Environmental Policy Collection - 111 Matching Results
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- 2009 Annual Report of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme
- The year 2009 was an eventful period for the Pacific region, with challenges and accomplishments that will be forever etched in our Pacific history.
- Adaptation that Accelerates Development
- This brochure summarizes how the United Nations Development Programme promotes pro-poor and pro-growth adaptation that encourages sustainable economic development and livelihoods in the face of climate change.
- Adapting to Climate Change in Europe and Central Asia
- Contrary to popular perception, ECA faces significant threats from climate change, with a number of the most serious risks already in evidence. Vulnerability over the next ten to twenty years will be dominated by socio‐economic factors and legacy issues. Even countries and sectors that stand to benefit from climate change are poorly positioned to do so. The next decade offers a window of opportunity for ECA countries to make their development more resilient to climate change while reaping numerous co‐benefits.
- Adapting Water Management A Primer on Coping with Climate Change
- This primer is intended as a guide to some of the basic issues surrounding water management from a climate change perspective. It includes information on climate change impacts on various freshwater ecosystems as well as precipitation. Also addressed is how the assessment of vulnerability should distinguish between impacts assessment, which attempts to project future biophysical and ecological changes in a deterministic manner, and vulnerability assessment, which attempts to combine an assessment of future suites of change with an assessment of the resilience of ecosystems and management institutions.
- American Leadership for the Global Climate Crisis
- This paper discusses several key areas where U.S. policy should be reshaped, both domestically and internationally, to ensure we lead the world towards a safe, sustainable future. We should: Establish a price for carbon by adopting an ambitious 2020 emissions reduction target. Make investments and adopt policies to stimulate a green economy. Lead the world toward an effective and equitable global climate agreement Support efforts to stop emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries. Contribute to global financing mechanisms for climate mitigation and adaptation in the developing world. Ensure that climate change-related impacts are addressed under the Endangered Species Act. Improve science and information to prepare communities and ecosystems for unavoidable climate change. Build public support for sustained action to fight climate change
- Annex VI to the Protocol of Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty : message from the President of the United States transmitting Annex VI on liability arising from environmental emergencies to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Annex VI), adopted on June 14, 2005
- This amendment to the Antarctic Treaty deals with preventing and managing environmental emergencies in the Antarctica Treaty area.
- Annual Report on the Environment, the Sound Material-Cycle Society and the Biodiversity 2009
- The white paper on comprehensive environmental policy describes the role of Japan's economy in a sound global environment. In the first part, the report describes current the environmental conditions of the Earth and of Japan, human activities in Japan and overseas, their environmental impacts, and the pathway to the environmental century. The second part of the white paper reports on various measures.
- Antarctic Climate Change in the 20th and 21st centuries: Extracts from the Executive Summary of SCAR’s Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment (ACCE) Review Report
- The instrumental period began in the Antarctic with the International Geophysical Year, about 50 years ago. The snapshot we have of the climate during this period is tiny in the long history of the continent. Determining how the environment of the Antarctic will evolve over the next century presents challenges. Climate models are the only means we have of providing synoptic views of future environmental behaviour, albeit crudely and at coarse resolution. However, the effects of increased greenhouse gases are already evident, and the effects of their expected increase over the next century, if they continue to rise at the current rate, will be remarkable because of their speed.
- Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications
- Report describing sea-level rise and the associated flooding of coastal regions that may affect more than a quarter of the world’s population. It includes sections on atmospheric and ocean circulation feedbacks, ice sheets and sea-level rise feedbacks, marine and land carbon cycle feedbacks, and methane hydrate feedbacks.
- Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications, Executive Summary
- Executive summary describing research to evaluate environmental feedback related to climate change. The summary includes a breakdown of the key findings from each chapter of the report, with charts and maps illustrating statistics.
- Atmospheric Aerosol Properties and Climate Impacts
- This report critically reviews current knowledge about global distributions and properties of atmospheric aerosols as they relate to aerosol impacts on climate. It assesses possible steps to substantially reduce uncertainties in aerosol radiative forcing estimates.
- A Balancing Act: China’s Role in Climate Change
- Climate change has reached the apex of the global agenda at a time when China faces significant development and energy security challenges. The political leadership and leading intellectuals are debating the direction of a new development pathway that provides both growth to meet development objectives, and dramatically reduces energy intensity and pollution. While the official position has not changed significantly, there are four key aspects that illustrate how climate change is conceived by the Chinese leadership. This signals that China may come to play a much more important role in global mitigation of climate change than was thought only a couple of years ago.
