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This activity report describes the UNDP-GEF adaptation portfolio. Leveraging the strength of the UN family, UNDP is working with international and national development partners to help countries better manage the inherent uncertainties of climate change. Enabling activities include: developing technical capacities at the national and sectoral level to identify climate change risks and prepare long-term strategies for risk management; internalizing climate change risks into planning and decision-making processes of key economic sectors; testing approaches and technologies for climate risk management in key sectors at the sub-national and local levels.     

This activity report summarises the outcomes of a workshop on issues relating to the revision of the UNFCCC Annex I reporting guidelines. At the workshop, participants shared their views on the use of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas and the revision of the Guidelines for the preparation of national communications by parties included in Annex I to the Convention, Part I.

This webpage collects several frequently asked questions about the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). These FAQ lists are offered by the Secretariat of the UNFCCC as a convenience to members of the public wishing to learn more about the CDM. The lists explain issues such as the meaning of the CDM, its modalities and procedures, as well as issues relating to its operation in the post-2010 period.

This activity report describes the GEF investment programme for sustainable forest management (SFM) and for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. It discusses conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of carbon stocks (REDD+), as well as opportunities for funding of forest-related activities in the fifth GEF cycle (GEF-5). Also available in Portuguese.

This analytical report focuses on assessing the key individual, organizational and systemic capacities needed to meet and sustain global environmental objectives as framed by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), collectively known as the Rio Conventions, and other multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). It is based on the results and lessons learned from more than 100 National Capacity Self-Assessments.

This technical document outlines a climate finance framework to assist developing countries to move to low-emissions, climate-resilient growth paths. The challenge in climate finance is to find ways to mobilize a variety of resources at scale, while at the same time ensuring that it can be delivered with sufficient speed to where it is most needed. The majority of proposals for climate change finance address the issues of raising and delivering financial resources separately.This paper takes an integrated approach to the issue, as mechanisms chosen to raise finance will affect the access to, and efficient use of, these resources.

The technical document summarizes existing tools and good practices from a range of organizations to guide development practitioners in their climate change mainstreaming efforts. The components and entry points of the mainstreaming process are explored, key climate change adaptation and mainstreaming concepts are defined, and a comparative overview of existing tools and guidelines is provided.

This technical document identifies key challenges and solutions for carrying out project-level economic analysis of adaptation to climate change, both stand-alone and integrated into broader development projects. The focus of the paper is on the agricultural sector, where the impacts of climate change have the potential to disrupt the livelihoods of rural populations in many regions and where adaptation must be given urgent consideration.

The objective of this technical document is to provide the background to the methodology used to model the impact of climate change on runoff for the global track of the Economic of Adaptation to Climate Change (EACC) project. This report presents findings from computer modeling of the impacts of potential climate change on hydrology and water availability (changes in runoff, basin yield, and flooding). Chapter two provides the framework of analysis. Chapter three provides the hydrological drivers and data. Chapter four describes selected climate scenarios. Chapter five provides the runoff. Chapter six describes the basin yield. Chapter seven summarizes the work and discusses future work. The appendixes describe the Climate and Runoff (CLIRUN) model.

This analytical report sits at the apex of a global study report and seven country case study reports. The report highlights that eliminating poverty is central to both development and adaptation, since poverty exacerbates vulnerability to weather variability as well as climate change. It argues that investments should start with low-regret options, with measures that tackle the weather risks that countries already face, such as increased investment in water storage in drought-prone basins or protection against storms and flooding in coastal zones and/or urban areas.

This analytical report underlines that the challenge for Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union is to secure additional energy supplies quickly and at minimum cost, while limiting the growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Proposed measures include: undertaking of major energy efficiency measures on the supply and consumption sides, including reducing the large amounts of flared and vented gas; and minimizing the carbon footprint of the new capacity to be added.

This toolkit aims to support countries in assessing their vulnerabilities and adaptation options in the energy sector. HEAT uses a bottom-up, stakeholder-based, qualitative/semi-quantitative risk-assessment approach to discuss and identify risks, adaptation measures, and their costs and benefits. HEAT’s climate vulnerability assessment framework puts stakeholders at the heart of the decision-making process and involves climate risk screening of the energy sector to identify and prioritize hazards, current vulnerabilities, and risks from projected climate changes out to the year 2050, identification of adaptation options to reduce overall vulnerability, and a high-level cost-benefit analysis of key physical adaptation options.

This analytical report aims to guide project developers and financial investors on developing and implementing profitable forestry projects in the carbon markets. The guidebook addresses the status of forestry projects in carbon markets, anticipated trends, as well as the financing of these projects and sale of carbon credits. It provides insight into the issues that have limited the forest carbon market, and uses case studies to highlight best practices and success stories that developers can replicate in order to stimulate investment into bankable projects.

This technical document addresses the issue of ecosystem management. In particular, it presents four key messages, namely that: biodiversity is key to climate change adaptation; a different set of policy directions, changed incentive structures, reduced or phased-out perverse subsidies, and increased engagement of business leaders is required to work towards “holistic economics”; environmental limits need to be established to ensure society remains within them in order to achieve sustainability; and ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) is an emerging approach that works with nature to help vulnerable communities and build resilience to climate change.

The analytical report examines the effect of patents on the worldwide transfer of clean energy technologies (CETs), including solar photovoltaic, geothermal, wind, and carbon capture. Key findings from the study include: Japan, the US, Germany, the Republic of Korea, France and the UK are the source of almost 80% of all CET innovations developed; there is a correlation between increased patenting activity and the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol; limited licensing activity is observed in entities located in developing countries, and confined mainly to China, India and Brazil.

This document summarises the findings of the report “Patents and Clean Energy: Bridging the Gap between Evidence and Policy”. This study examines the effect of patents on the worldwide transfer of clean energy technologies (CETs), including solar photovoltaic, geothermal, wind, and carbon capture. It analyses 400,000 patent documents identified from a pool of 60 million patents as its basis.

This technical document calculates the cost of global environmental damage and examines its importance for the economy, capital markets, companies and institutional investors. According to the publication, costs associated with environmental externalities are high and increasing. Environmental costs are caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, overuse of water, pollution and unsustainable natural resource use. The publication presents annual environmental costs for the global economy in 2008 and projected costs for 2050.

This analytical report illustrates how public finance can catalyze climate action by 1) piloting innovative ways to leverage both climate and development finance; 2) exploring new opportunities to expand the scope for market mechanisms; and 3) strengthening the capacity to facilitate access to resources and their effective use. The arguments are supported by a range of case studies.

This analytical report examines the challenges of monitoring financial flows related to climate change. The first part focuses on tracking, monitoring, and reporting various types of flows, primarily from official development assistance (ODA) and other public sources but also from private sources. The second part explores possible ways of tracking additionality in ODA flows, with the aim of stimulating a global discussion on this issue.

This analytical report lays out how resources provided through the Global Environment Facility (GEF), carbon finance, and the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) can be fit together to make a wider range of mitigation projects financially and economically attractive. It considers six projects that are using resources from one or all of these sources in combination with development finance to advance low-carbon development.