Environmental Policy Collection - 896 Matching Results

Search Results

Energy for a Sustainable Future: This report provides a high-level overview and specific recommendations for governments to help achieve universal energy access and reduce energy intensity. The report recommends that energy access be achieved through a combination of grid extension, mini-grid access, and off-grid access approaches. The need for government targets, access to financing, capacity building, and improved utility performance are also discussed.
3rd African Drought Adaptation Forum report, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 17-19 September 2008: The Third African Drought Adaptation Forum was held in September 2008 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Forum was organized so that participants could exchange practical experiences, findings and ideas on how to adapt to the increasing threat of drought and climate change in the drylands of Africa. The report contains a summary of sessions and outlines key themes that emerged from the discussions.
Who Needs what to Implement the Kyoto Protocol?: An Assessment of Capacity Building Needs in 33 Developing Countries: For African countries, it is imperative to increase capacity for implementing both the Climate Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, in view of the continent’s vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change, including the threat to food security and sustainable development. The country surveys, which are framed around the list of perceived capacity building needs annexed to Decision 10/CP.5, provided insight into the capacity building needs of the project-countries. Hence, the aspects examined during the assessment exercise reflect some of the concerns of African countries; and the stakeholders’ responses can be taken as indications of the capacity building needs of the African countries assessed.
Revised Research Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program: This Revised Research Plan is an update to the 2003 Strategic Plan of the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), a document that was developed via a thorough, open and transparent multi-year process involving a wide range of scientists and managers. The Strategic Plan has long-term value to CCSP, but like any strategic plan, it must be supplemented by shorter-term revisions that take into account both advances in the science and changes in societal needs, and CCSP has an ongoing long-range strategic planning process to ensure that these needs are met. The Revised Research Plan (hereinafter referred to as the Research Plan) draws on CCSP's long-range planning process and provides this update, in compliance with the terms of the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990. In the Research Plan, the reader will find several things: 1) an updated statement of vision, goals and capabilities consistent with CCSP's current Strategic Plan but reflecting both scientific progress and the evolution of the Program based on accomplishments and evolving societal and environmental needs; 2) a description of the relationship of the Research Plan to the current Scientific Assessment; 3) highlights of ways in which the program is evolving in the context of the progress made over the years 2003-2007 since the Strategic Plan was put in place, and a description of the priorities that have emerged as a result; 4) a description of research plans for the coming years, in order to build upon the work envisioned in the Strategic Plan and begun over the past four years.
Trends in Emissions of Ozone-Depleting Substances, Ozone Layer Recovery, and Implications for Ultraviolet Radiation Exposure: This Synthesis and Assessment Product (SAP 2.4) focuses on the Climate models. Depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer by human-produced ozone-depleting substances has been recognized as a global environmental issue for more than three decades, and the international effort to address the issue via the United Nations Montreal Protocol marked its 20-year anniversary in 2007. Scientific understanding underpinned the Protocol at its inception and ever since. As scientific knowledge advanced and evolved, the Protocol evolved through amendment and adjustment. Policy-relevant science has documented the rise, and now the beginning decline, of the atmospheric abundances of many ozone-depleting substances in response to actions taken by the nations of the world. Projections are for a return of ozone-depleting chemicals (compounds containing chlorine and bromine) to their "pre-ozone-depletion" (pre-1980) levels by the middle of this century for the midlatitudes; the polar regions are expected to follow suit within 20 years after that. Since the 1980s, global ozone sustained a depletion of about 5 percent in the midlatitudes of both the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere, where most of the Earth's population resides; it is now showing signs of turning the corner towards increasing ozone. The large seasonal depletions in the polar regions are likely to continue over the next decade but are expected to subside over the next few decades.
World Investment Report 2010: Investing in a Low-Carbon Economy: According to the preface, this report focuses on climate change and the role of transnational corporations in investing in a low-carbon economy.
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.
Blending Climate Finance Through National Climate Funds: A Guidebook for the Design and Establishment of National Funds to Achieve Climate Change Priorities: The guidebook provides an overview of NCFs and outlines six key components that are critical for the effective design and establishment of an NCF. It also presents a method for consolidating the decisions around these components into a term sheet that can help to facilitate stakeholder engagement for a robust and transparent design process.
Climate Change at UNDP: Scaling Up to Meet the Challenge: The paper presents UNDP's strategy to support the efforts of developing countries and vulnerable groups for scaling up mitigation and adaptation action to successfully meet the climate change challenge and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
