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.
This report provides a brief overview of the state of science of air quality forecasting. The report was composed to guide future federal research in air quality forecasting.
This document reports the global and Japanese trends in creating a low carbon, material-cycle society. It also describes the policy measures taken by Japan towards establishing such a society.
What is the overall state of the Arctic environment? The aim of this report is to answer the many aspects of this seemingly straightforward question. Although several national and international efforts have looked at parts of the Arctic, this is the first attempt to assess the state of Arctic flora and fauna as a whole.
This report provides a brief summary of the state of the current state of federal scientific research related to atmospheric ammonia, based on discussions from an October, 1999 meeting of the Air Quality Research Subcommittee of CENR.
The report fulfills the Greenhouse Gas Reductions Target Act requirements with respect to the progress, action and plans to achieve the emissions reduction targets.
Government of China hereby formulates China’s National Climate Change Programme, outlining objectives, basic principles, key areas of actions, as well as policies and measures to address climate change for the period up to 2010. Guided by the Scientific Approach of Development, China will sincerely carry out all the tasks in the CNCCP, strive to build a resource conservative and environmentally friendly society, enhance national capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and make further contribution to the protection of the global climate system.
Text outlining a plan distributed by a number of agencies in China describing how the government will address specific science and technological actions related to China's National Climate Change Programme (CNCCP). The sections detail the current status of climate change; China's achievements in science and technology on this issue; guidelines, principles, and targets; key tasks to address the issue; and measures to enforce the actions.
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.
This report discusses progress by Federal agencies dealing with domestic animal genomics. The work represents an increase in the understanding of domestic animals such as sheep, cattle, swine, bees, and others. Knowledge in this area is crucial for better understanding animal diseases such at bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow disease")
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.
This report describes SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment), and case studies demonstrating the merits of SEA in Europe and North America. The report is aimed at helping readers understanding and implementing SEA.
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.
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 …
Average temperature has risen 1 degree F over the last century in the Mid-Atlantic Region as well as across the globe. Climate science is developing rapidly and many studies project additional warming. Although the future is uncertain and difficult to predict, our best science suggests the following changes are likely. The Mid-Atlantic Region will be somewhat warmer and perhaps wetter, resulting in a wide range of impacts on plants, wildlife, and humans. Human activities that release heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere will continue to accelerate the observed warming trend. Climate change will compound existing stresses from population density and development. The region's overall economy is quite resilient, but impacts will be more severe for some economic activities and localities.
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.
The wide diversity of developing countries dictates that sustainable development might include different measures in different contexts. This document provides information on quantitatively evaluating measures for sustainable development.
This memorandum charges the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force with developing a national policy that ensures protection of oceans as well as a framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning.
The U.S. Government's Climate Change Science Program (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 Report-SAP 4.4-focuses on federally managed lands and waters to provide a "Preliminary Review of Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources." It is one of seven reports that support Goal 4 of the CCSP Strategic Plan to understand the sensitivity and adaptability of different natural and managed ecosystems and human systems to climate and related global changes. The purpose of SAP 4.4 is to provide useful information on the state of knowledge regarding adaptation options for key, representative ecosystems and resources that may be sensitive to climate variability and change. As its title suggests, this report is a preliminary review, defined as "the process of collecting and reviewing available information about known or potential adaptation options."
This fact sheet draws information from the Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States report that describes how climate change affects coastal areas in the United States.
Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Study (MAIRS) is an IRS research program over monsoon Asia under START and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP). It was established to address questions about the coupled human and environment system in the monsoon Asia region. The vision of MAIRS is to significantly advance understanding of the interactions between the human and natural components of the overall environment in the monsoon Asian region and implications for the global earth system, in order to support strategies for sustainable development. Regional-scale studies of global change provide the knowledge base for undertaking vulnerability analyses, identification of hotspots of risk and studies of environmental degradation which are crucial for the sustainable development. Regions may manifest significantly different environmental dynamics, and changes in regional biophysical, biogeochemical and anthropogenic components may produce considerably different consequences for the earth system at the global scale. Regions are not closed systems and thus the linkages between regional changes and the global earth system are crucial. This specific report focuses on Planning Workshop on MAIRS Mountain Zone Implementation that held in China. Integrated Regional Studies (IRSs) should have relevance for people living in the regions and should provide a sound scientific basis for the sustainable development of the countries in the regions, and IRSs are also important from an earth system science perspective.
The global carbon cycle is of intense interest to policy-makers, the scientific community, and public organizations. As a result, numerous new programmes and projects have been developed over the last few years. TCO and GCP are two such complementary initiatives which share a common goal of advancing the availability of more accurate and mutually consistent estimates of terrestrial carbon sources, sinks and processes, regionally and globally, through syntheses of observations and models. The workshop was intended to advance the availability of more accurate and mutually consistent estimates of the distribution of carbon sources and sinks at a regional and global level. This goal can be achieved by convergence of in situ and satellite observations, experiments and modelling strategies; improvements in data acquisition and sharing; and product generation, distribution and use. The workshop focused on the following questions and associated issues: 1. What carbon cycle data products could be routinely produced from a carbon observation system based on model-data and model-data fusion? 2. What are the main conceptual approaches to assimilating atmospheric carbon content, terrestrial carbon flux and remotely sensed data into coupled atmospheric circulation-carbon cycle models? 3. What is the present and eventual uncertainty regarding the main carbon fluxes at global and regional scale, and how will it be reduced by projects currently underway and about to begin? 4. In what regions, and on what topics, will new data inputs make the largest contribution to reducing the residual uncertainties? What actions should be taken to overcome the gaps and limitations identified?
This report to the Alaska State Sub-Cabinet on Climate Change recommends research strategies for mitigating greenhouse gases and adapting to the impacts of climate change.
This is a children's book where the characters build a time machine that lets them visit alternate futures based on the decisions they make in the present. The story provides a glimpse of a post-apocalyptic dystopia as a result of severe global climate change, as well as a future utopian ideal that comes as a result of implementing massive changes to land use and food and energy production.
This law was passed by the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to improve environmental sanitation and public health through the regulation of waste disposal.
This document is part of the Synthesis and Assessment Products described in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Strategic Plan. Changes in extreme weather and climate events have significant impacts and are among the most serious challenges to society in coping with a changing climate. This Synthesis and Assessment Product (SAP 3.3) focuses on weather and climate extremes in a changing climate. Many extremes and their associated impacts are now changing. For example, in recent decades most of North America has been experiencing more unusually hot days and nights, fewer unusually cold days and nights, and fewer frost days. Heavy downpours have become more frequent and intense. Droughts are becoming more severe in some regions, though there are no clear trends for North America as a whole. The power and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes have increased substantially in recent decades, though North American mainland land-falling hurricanes do not appear to have increased over the past century. Outside the tropics, storm tracks are shifting northward and the strongest storms are becoming even stronger. It is well established through formal attribution studies that the global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Such studies have only recently been used to determine the causes of some changes in extremes at the scale of a continent. Certain aspects of observed increases in temperature extremes have been linked to human influences. The increase in heavy precipitation events is associated with an increase in water vapor, and the latter has been attributed to human-induced warming. No formal attribution studies for changes in drought severity in North America have been attempted. There is evidence suggesting a human contribution to recent changes in hurricane activity as well as in storms outside the tropics, though a confident assessment will require …
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