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The technical document is based on the results of a survey conducted among 38 financial institutions, primarily from the private sector, with vast experience in financing renewable energy projects in developing countries. It outlines the current obstacles to sustainable energy solutions in Africa. In particular, it highlights the need for an estimated 7,000 megawatts (MW) of new generation capacity annually to meet the continent’s growing energy demands. It notices that adequately financing the development of the energy sector in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to require the mobilization of funds in the order of USD 41 billion per year, which represents 6.4 per cent of the region’s GDP. A large financing gap exists, therefore, in order to close this gap, and the mobilization of private investment and finance, is seen as crucial.

This book sets out the opportunities and emerging challenges in the area of sustainable development and climate change, and identifies innovative means for addressing them. The diverse voices in this book demonstrate that reorienting education systems in line with the principles of sustainable development is essential for helping learners to understand and act upon such threats as climate change, poverty, food scarcity and the loss of biodiversity. This book provides some answers as to how, through education, a better future for all can be prepared.

The technical document highlights the likely impact of climate change on children’s health, education, nutrition, safety and access to adequate housing and sanitation in South Africa – both directly and indirectly. In the case of South Africa, the impacts of climate change on children need to be considered in relation to wider development pressures affecting the country. Challenges such as international economic shocks and stresses, high levels of poverty and inequality, population changes, effects of HIV and AIDS, management of scarce natural resources and rapid urbanisation interact with climate change. South Africa has already taken steps to understand, recognise and address the challenges that climate change poses, yet the ability to recognise and address the needs of the country’s children is not well established.

This technical document is a centralized collection of designs, pictures, technical drawings, bill of quantities and cost-effective recommendations from different case studies collected from the field. It aims to help facilitate the job of implementing learning spaces after an emergency, with sound and clear technical information. Each case study can be adapted to local conditions after a proper technical analysis of the current emergency situation. Furthermore, the planning and response time for building transitional learning spaces (TLS) is reduced by approximately four weeks compared to existing practices. Recommendations for each case study are based on the Child-Friendly School Principles that guide the process to deliver healthy, safer, inclusive and effective learning environments for children.

This manual is a reference document and practical guidebook to help countries implement child-friendly school (CFS) model. The model can be viewed as a package solution and a holistic instrument for pulling together a comprehensive range of interventions in quality education. It includes an analysis of education, disaster risk reduction and climate change.

This technical document includes a case study on climate change and children in Kenya. It provides examples of the type of support that may be needed to prevent or reduce future impacts of climate change. It stresses that by involving children in climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction programmes, there is potential for improved outcomes. The study also describes programmes that can help communities in Kenya adapt to specific challenges posed by climate change. These examples are based on successful United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) programmes in other countries facing similar climatic challenges to Kenya.

This technical document shows that disasters continue to hinder progress in child welfare and development, despite global efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals and to respond better to the growing number of emergencies. The research contributes to building an improved understanding of 1) how different intensities of disaster affect children in different contexts and 2) the structures needed to realise the benefits of engaging children as active citizens and agents of change at the sub-national and local scale. In its analysis of trends in the impacts of disasters on child welfare, the report differentiates between high impact disasters (intensive), often referred to as “emergencies”, and those lower impact events that are persistent and widespread (extensive) but represent a significant yet largely unrecognised component of disaster impacts and costs.

This brochure briefly introduces the concept of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) approach to it. It also presents UNICEF related activities, with a particular focus on education and children’s rights.

This policy document argues that increasing the money available to deal with climate change will provide the resources to protect children from the worst impacts of climate change through adaptation, and will also ensure a safer future for all generations through low carbon development.

This policy document stresses that many developing countries, and particularly children in these countries, are already suffering the most from climate changes despite being the least responsible for the emissions that cause them. It underlines the need for action to help children and communities in these vulnerable countries to adapt to current and future climate changes and to ensure they have the skills, knowledge and resilience to survive and thrive in spite of the challenges presented by climate change. At the same time, emerging economies need support to pursue the path of low carbon development and mitigation in order to reduce emissions in emerging economies. Such action requires considerable financial resources. The document explores climate finance as a solution.

