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Traditionally seen as an environmental and an energy issue, climate change is now also being cast as a threat to international peace and security. Africa, though the least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, is seen as the continent most likely to suffer
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The UNEP Year Book 2008 (formerly the GEO Year Book) is the fifth annual report on the changing environment produced by the United Nations Environment Programme in collaboration with many world environmental experts. The UNEP Year Book 2008
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H.E. Mr. Maciej Nowicki, Minister of Environment of Poland and Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, signed the Host Country Agreement between the Government of Poland and the Secretariat concerning the United Nations Climate Change Conference - Poznan, 2008. According to Minister Nowicki, the conference - COP14/CMP4 - will be a "crucial stepping stone" on the way to COP15/CMP5 in Copenhagen. According to Executive Secretary de Boer, "Poznan will be critical to move towards common understanding of the financial and technical tools that are the essential catalysts for the global fight of climate change in both rich and developing countries."
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Ten industrialized countries have pledged more than US$160 million to support the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPC), a new finance mechanism to fight climate change announced at the UN climate change meeting in Indonesia in mid-December. The facility aims at increasing capacity in developing countries to protect their tropical forests which are critical to the earth’s carbon and hydrological cycles.
FCPC consists of two separate finance mechanisms, each with its own trust fund to be administered by the World Bank. A Readiness Mechanism will assist approximately 20 countries in preparing themselves to participate in a future, large-scale, system of positive incentives to decrease deforestation and forest degradation. The Carbon Finance Mechanism will enable an initial group of these countries that will have successfully participated in the Readiness Mechanism to pilot incentive payments for REDD.
A coalition from civil society responded to the FCPC announcement by calling for governments to pursue legislation and alternative low-carbon solutions--instead of international carbon trading mechanisms--to fight greenhouse gas emissions. According to the civil society group, carbon finance mechanisms hold the prospect of spectacular commercial profit in what may become one of the largest commodity markets in the world.
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Environment ministers from more than 130 countries are gathering in Bali, Indonesia, from 3-14 December to launch plans for the new international climate change agreement to succeed the current Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.
The 2007 U.N. Climate Change Conference hopes to create the “Bali roadmap”, establishing a methodology and schedule to draft the new agreement by 2009 so that gaps can be avoided in technology cooperation, mitigation, adaptation and financing before the Kyoto Protocol ends. The first week of the Bali conference involve negotiations among the Council of Parties at the level of high-ranking government officials on a wide range of issues. On 12 December, the high-level segment starts with addresses by the UN Secretary-General and the President of Indonesia.
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Climate change is the defining human development challenge of the 21st Century. Failure to respond to that challenge will stall and then reverse international efforts to reduce poverty. The poorest countries and most vulnerable citizens will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks, even though they have contributed least to the problem. Looking to the future, no country—however wealthy or powerful—will be immune to the impact of global warming.
The Human Development Report 2007/2008 shows that climate change is not just a future scenario. Increased exposure to droughts, floods and storms is already destroying opportunity and reinforcing inequality. Meanwhile, there is now overwhelming scientific evidence that the world is moving towards the point at which irreversible ecological catastrophe becomes unavoidable. Business-as-usual climate change points in a clear direction: unprecedented reversal in human development in our lifetime, and acute risks for our children and their grandchildren.
There is a window of opportunity for avoiding the most damaging climate change impacts, but that window is closing: the world has less than a decade to change course. Actions taken—or not taken—in the years ahead will have a profound bearing on the future course of human development. The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act. What is missing is a sense of urgency, human solidarity and collective interest.
As the Human Development Report 2007/2008 argues, climate change poses challenges at many levels. In a divided but ecologically interdependent world, it challenges all people to reflect upon how we manage the environment of the one thing that we share in common: planet Earth. It challenges us to reflect on social justice and human rights across countries and generations. It challenges political leaders and people in rich nations to acknowledge their historic responsibility for the problem, and to initiate deep and early cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Above all, it challenges the entire human community to undertake prompt and strong collective action based on shared values and a shared vision.
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