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: Adaptive Water Governance: UNDP promotes equitable access to water resources and water and sanitation services as a fundamental requisite for human development. In a rapidly changing world, UNDP's Water Governance Programme catalyzes efforts towards the achievements of the MDGs. The document provides a brief overview of UNDP's Water Governance Programme.
The Global Drylands Imperative: Devolving Resource Rights and the MDGs in Africa: The paper analyzes a sample of existing or in-formulation policy frameworks governing access and security of tenure over major natural assets such as land, forests and wildlife. The fundamental question that runs through the analysis in the paper concerns the extent to which security of resource tenure can mediate the achievement of the MDGs.
The Global Drylands Initiative: Land Tenure Reform and The Drylands: The paper focuses on the need to rethink conventional wisdom on land tenure approaches and asks how we can best respond to the land tenure problems. It provides a comparative overview of land tenure systems in the drylands, identifies challenges and trends in land tenure reform projects, and offers ideas for decision-makers.
Green Economy In Action: Articles and Excerpts that Illustrate Green Economy and Sustainable Development Efforts: The Green Economy is one in which the vital linkages among the economy, society, and environment are taken into account. This selection of articles and excerpts emerged in response to the need to fill the knowledge gap on practical, concrete, and on the ground green economy country experience. It is in this spirit that the articles and excerpts included in this publication have been selected: to provide information and knowledge for policy and decision makers and practitioners on the positive implications of greening some priority sectors, including job creation, resource efficiency, and generally contribution to sustainable development through an extensive review of scientific publications and magazines.
Guidance on the Cleanup, Temporary or Intermediate Storage, and Transport of Mercury Waste from Healthcare Facilities: The UNDP GEF project involves demonstrating best practices for the management of mercury waste and promoting mercury-free devices. As health facilities phase out mercury devices, proper methods of storage and transport are needed. This document is intended for project countries where national norms and guidelines for cleanup, storage, and transport of mercury waste do not exist at this time. These suggested guidelines should become part of a broader plan for sequestration and phase-out of mercury.
Reclaiming the Land Sustaining Livelihoods: The brochure, part of UNDP/GEF's "Lessons for the Future" series, highlights examples of activities to combat land degradation. It focuses on "cross-cutting projects" that address land degradation but were primarily designed to deal with other environmental problems, and specific UNDP/GEF land degradation projects that seek to build capacity or foster SLM practices.
UNDP Briefing Note on Adaptation to Climate Change: Doing Development Differently: The document outlines UNDP's adaptation services and UNDP-GEF's adaptation portfolio that comprises 21 national, regional and global projects taking place in 45 countries.
United Nations Development Programme & Climate Change Adaptation - A Quarterly Update of Activities: The newsletter includes updates on projects, performance indicators, impacts and results, and policy and mainstreaming announcements on UNDP's activities around the world in support of climate change adaptation.
United Nations Development Programme & Climate Change Adaptation - A Quarterly Update of Activities: The newsletter includes updates on projects, performance indicators, impacts and results, and policy and mainstreaming announcements on UNDP's activities around the world in support of climate change adaptation.
From the Drylands to the Market: Policy Opportunities and Challenges in Dryland Areas of East Africa.: This paper presents a summary of the challenges, opportunities and policies adopted by the three East African countries –Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania- to address the production and marketing of goods and services from drylands. It also provides recommendations on policy that could enhance production and marketing of relevant products. It is based on three national policy studies undertaken in the three countries, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Namibia: Strengthening the Protected Area Network: The Strengthening the Protected Area Network (SPAN) Project aims to strengthen the management effectiveness of the national protected area (PA) system in Namibia. The Project builds capacity for park management by removing existing barriers hindering the management performance of the PA system. The case study highlights key elements of project success and lessons learned.
Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment: This comprehensive atlas provides data, satellite imagery, and analysis of the environmental conditions and issues relevant to each African country, and several surrounding island nations. The atlas also covers trans-border international issues in Africa.
Atals of International Freshwater Agreements: Water is one of the most widely shared resources on the planet, and the most vital for human survival after oxygen. It has a capacity to unite people that share a source of water, or to incite conflict among them as they compete for it. The latter, reaching the point of ‘water wars’ has become increasingly common in the media, but the contents of this Atlas show that treaties, not wars, are the norm.The Atlas is a step in the consolidation and dissemination of information about shared water treaties. This systematic and thorough compilation of the available historical record of the very many treaties and agreements concluded in regard to the water resources of rivers and lakes shared across international borders offers fresh, compelling testimony to water being an agent of cooperation rather than of conflict. Moreover, the thematic maps featured in the Atlas help understand why this is so, and add new perspective to that of the legal records which make up most of the Atlas.
Cultural Diversity and Biodiversity for Sustainable Development: This report contains the proceedings of a Roundtable of panelists speaking on the connection between biodiversity and cultural diversity, and on how sustainable solutions for development will benefit both types of diversity.