- Best Practice Approaches for Characterizing, Communicating, and Incorporating Scientific Uncertainty in Decision Making
- This report discusses the current state of understanding about the characteristics and implications of uncertainty related to climate change and variability to an audience of policymakers, decision makers, and members of the media and general public with an interest in developing a fundamental understanding of the issue.
- Building Standards for State Buildings
- This map shows states with energy efficiency standards for government buildings.
- .China’s Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change —The Progress Report 2009
- Chinese government published the White Paper on China’s Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change, stating the policies and actions that the country had adopted for addressing climate change as well as the progresses. To follow up, this report will briefly describe the latest progresses that China has achieved in addressing climate change since 2008.
- Climate Change Science Compendium 2009
- This document was compiled as an annual snapshot of peer-reviewed research about climate change.
- Climate Change, Wildlife and Wildlands: A Toolkit for Formal and Informal Educators
- This is a lesson plan for grade levels 5-8 that guides educators through a lesson about coral reef ecology and how climate change affects the growth of coral reefs.
- Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science
- This guide aims to help individuals and communities know and understand Earth’s climate, the impacts of climate change, and approaches to adaptation or mitigation. The guide aims to promote greater climate science literacy by providing an educational framework of principles and concepts. The guide can serve educators who teach climate science as a way to meet content standards in their science curricula.
- Coastal Sensitivity to Sea-Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region
- This document is part of the Synthesis and Assessment Products described in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Strategic Plan. The U.S. Government's CCSP is responsible for providing the best science-based knowledge possible to inform management of the risks and opportunities associated with changes in the climate and related environmental systems. To support its mission, the CCSP has commissioned 21 "synthesis and assessment products" (SAPs) to advance decision making on climate change-related issues by providing current evaluations of climate change science and identifying priorities for research, observation, and decision support. This Synthesis and Assessment Product (SAP), developed as part of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, examines potential effects of sea-level rise from climate change during the twenty-first century, with a focus on the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. Using scientific literature and policy-related documents, the SAP describes the physical environments; potential changes to coastal environments, wetlands, and vulnerable species; societal impacts and implications of sea-level rise; decisions that may be sensitive to sea-level rise; opportunities for adaptation; and institutional barriers to adaptation.
- Commercial Building Energy Codes
- This map shows states with building codes for energy efficiency of commercial buildings.
- A Copenhagen Climate Treat Version 1.0 : Legal text A proposal for an amended Kyoto Protocol and a new Copenhagen Protocol
- This document contains a draft version of how the agreement in Copenhagen could look like – in legal form. This is very much a work in progress. The purpose of this exercise is two fold : a) to outline to Parties how the agreement could fit together substantively and b) to demonstrate that the two Protocol option is a feasible and desirable outcome for the legal form. Attempts have been made through provisions in both the proposed Copenhagen Protocol and the amendments to the Kyoto Protocol to unify the accounting, reporting and verification of as well as compliance with emission reduction targets for industrialized countries and to create a forum for these bodies (CMCP & CMKP) to jointly develop rules in the future. It is possible that not every T has been crossed or i dotted and further provisions or amendments linking the two may be required.
- A Copenhagen Climate Treaty - Version 1.0: A Proposal for a Copenhagen Agreement by Members of the NGO Community
- The "Copenhagen Climate Treaty - Version 1.0", which is now distributed to negotiators from 192 states, took some of the world's most experienced climate NGOs almost a year to write and contains a full legal text covering all the main elements needed to provide the world with a fair and ambitious agreement that keeps climate change impacts below the unacceptable risk levels identified by most scientists.
- Creating Impact - Feed-In Tariff Laws: Making clean energy a reality for all
- The brochure describes evidence from fifty governments that Feed-In Tariff (FIT) policy speeds the transition to clean energy production and use.
- Cultivating the Future: Food in the Age of Climate Change
- The brochure promotes government incentives for farmers to lower agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and expand carbon sinks by sequestering carbon through organic farming and reduced tillage; reducing nitrous oxide emissions through minimal use of nitrogen fertilizer, capturing methane emissions from anaerobic manure handling facilities; reducing the use of fossil fuels on farms; increasing the generation of electricity from wind, solar and small-scale hydro; expanding the use of practices like hedges, shelterbelts, and forested riparian zones; expanding local food supply for local consumption; and supporting the use of sustainable biochar derived from farm and urban organic wastes.
