Environmental Policy Collection - 896 Matching Results
Search Results
- Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning
- This report describes policy recommendations for coastal and marine spatial planning in order to protect ecosystems while continuing to allow economic activity.
- Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force
- This report discusses the direction of a national policy to protect oceans, coasts, and the Great Lakes while coordinating with national security and foreign policy interests. The priorities include ecosystem restoration, water quality, resiliency to climate change and acidification, and improved environmental observation systems.
- International Climate Change: A Negotiations Side-by-Side
- This report discusses various cooperative international efforts to address the issue of global climate change. The two major international agreements discussed in a side-by-side comparison are the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2010 Copenhagen Accord. The report discusses how many observers are hoping that initiatives carried out under the Copenhagen Accord may help bridge divides between the various tracks and economic groupings established under the Kyoto Protocol.
- International Convention on Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems on Ships, 2001 : message from the President of the United States transmitting International Convention on Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems on Ships, 2001 (the "Convention")
- This treaty deals with technologies for preventing the growth of marine life on ship hulls. The anti-fouling systems improve fuel efficiency, but some of these systems leach biocides into the water. This treaty prevents the use of the biocide in anti-fouling systems.
- International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) : message from the President of the United States transmitting International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC), adopted at the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations at Rome on November 17, 1997.
- This treaty updates a previous international agreement aimed at promoting international cooperation to control and prevent the spread of harmful plant pests.
- International Waters – Delivering Results
- This publication is the fourth in a series of knowledge publications prepared by the UNDP-GEF International Waters programme that document and highlight key results and achievements at the project and portfolio level, comprising four ‘signature’ programme areas: Large Marine Ecosystems; Lakes, Rivers and Aquifers; Integrated Water Resources and Coastal Area Management; and Global Programmes. The portfolio continues to make progress in sustaining the world’s most significant shared water systems for the billions of people who depend on these ecosystems for their livelihoods and security.
- The Interplay between Climate Change, Forests, and Disturbances
- Climate change affects forests both directly and indirectly through disturbances. Disturbances are a natural and integral part of forest ecosystems, and climate change can alter these natural interactions. When disturbances exceed their natural range of variation, the change in forest structure and function may be extreme. Each disturbance affects forests differently. Some disturbances have tight interactions with the species and forest communities which can be disrupted by climate change. Impacts of disturbances and thus of climate change are seen over a broad spectrum of spatial and temporal scales. Future observations, research, and tool development are needed to further understand the interactions between climate change and forest disturbances.
- Investment and Growth from Climate Action A Briefing by CDP to Support the EU 2030 Climate and Energy Package
- CDP has created this briefing confident that it will provide a useful further contribution to these policy debates.The briefing is launched alongside its global report ‘The A List: The CDP Climate Performance Leadership Index 2014’. CDP’s Climate Performance Leadership Index (CPLI) is an index highlighting companies that exhibit leadership through their actions to mitigate climate change.
- IPCC Expert Meeting on Emission Scenarios
- This report summarizes the Expert Meeting on Emission Scenarios to help inform the fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.
- IPCC Expert Meeting On Industrial Technology Development, Transfer And Diffusion
- This meeting summary report presents the major findings and discussion from the IPCC Expert Meeting on "Industrial Technology Development, Transfer and Diffusion."
- IPCC Expert Meeting on the Science of Alternative Metrics: Meeting Report
- This extended report of the IPCC Expert Meeting on the Science of Alternative Metrics that was held in Oslo 18-20 March 2009 is provided in response to an invitation from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC AWG-KP) to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to undertake further technical assessment of alternative common metrics which are used to calculate the CO2 equivalence of anthropogenic emissions by sources, and removals by sinks, of greenhouse gases listed in Annex A to the Kyoto Protocol. The outcome of the expert meeting was an agreed set of key conclusions and recommendations to UNFCCC in response to the request of the AWG-KP as well as more specific recommendations to the scientific community regarding research needs and ones relevant to the scoping of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). These were presented to the IPCC Plenary in a short report at its 30th session in Antalya, 21-23 April 2009. The current full report of the expert meeting amplifies those conclusions and recommendations and includes the extended abstracts of the meeting presentations as well as a general bibliography.