Environmental Effects of Ozone Depletion: 1994 Assessment: A change in the composition of the stratosphere becomes relevant to society only if it has noticeable effects. This places the assessment of effects in a pivotal role in the problem of ozone depletion. Decreases in the quantity of total-column ozone, as now observed in many places, tend to cause increased penetration of solar UV-B radiation (290-315 nm) to the Earth's surface. UV-B radiation is the most energetic component of sunlight reaching the surface. It has profound effects on human health, animals, plants, microorganisms, materials and on air quality. Thus any perturbation which leads to an increase in UV-B radiation demands careful consideration of the possible consequences. This is the topic of the present assessment made by the Panel on Environmental Effects of Ozone Depletion.
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.
Fast Facts: UNDP and Climate Change: The document contains key facts about climate change drawn from UNDP's 2007/2008 Human Development Report. The document also outlines UNDP's work in the area of climate change and provides examples.
The First Ministerial Regional Forum: The First Ministerial Regional Forum on Environment and Health in Southeast and East Asian countries was held in Bangkok, Thailand on 9 August 2007. The forum was jointly organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific and the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Offices for the Western Pacific and South-East Asia, and hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and Ministry of Public Health, Government of Thailand and the Chulabhorn Research Institute (CRI). The forum was attended by Environment and Health Ministers from fourteen Southeast and East Asian countries including Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, People’s Republic of China, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR), Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The agenda and annotated agenda of the forum are given in Annexes 1 and 2, respectively, and a list of participants is enclosed in Annex 3.
GEO Year Book 2004/5: An Overview of Our Changing Environment: This publication discusses global environmental efforts, successes, and setbacks of 2004.
GEO Year Book 2006: An Overview of Our Changing Environment: This publication describes major global environmental issues and policy decisions during 2006.
GEO Year Book 2007: An Overview of Our Changing Environment: This publication is an overview of major global environmental issues and policy decisions during the course of 2007.
Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2010: Analysis of Trends and Issues in the Finacning: This report shows that in spite of the global economic downturn, investment in sustainable energy is still strong.
Green Economy in a Blue World: The objective of ‘Green Economy in a Blue World’ is to analyse the challenges and opportunities of a potential transition towards a green economy in key sectors heavily linked to the marine and coastal environment – the blue world. The report will also analyse the necessary policy and institutional adjustments required for a green transition and will highlight several transformative action items that could come out of Rio+20 to accelerate transition to ocean sustainability. The key sectors (chapters) covered include Fisheries, Transport (shipping), Tourism (coastal), Energy, Marine mineral resources, and ocean nutrient pollution.
Natural Allies: Engaging Civil Society in UNEP's Work: This publication is intended to catalyze social and political change in order to improve resource efficiency and reduce emissions.
Our Planet, Volume 14, Number 1, 2003: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to water consumption.
Our Planet, Volume 14, Number 3, 2004: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to energy.
Our Planet, Volume 15, Number 1, 2004: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to seas, oceans, and small islands, which are under threat of overfishing, unsustainable development, and climate change.
Our Planet, Volume 15, Number 2, 2004: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to the connection between health, environment, and women.
Our Planet, Volume 15, Number 3, 2005: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to problems with enforcing laws and regulations that protect the environment and safeguard health and sanitation.
Our Planet, Volume 16, Number 1, 2005: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to environmental problems and solutions specific to urban environments.
Our Planet, Volume 16, Number 2, 2005: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to nature's contributions to biodiversity, recreation, sustainability, and sanitation.
Our Planet, Volume 16, Number 3, 2006: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to energy markets and climate-change mitigation.
Our Planet, Volume 17, Number 1, 2006: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to desertification.
Our Planet, Special Issue, 2006: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to environmental factors in the Caribbean Sea, and international policies and agreements between Caribbean nations to mitigate and manage common problems.
Our Planet, Volume 17, Number 2, 2007: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to environmental factors in the Caribbean Sea, and international policies and agreements between Caribbean nations to mitigate and manage common problems.
Our Planet, February 2007: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue presents both positive and negative views of globalization, and explores a new model of sustainable globalization.
Our Planet, May 2007: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to melting ice as a result of global climate change.
Our Planet, September 2007: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to the the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol.
Our Planet, December 2007: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is about pollution of islands and oceans
Our Planet, Special Edition, 2007: Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to agriculture, particularly in developing countries. Traditional methods of agricultural intensification can degrade sanitation and public health, while increasing carbon emissions.

Environmental Policy Collection - 896 Matching Results

Search Results

Add Filters

Applied Filters