This information document explains what Disaster Risk Reduction (DDR) is and why it is important for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It also describes UNICEF’s approach to DRR and provides examples of UNICEF’s DRR work.

This analytical report provides an overview of the climate change trends and potential impacts on children in East Asia and the Pacific that appeared in studies covering five countries that were commissioned by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The country studies highlight children’s specific vulnerability to climate change that needs to be taken into account in policy development. The impacts children will encounter, however, will not be uniform. In addition, the scientific research indicates that existing vulnerabilities will likely be exacerbated by continued climate change. Involving children in the design of policy and designing climate change policies with children’s rights in mind are essential to creating policies that do not have unintended negative consequences.

This analytical report reviews the implications of climate change for children and future generations, drawing on relevant experiences in different sectors and countries of promoting child rights and well-being. It traces in considerable detail the pathways through which shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns create serious additional barriers to the achievement of the child survival, development and protection goals embraced by the international community. The role of children as vital participants and agents of change emerges as a key theme.

This analytical report stresses that the response to the threat of climate change demands a “child-centred” approach and includes a scoping study that highlights some of the evidence in an economic argument for a child-centred approach to adaptation. It notices that many of the measures that can address children’s vulnerability to climate change are already well known and are some of the lowest-cost measures available.

This publication examines the effects of climate change on children highlighting how climate change has evolved from an “environmental” issue into one that requires collective expertise in sustainable development, energy security, and the health and well-being of children. It provides a summary of comments and letters from children and young people from all over the world, collected from UNICEF Voices of Youth, child delegates to the 2007 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) African Regional Children’s Conference for the Environment and the 2007 World Scout Jamboree in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

This analytical report examines emerging environmental issues and policy-relevant developments, while providing an overview of the latest trends based on key environmental indicators. In particular, it details two emerging issues, the benefits of soil carbon, and the decommissioning of nuclear power plants. It features chapters on: the year in review, which highlights environmental extremes, including record extreme weather and climate events and increasing degradation of marine ecosystems, but notes progress towards new investments in renewable energy and towards a green economy; the benefits of soil carbon; the closing and decommissioning of nuclear power reactors; and on key environmental indicators, which underscores the need to address mounting challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and land and soil degradation. It includes recommendations for future actions.

This technical document is part of an annual series published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on the status of the global climate. Key results of the present issue include that the year 2010 was especially notable in that global surface temperatures reached record values at the same level as in 1998 and 2005, consistent with the acceleration of the warming experienced over the last 50 years. The year also signalled the closure of the warmest decade on record. Over this decade, warming was markedly more pronounced in some regions, notably so in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia and the Arctic.

This brochure provides a sample of extreme events for the past decade (2001–2010). Some of these events compared with — or exceeded in intensity, duration or geographical extent — the most significant historical events. Scientists are still studying the quantitative links between these events and climate change. Meanwhile, this brochure illustrates a qualitative fit between the facts observed about extreme events over the past decade, and the IPCC projections regarding the consequences of climate variability and change.

This activity report highlights the significant linkages between World Meteorological Organization (WMO) weather-, climate- and water-related programmes and activities, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In particular it aims to illustrate how, under the rising threat of climate change, the production, delivery and effective use of weather and hydrological forecasts, climate predictions and related services can be utilized by communities and socioeconomic sectors to achieve most of the MDGs. The given examples of “Ways WMO helps” were compiled from best practices and success stories, especially from developing and least developed countries. These examples are intended as an illustration rather than a comprehensive list of the efforts undertaken by WMO and the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of its 189 Members, often with the support of development partners, to increasingly advance the vision of the Millennium Declaration.

This policy document consists of a COP 17 position paper that aims to provide guidance to the Directors and senior managers from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) at COP 17 on the role of meteorological and hydrological services in climate services for adaptation and sustainable development. The document includes a set of recommendations.