- CYCLOCITY® A Revolutionary Public Transport System Accessible To All
- Presentation to the OECD Working Group on Transport.
- Decision-Support Experiments and Evaluations using Seasonal-to-Interannual Forecasts and Observational Data: A Focus on Water Resources
- This Synthesis and Assessment Product focuses on the connection between the scientific ability to predict climate on seasonal scales and the opportunity to incorporate such understanding into water resource management decisions. It directly addresses decision support experiments and evaluations that have used seasonal-to-interannual forecasts and observational data, and is expected to inform (1) decision makers about the relative success of experiences of others who have experimented with these forecasts and data in resource management; (2) climatologists, hydrologists, and social scientists on how to advance the delivery of decision-support resources that use the most recent forecast products, methodologies, and tools; and (3) science and resource managers as they plan for future investments in research related to forecasts and their role in decision support. It is important to note, however, that while the focus of this Product is on the water resources management sector, the findings within this Synthesis and Assessment Product may be directly transferred to other sectors.
- Draft Report of the 30th Session of the IPCC
- This meeting focused on the future of the IPCC, in particular the scoping of the 5th Assessment Report. Among other isues, the Panel considered the outcome of the Scoping Meeting for a possible Special Report on "Extreme events and disasters: managing the risks", and of the Expert Meeting on "Alternative common metrics to calculate the CO2 equivalence of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases".
- Earth System Governance: People, Places, and the Planet
- This science plan elaborates upon the concept of Earth system governance, defined as the interrelated systems of formal and informal rules and actor-networks that are set up to steer societies towards preventing, mitigating, and adapting to environmental change within the normative context of sustainable development. The notion of governance here refers to a less hierarchical and more decentralized system than traditional governmental policy-making, inclusive of non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations, indigenous communities, and international organizations.
- The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia: A Regional Review
- The study examines climate change issues in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on Indonesia,Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.The study is intended to enrich the debate on the economics of climate change that includes the economic costs and benefits of unilateral and regional actions. It seeks to raise awareness among stakeholders of the urgency of the grave challenges facing the region, and to build consensus of the governments, business sectors, and civil society on the need for incorporating daptation and mitigation measures into national development planning processes.
- Ecoregion: Caribbean
- This document is part of a set of educational resources for educators to encourage climate literacy.
- Ecoregion: Desert Arid
- This brochure describes the effects of climate change in the desert and arid regions of the United States.
- Environmental Finance Services
- This document outlines how UNDP is helping governments to attract and drive private investment towards sustainable solutions by combining and sequencing various financial instruments to effect policy change. These environmental finance services of UNDP offer an innovative and robust approach to addressing climate change, and other environmental and sustainable development concerns.
- Fast Facts: Climate Change and UNDP
- Making poverty history and tackling climate change go hand-in-hand because receding forests, changing rainfall patterns and rising sea levels trap people in hardship and undermine their future. Studies in Ethiopia show that children exposed to drought in early childhood are 36 percent more likely to be malnourished five years later.
- Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance
- This executive order establishes sustainability and energy efficiency as priorities in the operations of the federal government.
- Fisheries, Tuna Agreement Between the United States of America and Canada Amending The Treaty of May 26, 1981 Effected by Exchange of Notes Signed at Washington, October 3 and 9, 1997.
- “. . .the Treaties and Other International Acts Series issued under the authority of the Secretary of State shall be competent evidence . . . of the treaties, international agreements other than treaties, and proclamations by the President of such treaties and international agreements other than treaties, as the case may be, therein contained, in all the courts of law and equity and of maritime jurisdiction, and in all the tribunals and public offices of the United States, and of the several States, without any further proof or authentication thereof.”
- FITness Testing: Exploring the myths and misconceptions about feed-in tariff policies
- The booklet argues that in spite of the recent surge in renewable electricity markets, the United States will need to dramatically increase the amount of installed renewable energy in order to improve energy security, create new jobs, and address the growing risks of climate change.
- Forest Carbon Accounting: Overview & Principles
- This report reinforces UNDP's capacity building efforts by presenting the main principles, practices and challenges of carbon accounting in the forestry sector. It highlights the historic, current and future needs for forest carbon accounting; principles and good practice; the process of forest carbon accounting; and existing guidance and toolkits available for forestry carbon accounting.
- G8 Climate Scorecards
- The report concludes with a global cumulative GHG emission cap for the period from 2010 till 2050. It outlines mid-term and long-term cumulative emission allowances for key countries under the three equity approaches and trajectories for these countries to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. The objective of the report is to initiate a constructive debate among and foster long-term commitments of the parties while moving towards a fair, ambitious and binding Copenhagen agreement.