- IPCC Expert Meeting on The Science to Address UNFCCC Article 2 including Key Vulnerabilities
- This report contains supporting material to examine the science relating to stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference. The report was prepared for consideration by the IPCC, but it has not been subjected to formal IPCC review processes.
- IPCC Special Report Aviation and the Global Atmosphere: Summary for Policymakers
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was jointly established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1988 to: (i) assess available information on the science, the impacts, and the economics of, and the options for mitigating and/or adapting to, climate change and (ii) provide, on request, scientific/technical/socio-economic advice to the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Since then the IPCC has produced a series of Assessment Reports, Special Reports, Technical Papers, methodologies, and other products that have become standard works of reference, widely used by policymakers, scientists, and other experts. This Special Report was prepared following a request from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The state of understanding of the relevant science of the atmosphere, aviation technology, and socio-economic issues associated with mitigation options is assessed and reported for both subsonic and supersonic fleets. The potential effects that aviation has had in the past and may have in the future on both stratospheric ozone depletion and global climate change are covered; environmental impacts of aviation at the local scale, however, are not addressed. The report synthesizes the findings to identify and characterize options for mitigating future impacts.
- IPCC Technical Guidelines for Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Adaptations
- This guideline provides a means for assessing the impacts of potential climate change and of evaluating appropriate adaptations.
- IPCC Working Group I Workshop on Climate Sensitivity Workshop Report
- This workshop report is a contribution by the IPCC Working Group I for the preparation of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report. The workshop evaluated a range of climate model results in order to improve understanding of climate sensitivity estimates and objectively determine criteria for evaluating results from different climate models.
- IPCC Workshop on Describing Scientific Uncertainties in Climate Change to Support Analysis of Risk and of Options
- This report summarizes an IPCC workshop which was convened to discuss how to communicate areas of risk and uncertainty in the 4th IPCC Assessment Report.
- It could happen again.
- Describes the importance of soil conservation practices and their effect on wheat production.
- Japan-U.S. Joint Message on Climate Change Negotiations
- A joint message on Climate Change Negotiations between Japan and U.S.
- Japan's Climate Change Policies
- Japan in Global GHG emissions, International negotiations, Framework for achieving the Kyoto Target, Mid- and Long-term mitigation actions.
- Japan's Initiative on Climate Change
- Japan's Initiative on Climate Change defines the current state of climate change, summarizes diplomacy related to international environmental cooperation, and international climage change policy, with an outlook to the future.
- Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission
- The objective of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) under the brand 'Solar India' is to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across the country as quickly as possible. The scope of these guidelines is to select new projects and provide the necessary policy framework for development of projects under the "bundling scheme" for Phase I of the JNNSM.
- The Kalahari Transect: Research on Global Change and Sustainable Development in Southern Africa
- The Kalahari Transect is proposed as one of IGBPs Transects (see Koch et al. 1995 [IGBP Report 36]). It is located so as to span the gradient between the arid subtropics and the moist tropics in southern Africa, a zone potentially susceptible to changes in the global precipitation pattern. Its focus is the relationships between the structure and function of ecosystems and their large-scale biophysical and human drivers (climate, atmosphere and land use). The Kalahari Transect spans a strong climatic gradient in southern Africa, from the arid south to the humid north, while remaining on a single broad soil type, the deep sands of the Kalahari basin. The vegetation ranges over the length of the transect from shrubland through savannas and woodlands to closed evergreen tropical forest, with land uses ranging from migratory wildlife systems, through pastoralism, subsistence cropping to forestry. The objectives of the Kalahari Transect activity are to: build an active network of regional and international researchers around the issue of ecosystem structure and function in savanna woodlands undergoing climatic and land use change; quantify the current and future role of southern African savanna woodlands in the global carbon, water and trace gas budgets and the degree of dependence of these budgets on climate and land use change; develop a predictive understanding of future changes in southern African savannas and woodlands on sandy soils, including their capacity to deliver forage, timber and other products. A five year project is proposed, commencing in 1997. The project revolves around four themes: vegetation structure, composition and dynamics; biogeochemistry, trace gas emissions and productivity; resource use and management and water and energy balance. These themes define the minimum set of processes necessary for understanding of the Kalahari system.
