Environment and Climate Change

The conventional “grow first, clean up later” approaches to economic growth are increasingly placing the futures of regional economies and societies at risk. The forward-thinking policymaker is tasked to promote development based on eco-efficient economic growth and at the same time, record more inclusive gains in human welfare and socio-economic progress. In order to assist policymakers in responding to such challenges, ESCAP’s “Greening of economic growth” series provides quick access to easy-to-read guidance to specific policy tools.

UNEP’s quarterly magazine Our Planet features authoritative articles on the theme of environment and development by world scientific and political leaders. Each issue of Our Planet concentrates on one specific theme, tying into international conferences, meetings (the Commission on Sustainable Development), events (World Environment Day), or dealing with issues of our time (Water or Climate Change). Our Planet reports on international developments and action. It reviews current thinking, suggests solutions, and debates the key issues of environmentally sustainable development.

This series assesses the latest scientific studies on current and estimated future greenhouse gas emissions and compares these with the emission levels permissible for the world to progress on a least-cost pathway to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. This difference between “where we are likely to be and where we need to be” is known as the ‘emissions gap’. Each new edition of the report explores some of the most important options available for countries to bridge the gap. These reports are prepared by an international team of leading scientists, assessing all available information, published in multiple scientific studies. The assessment methodology and preliminary findings are made available to the governments of the countries specifically mentioned in each report to provide them with the opportunity to comment on the findings.

The State of Mediterranean and Black Sea Fisheries brings together data and indicators submitted by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) on stock status, national catches, fleet and socio-economic aspects, as well as information obtained from other sources. The aim is to provide objective, reliable and up-to-date information to a wide audience and support decision-making in fisheries. This series provides the most detailed assessment yet of the state of fishery resources in the region. New editions show current status of stocks, including those most at risk from overfishing, and looks at related issues like discards and incidental catches of vulnerable species.

Three childhood experiences set me on the course to working to restore degraded land through helping to connect people to nature. My mother’s strong and unwavering faith helped me to appreciate that life was about more than what we could accumulate in the present, and that we could trust a loving heavenly father for all our needs. The abuse of beautiful forests and mountain streams seemed to be an expression of greed and disregard for future generations. Watching news programs showing children just like me going hungry seemed mad in a world of plenty.

Con una antigüedad de varios milenios, la ciudad amurallada de Bakú, capital de Azerbaiyán, guarda huellas de la presencia de mazdeístas, sasánidas, árabes, persas, sirvaníes, otomanos y rusos. La ciudad moderna, nacida del primer boom del petróleo a fines del siglo XIX y principios del XX, conserva un patrimonio cultural igualmente ecléctico. Gracias a su bahía y a la proximidad de las rutas de las caravanas, Bakú siempre ha estado surcada por diversas corrientes. Esa característica la ha dotado de una diversidad a la vez armoniosa y excepcional, que se refleja tanto en su arquitectura como en su espíritu cosmopolita.

Poorly regulated gold mining is spreading around the world. Every day, millions of artisanal and small-scale gold miners work extremely hard in often poor conditions and without the protective framework of formal labour market standards. By evening the vast majority have harvested only miniscule amounts of gold, if anything at all. But the economic incentives are still attractive. Since ancient times, gold has continuously been used as a source of long-term investment, and it has now found its way into modern technologies and industry, including computers, cell phones and medical equipment. Global financial turmoil has helped more than double the price of an ounce of gold from $500 to well over $1,000 over the past decade. Many poor people in rural areas have shifted their attention from agriculture to mining as a source of livelihood.

Forty-four years ago my parents joined the Government of Malaysia's settler programme administered by the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA), a decision that has had a big influence on my life, right up to today.

“No matter how minuscule or how vast, only protection will make them last. We need to help the ones that can't help themselves, because they become extinct so fast.”

The richest 1 per cent of the world’s population now controls 50 per cent of global assets, while the poorest half owns just 1 per cent – and that gap is set to widen. At the same time, 60 per cent of the world’s ecosystems are degraded. If ever there was a need to rewrite the economic rulebook, it’s now.

Criminal justice can help achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change as part of an integrated approach from governments, private businesses, finance, science, civil society and others.

