time also shows that there is still much room to improve the effectiveness of environmental governance.

This presentation provides context to WTO Doha round trade negotiations to reduce or eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade in environmental goods and services. It explores a number of submissions from WTO Members to the Committee on Trade and Environment in Special Session (CTESS) on approaches to identify environmental goods (EG), and presents trade data and statistics on the ‘universe of goods’ covered by submissions. Some of the goods proposed by Members for liberalization are related to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

This presentation first explores WTO activities and rules relevant to domestic climate change mitigation measures. It then provides an overview of discussions of carbon footprinting and energy efficiency labelling schemes in the WTO.

This background note presents the link between trade and environment in the World Trade Organization (WTO). It states that current WTO rules provide significant scope to protect the environment and tackle climate change while maintaining trade openness. It also explores the trade implications of climate change, and the links between WTO Doha round trade negotiations and climate change. 

This document provides an overview of the linkages between the multilateral trading system and climate change, and related World Trade Organization (WTO) activities. The issue of climate change, per se, is not part of the WTO’s ongoing work programme and there are no WTO rules specific to climate change. However, the WTO is relevant because climate change measures and policies intersect with international trade in a number of different ways. The document explores how climate change is related to the WTO Doha round trade negotiations, and also how climate change is addressed in regular WTO Committee work.

This video discusses the role of the trading system in dealing with climate change. Can WTO rules and a successful outcome to the Doha round contribute to a multilateral solution to climate change? Or will policymakers have to consider options which curb trade flows around the world? What is the role that trade has to play in one of the most important global issues? Mari Pangestu, Indonesia’s Minister for Trade, and Mark Halle, Director of Trade and Investment at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, discuss the issues with Keith Rockwell, WTO Spokesperson. 

This technical document aims to analyze the relevance of certain World Trade Organization (WTO) rules to the interface between climate change and trade, focusing in particular on border measures, technical regulations on trade, standards and labelling, and subsidies and countervailing duties. It concludes that in the absence of clear international understandings on how to manage the climate change and trade interface, there is the concrete risk of a clash that compromises the effectiveness of climate change policies as well as the potential gains from specialization through trade.

This analytical report applies a human development approach to the study of migration. It discusses who migrants are, where they come from and go to, and why they move. It looks at the multiple impacts of migration for all who are affected by it. It also addresses environmental issues that can be a key driver of human movement. In particular, climate change is projected to increase environmental stress in already marginal lands and to raise the frequency of natural hazards. Continued greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be associated with changes in rainfall patterns, desertification, more frequent storms and rises in sea level, all of which have implications for human movement.