- Kew-Eliasch Review Consultation: Report to the Office of Climate Change
- This paper discusses the research tools used to create baseline data for carbon offset mechanisms. The paper explains vegetation survey methodologies with examples of their application in a variety of contexts. These range from rapid studies using remote sensing imagery, to full multiphase survey methods. The paper gives specific examples of how these methods are used to monitor deforestation and forest regeneration.
- Know Your Watersheds.
- Describes the necessity of water in everyday life, the water cycle, and provides suggestions for the management of watersheds.
- Korea's Green Growth Strategy Mitigating Climate Change and Developing New Growth Engines
- Korea’s greenhouse gas emissions almost doubled between 1990 and 2005, the highest growth rate in the OECD area. Korea recently set a target of reducing emissions by 30% by 2020 relative to a "business as usual" baseline, implying a 4% cut from the 2005 level. Achieving this objective in a cost-effective manner requires moving from a strategy based on voluntary commitments by firms to market-based instruments. The priority is to establish a comprehensive cap-and-trade scheme, supplemented, if necessary, by carbon taxes in areas not covered by trading. Achieving a significant cut in emissions requires a shift from energy-intensive industries to low-carbon ones. Korea is strongly committed to promoting green growth through its Five-Year Plan, which envisages spending 2% of GDP per year through 2013. One challenge is to ensure that these expenditures are efficiently targeted so as to develop green technologies, while avoiding the risks inherent in industrial policy.
- Kyoto Protocol Implementation
- This report analyze the impacts of linking JI and CDM to the future European Emission Allowance Trading System (ETSy). The result indicate that the volume of credits obtained through JI and CDM projects by the enlarged EU Emission Allowance Trading Scheme, as well as the magnitude of cost savings and allowance price impacts will crucially depend on how much competition there will be from EU Member States and other countries in JI and CDM credits.
- Kyoto Protocol Target Achievement Plan
- Content of this document includes the basic direction of promotion of global warming countermeasures, the targets for control and removal of GHG, and the Japan's measures and policies to achieve the targets.
- Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities."
- Labour and the Environment: A Natural Synergy
- This report presents examples of tools and practices that promote workers' health and safety as well as environmental protection, public health, and corporate responsibility. Issues include climate change, hazardous materials,
- Land-based sources protocol to Cartagena Convention : message from the President of the United States transmitting protocol concerning pollution from land-based sources and activities ("the Protocol") to the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, with annexes, done at Oranjestad, Aruba, on October 6, 1999, and signed by the United States on that same date
- This treaty sets out general legal obligations to protect the marine environment of the Gulf of Mexico, Straits of Florida, Caribbean Sea, and immediately adjacent areas of the Atlantic Ocean-collectively known as the Wider Caribbean Region.
- Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone: Science Plan and Implementation Strategy
- Coastal zones play a key role in Earth System functioning, by contributing significantly to the life support systems of most societies. Human activities modifying riverine hydrology and riverine material fluxes to the coastal zone, have increased in both scale and rate of change in the last 200 years. The underlying processes that drive changes to coastal systems occur at a multiplicity of temporal and spatial scales. These changes alter the availability of ecosystem goods and services. However, disciplinary fragmentation impedes our ability to understand the regional and global changes that affect coastal systems, and thus limits our ability to guide management and decision making. Progress has been made in understanding the changes in Earth System processes that affect the coastal zone, and the role of coastal systems in global change. This includes identifying proxies that describe the state of coastal systems under existing conditions and change scenarios. Typologies have been developed to assist in the interpolation of results into areas where primary information is lacking. This has enabled a first-order up-scaling to a global synthesis.
- Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC): Implementation Strategy
- The Implementation Strategy of the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) project specifies in greater detail the activities and projects that will fulfil the mandate outlined in the LUCC Science/Research Plan published in 1995. The project, a joint initiative of IGBP and IHDP, is addressing important global change questions on the local, regional and global scale. The planned and ongoing activities involve a wide community of natural and social scientists. The new understanding of land-use and land-cover change dynamics following from the work carried out under the LUCC Implementation Strategy will be of crucial importance to the global environmental change research community as well as to decision-makers at the local, regional and global levels.
- Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (SR-LULUCF) has been prepared in response to a request from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). At its eighth session in Bonn, Germany, 2-12 Ju and technical implications of carbon sequestration strategies related to land use, land-use change, and forestry activities. The scope, structure, and outline of this Special Report was approved by the IPCC in plenary meetings during its Fourteenth Session. This Special Report examines several key questions relating to the exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and the terrestrial pool of aboveground biomass, below-ground biomass, and soils. Vegetation exchanges carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere through photosynthesis and plant and soil respiration. This natural exchange has been occurring for hundreds of millions of years. Humans are changing the natural rate of exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere through land use, land-use change, and forestry activities. The aim of the SR-LULUCF is to assist the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol by providing relevant scientific and technical information to describe how the global carbon cycle operates and what the broad-scale opportunities and implications of ARD and additional human-induced activities are, now and in the future. This Special Report also identifies questions that Parties to the Protocol may wish to consider regarding definitions and accounting rules.
- The Last Stand of the Gorilla: Environmental Crime and Conflict in the Congo Basin
- This report discusses the status of gorillas in the Greater Congo River Basin. The report looks at challenges such as poaching and habitat loss.
- Latin America and the Caribbean: Environment Outlook
- This Global Environmental Outlook report (GEO LAC 3) is the third comprehensive environmental assessment of the status and perspectives of the environment in the Latin American and Caribbean region. It highlights the need to move away from sectoral, uncoordinated and short-term policies, and to work towards consolidating comprehensive and cross-sectoral environmental ones that put sustainability at the centre stage. GEO LAC 3 is part of UNEP’s contribution to catalyzing improvements to human well-being and framing a fresh debate around the concept of sustainability in the context of a world evolving from six billion, to nine billion people by 2050.
- Law of the People's Republic of China on Conserving Energy
- This Law is formulated in order to promote energy conservation by all sectors of society, increase energy efficiency to benefit economic development, protect the environment, ensure national economic and social development, and meet the people's needs in everyday life.
- Law of the People's Republic of China on Desert Prevention and Transformation
- This Law was formulated in order to prevent desertification, to improve and reclaim desertified land, to protect the environment, and to promote a sustainable economy and society.
- Law of the People's Republic of China on Prevention and Control of Pollution From Environmental Noise
- This Law is enacted for the purpose of preventing and controlling environmental noise pollution, protecting and improving the living environment, ensuring human health, and promoting economic and social development.
- Law of the People's Republic of China on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution
- This Law is formulated for the purpose of preventing and controlling water pollution, protecting and improving the environment, safeguarding human health, ensuring the effective use of water resources and facilitating the development of socialist modernization.
- Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution
- This Law is formulated for the purpose of preventing and controlling atmospheric pollution, protecting and improving the environment for a healthy society and ecology, and promoting the development of a sustainable economy and society.
- Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste
- This law was established in China to prevent the pollution of the environment by solid waste, to ensure public health and safety, and to promote the development of socialist modernization.