The Paris Agreement has sent clear signals to markets and to the financial sector that more than 190 countries are going to vigorously pursue the transition to a low-carbon economy that’s resilient to mounting climate change. It is no longer a question of if this transition will happen, but of how fast. Some of the key changes required lie outside the financial sector, such as changing relative prices of harmful goods and services vis-à-vis those that benefit the environment and the development of new technologies to facilitate changes in consumption patterns. Finance, however, has an important role to play.

People across the globe celebrated the signing of the United Nations climate accord in Paris in December. It was truly a landmark event and I was proud to be a part of the Local Climate Leaders Circle of Mayors representing my city and others across the United States.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago – consisting of approximately 17,000 islands spread across nearly 2 million square kilometres – also holds, at over 80,000 km, its second longest coastline. Sixty per cent of its population lives in the coastal area. So it is no surprise that fishing is one of our biggest economic activities. And soon after Joko Widodo was elected as the President of the Republic of Indonesia, he made a political commitment to reclaim the nation's status as a global maritime axis.

We stand at a defining moment for the future of the planet and human well-being. Our global commons – the land, seas and atmosphere we share, and the ecosystems they host – are under severe threat from ever more powerful human activities.

More and more citizens and nongovernmental organizations around the world are going to court to seek climate change justice. The unprecedented extent of these disputes deserves to be highlighted. This relatively recent type of litigation is forging public opinion, and constitutes a form of pressure on states and industries that is forcing them out of their inertia.

We have reached an essential turning point in our journey to save the planet as we know it. More than 175 global leaders have now signed onto the historic climate agreement reached in Paris last December. Having been at the UN for the signing event on April 22nd, I am filled with hope – but I’m also fighting a growing sense of dread.

Here’s a prediction: planetary intelligence could emerge on Earth by 2050. “Hold on,” you might say, “that has emerged already, right? Homo Sapiens.” No. What we have is a technologically advanced civilization. There is a subtle difference.

The need to strike a balance between increasing demand for natural resources and environmental sustainability has opened new opportunities for Malaysia to grow economically. Under its eleventh economic plan 2016-2020, a green economy – one that aims to reduce ecological risks and address resource scarcities – has been identified as one of the main drivers for development. In line with this new approach, emphasis is given to innovation for creating more environmentally friendly industries to enable the growth to take place. Thus eco-innovation is to be nurtured, in the spirit of this green economy, to support attaining the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), especially those related to responsible consumption and production, and action on climate change.

Life can be hard in The Gambia – and even harder for the women who harvest oysters, a local delicacy and key source of protein, in the West African country’s swamps and wetlands.

Maps of the Brazilian Amazon in 2000 and 2010 show unmistakable signs of dramatic change. Indigenous lands and several categories of protected areas now occupy millions of hectares, forming a consolidated landscape of conservation. But it might not have been so.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being harnessed to tackle two of the most challenging problems today – the flagrant proliferation of fake news and the increasing invasion of individual privacy. Factmata, which uses AI to fight disinformation and D-ID, which protects identities from facial recognition systems using AI, were two of the ten winners of the 2019 Netexplo awards, presented at UNESCO Headquarters in April.

Over 8 million tons of plastic pollute the oceans each year. The problem is so severe that, if nothing changes, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050. We must urgently rethink how we make and use this ubiquitous material, now a staple of our modern economy. The appetite to take action is real: public and private sector financial commitments to combat ocean pollution made at the European Union's Our Ocean conference this year, for instance, totalled 7.2 billion euros. Yet if cleaning up is a short-term necessity, only a whole system reset will provide a long-term solution to plastics pollution and the economic losses associated with it.

Is artificial intelligence (AI) on the verge of becoming completely autonomous? The answer will depend on us alone. It is up to us to define the future of humanity, in harmony with this technological tool that we sometimes perceive as a terrifying monster.

There is no doubt that science is increasingly expanding our knowledge of the problem of environmental degradation (including our role in it) and the extent to which it affects our ability to continually improve our living conditions.

Over hundreds of years, industrial activities including mining, chemical production, manufacturing of consumer goods and agriculture introduced pollutants into the soil, contaminating it along with groundwater, often over large areas. Past practices were different from today's: waste was dumped in an uncontrolled way or used in applications that are no longer acceptable, while unabated emissions to air and water had widespread impacts on surrounding populations and the environment.