- Getting Ready for REDD: Toward an Effective and Equitable Policy on International Forest Carbon
- “Getting Ready for REDD” is one in a series of papers examining in more detail some of the issues raised in the Greenprint,
- Global Carbon Finance: A quantitative modelling framework to explore scenarios of the Global Deal on Climate Change
- According to the abstract, the purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative research methodology for analyzing the costs of dealing with climate change.
- Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
- This brochure highlights a report that summarizes the science of climate change, and the impacts of climate change on the United States.
- Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States: A State of Knowledge Report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program
- This book is the most comprehensive report to date on the wide range of impacts of climate change in the United States. It is written in plain language to better inform members of the public and policymakers. The report finds that global warming is unequivocal, primarily human-induced, and its impacts are already apparent in transportation, agriculture, health, and water and energy supplies. These impacts are expected to grow with continued climate change - the higher the levels of greenhouse gas emissions, the greater the impacts. The report illustrates how these impacts can be kept to a minimum if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. The choices we make now will determine the severity of climate change impacts in the future. This book will help citizens, business leaders, and policymakers at all levels to make informed decisions about responding to climate change and its impacts. Likely to set the policy agenda across the US for the next few years Features examples of actions currently being pursued in various regions to address climate change. Summarizes in one place the current and projected affects of climate change in the United States
- Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States: Highlights
- This booklet highlights key findings of Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, a state of knowledge report about the observed and projected consequences of climate change for our nation and people. It is an authoritative scientific report written in plain language, with the goal of better informing public and private decision making at all levels. The report draws from a large body of scientific information including the set of 21 synthesis and assessment products from the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and much more. It also includes new information published since these assessments were released. While the primary focus of the report is on the impacts of climate change in the United States, it also discusses some of the actions society is already taking or can take to respond to the climate challenge. These include limiting climate change by, for example, reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases or increasing their removal from the atmosphere. The importance of our current choices about heat-trapping emissions is underscored by comparing impacts resulting from higher versus lower emissions scenarios. Choices about emissions made now will have far-reaching consequences for climate change impacts, with lower emissions reducing the magnitude of climate change impacts and the rate at which they appear. The report also identifies examples of options currently being pursued to cope with or adapt to the impacts of climate change and/or other environmental issues. One example of adaptation is included in this booklet. There is generally insufficient information at present to evaluate the effectiveness, costs, and benefits of potential adaptation actions. This booklet includes a brief overview of the 10 key findings of the report, using examples from the report to illustrate each finding. References for material in this booklet, including figures, can be …
- The Greater Mekong and Climate Change: Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Development at Risk
- This document addresses climate change adaptation issues in the Greater Mekong countries. It also presents the WWF's call for an Asia’s first regional climate change adaptation agreement, that should help Greater Mekong nations prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change.
- Green Pricing Programs
- This map shows states that allow utilities customers to pay a premium price to guarantee that a percentage of their energy comes from renewable sources.
- Greenhouse Gas Emission Baselines and Reduction Potentials from Buildings in South Africa
- The report concludes that the operation of non-residential and residential building sectors account for around 23% of total emissions. Of this, non-residential sector accounts for around 10% of total emissions and the urban and rural high-medium income residential sectors account for around 8%. In addition, it is estimated that the manufacture of building materials accounts for around 5% of total emissions.
- Illinois Commodity/Waste Generation and Characterization Study
- This study was conducted to find ways to reduce waste and increase recycling and composting in Illinois. The report contains data on the composition of residential and commercial waste from around the state and makes recommendations for future consideration.
- Immediate Action Workgroup: Recommendations to the Governor's Subcabinet on Climate Change
- This report identifies immediate priorities for addressing climate change in Alaska. The report profiles plans for infrastructure in several towns in Alaska which already have losses and significant risks to infrastructure as a result of climate change.
- Impact of Climate Range on the Desert Pupfish
- This activity is a resource for teachers of grades 5-8 to conduct a lesson on the impact of climate change on a specific species.
- Improving Market Access for Dryland Commodities in East Africa: Synthesis Report
- The report is based on the findings of a baseline survey carried out in four cross-border sites of global biodiversity significance in East Africa. The survey aimed to establish which dryland commodities might have sufficient market potential to lead to an improvement in livelihoods, while enabling sustainable natural resource development; and to identify processes by which this might be achieved.