- Law of the People's Republic of China on the Promotion of Clean Production
- This Law was enacted in order to promote cleaner production, increase the efficiency of resource utilization, reduce and avoid the generation of pollutants, protect and improve the environment, ensure public health, and promote sustainable development of the economy and society.
- Law of the People's Republic of China on Water and Soil Conservation
- This Law was established for the purpose of the prevention and control of soil erosion; the protection and rational utilization of water and soil resources; the mitigation of flooding, drought, and sandstorm; the improvement of ecological environment and the development of production.
- Leading the Way: A Comprehensive Approach to Reducing Greenhouse Gases in Washington State
- This report is about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Washington State.
- Legumes in Soil Conservation Practices.
- Describes measures for preventing soil erosion through the planting of legumes.
- Lessons from PPP2000: Living with Earth's Extremes-Report from the PPP2000 Working Group to the Office of Science and Technology Policy Subcommittee on Natural Disaster Reduction
- This book is a series of reports summarizing discussions and recommendations from a series of forums about strategies to deal with natural disaster. The focus is on changing human behavior and development in order to coexist with natural phenomena rather than trying to control natural phenomena.
- Leveraging the Landscape
- Over the last three years, projects that address the relationships between carbon and forests have moved from the sidelines of international climate action to center field. Forestry’s recent advancements are the product of decades of ongoing collaboration among market and environmental experts seeking to strike an ideal balance between forestry projects’ market risks and shared benefits. Market dynamics in 2011 demonstrated that these efforts have never been more pivotal, or complex, as forest carbon projects mature – and find themselves positioned squarely in the midst of some of today’s most challenging policy debates. This year, a record number of forest project developers and secondary market suppliers from around the world shared data about their projects and transactions. This third annual State of the Forest Carbon Markets tracks, reports, and analyzes trends in these responses. This information is primarily based on data collected from respondents to Ecosystem Marketplace’s 2011 forest carbon project developer’s survey, combined with data from the 2012 State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets report. The data and analysis that follow cover forest carbon activity in compliance carbon markets – including the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS), the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme (NSW GGAS) and British Columbia’s (BC) Carbon Neutral Government directive – as well as voluntary carbon markets including voluntary Over-the-Counter (OTC) market and country-specific voluntary programs worldwide. In total, we captured responses from 140 project developers or project proponents in the primary forest carbon market and 35 suppliers in the secondary market. Respondents represented 215 individual forest carbon projects, half of which transacted credits in 2011 – totaling 451 projects analyzed in all survey years.
- Litigation Seeking to Establish Climate Change Impacts as a Common Law Nuisance
- This report discusses recent legislative initiatives seeking to establish climate change impacts as a common law nuisance. The report explains what private and public nuisances are, the issues faced by policymakers when litigating a climate-change/nuisance suit, and also discusses five climate-chance/nuisance suits that are now or formerly active, as a basis of comparison. The report also explores arguments of those both for and against addressing the complex issue of climate change through common law suits.
- Low Carbon Fuel Standard
- This map identifies states that are either considering, or have already adopted a low carbon fuel standard.
- Low Carbon Shipping, Transport & Market Incentive Programs
- The carbon labeling project presents methods to promote biodiesel use, disseminate information on the potential carbon efficiency of biofuels and promote the concept of carbon labeling. This guide is aimed at policy makers and interested industry groups. It aims to evaluate the suitability of the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) Smart Way Transport Partnership as a model for the EU to promote more efficiency and low carbon shipping of goods to market. It includes: a thorough description of the US EPA scheme and its objectives; carbon labeling initiatives in the UK (independent and national); a review of the strengths and weaknesses of the US EPA scheme with regards to its suitability for EU transport policy; the different EU transport system and pilot programmes; and suggestions for freight and multi-sector low carbon transport programmes in the EU. This useful guide enables decision makers to develop a road map on how best to provide incentives for implementing a low carbon shipping program in Europe.