Sustainable development is thirty years old. It was born in 1987 with the release of the “Our Common Future” report, which declared: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Non-state actors, with cities at the forefront, must be the first to sow the seeds of a carbon-free society. To avoid the nightmare of climate change, we must reduce our carbon emissions further than called for by the Paris Agreement of 2015. This requires coordinated actions at the international level and concrete initiatives such as electric transport, the decarbonization of housing and a large-scale transition of energy.

The Global Environment Facility was created to protect the global commons, and funds projects to address climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, sustainable forestry, international waters, and chemicals in more than 170 countries. Since 1991, it has provided $17.6 billion in grants and mobilized an additional $88.6 billion in financing for more than 4,453 projects.

The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992 was an historic moment for our planet, producing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity in addition to the Rio Declaration. Bhutan, under the far-sighted leadership of our monarchs, was one of the early countries to welcome and support both agreements to help tackle the world's most pressing environmental problems. In the same year, the Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation was established with contributions from the Global Environment Facility, World Wildlife Fund, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and the Royal of Government of Bhutan. It was the world's first environmental trust fund.

Guaranteeing safely managed clean water and sanitation for everyone remains one of the biggest global challenges that are solvable in our lifetimes. But we must prioritize collaboration and monitoring.

Many may think us an unlikely pair – a conservative Republican Representative from Nebraska, in the heartland of America, and a progressive Democratic Senator from Rhode Island, the Ocean State. However, we have come together as Co-Chairs in the United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus because we share a conviction that good natural resource management is fundamental to building a strong economy, bolstering national security, and protecting public health.

Since the Global Environment Facility was established more than 25 years ago, the global dimension of environmental challenges has become increasingly evident. Scientists tell us that our 'planetary boundaries', the biophysical processes that determine the stability and resilience of the Earth, are being pushed to their limit or overstepped, with high risks of severely jeopardizing the very base that has allowed our societies to thrive over the past 10,000 years. Especially in developing countries, environmental degradation is imperiling, if not sweeping away, development achievements.

For over a quarter of a century, one of the most recognized and trusted radio voices in India was that of Mark Tully. This British correspondent for the BBC has covered all the momentous events that marked the country's recent history, until the mid-1990s. He is a living witness of the time when radio was the main medium to reach the masses, telephone communications were unreliable, and radio recordings were made on magnetic tapes that had to be physically sent to the editorial offices.

Bien que n’étant pas à l’avant–garde des solutions climatiques, le recyclage des déchets, des eaux usées et de l’énergie gaspillée est un moyen efficace, disponible localement pour réduire les gaz à effet de serre. L’un de ces gaz, le méthane issu des sites d’enfouissement et des eaux usées, représente environ 90 % des émissions de gaz à effet de serre dans le secteur des déchets. Selon le Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat1, 18 % des émissions de méthane sont imputables aux activités humaines dans le monde et environ 3 % aux émissions mondiales de gaz à effet de serre. Le détournement des déchets des sites d’enfouissement et leur utilisation est donc un moyen évident et avéré de conserver les terres et les ressources, comme nous le savions depuis longtemps. Nous pouvons désormais ajouter aux nombreuses études que ces pratiques améliorent également la protection de l’environnement.

Pendant des siècles, les communautés rurales des hauts plateaux des Andes ont utilisé l’eau produite par la fonte des glaciers de cette étonnante chaîne de montagnes. Or, le recul de ces glaciers force les populations à modifier leurs moyens de subsistance et à chercher des façons de s’adapter. Dans une perspective plus vaste, la fonte des glaciers est une image emblématique du réchauffement climatique pour les plus grandes villes des Andes qui dépendent des glaciers pour leur approvisionnement en eau potable. Malheureusement pour ces populations, la source de ce problème particulier et les solutions possibles résident loin de leur sphère d’influence du fait que les actions locales contribuent très peu à résoudre ce problème.

The headlines generated by the carbon trading mechanisms at the heart of the Kyoto Protocol, most notably the Clean Development Mechanism (cdm), tell a story of a scheme in trouble. But why has it caused such controversy?