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The Bali Action Plan: Key Issues in The Climate Negotiations: Summary for Policy Makers
To assist policy makers in understanding the complex issues under discussion in the negotiating process, UNDP commissioned a series of background briefing papers on the key issues under the four main "building blocks" of the current international negotiations -- mitigation, adaptation, technology and finance -- as well as land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). This document contains summaries for policy makers of these briefing papers.
Basic Environment Act
This law, passed by the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan), sets environmental policy for Taiwan and stipulates that economic and technological development will emphasize environmental protection based on long-term national interests, and that development must be sustainable in the interest of future national security and quality of life.
Basic Policy On Development Cooperation in the Field of Climate Change: Recommendations by Experts' Panel for Realization of "Cool Earth"
The document encourages international cooperation for dealing with climate change and offers strategies for making climate policy and economic policy compatible.
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.
Beyond Kyoto, Manitoba's Green Future : Next Steps, 2008 Action on Climate Change
The Report raised concerns about the impacts of climate change on our lakes, forests, northern communities and agricultural regions. At the same time, Manitobans identified many benefits that could come from taking action. Moreover, it also recommended a broader public awareness campaign and the development of regional and national partnerships.
A Bill : House Bill 2460
On April 3, 2007, Governor Mike Beebe of Arkansas established a Governor's Commission on Global Warming with the signing of HB2460. The commission will study the potential impacts of climate change on the state’s environment and economy, and then recommend a global warming pollutant reduction goal and strategies for achieving it. Commission members will include representatives from the state government as well as many groups including scientific, energy, forestry, agricultural, and environmental organizations, among others. The Commission must report its findings by November 1, 2008.
A Bill : House Bill 2460
On April 3, 2007, Governor Mike Beebe of Arkansas established a Governor's Commission on Global Warming with the signing of HB2460. The commission will study the potential impacts of climate change on the state’s environment and economy, and then recommend a global warming pollutant reduction goal and strategies for achieving it. Commission members will include representatives from the state government as well as many groups including scientific, energy, forestry, agricultural, and environmental organizations, among others. The Commission must report its findings by November 1, 2008.
Biodiversité: Quelle Recherche Dans 15 Ans?: Enjeux, Chercheurs, Contextes
Proceedings of a meeting of the French Institute of Biodiversity (IFB), setting a course of research for the next fifteen years. The IFB, composed of government agencies, research organizations, and NGOs, is a scientific interest group promoting scientific research in biodiversity. The IFB is devoted to coordinating research on biodiversity in all natural and social sciences, to promoting biodiversity research at the national, European, and international levels, and to disseminating knowledge and providing educational outreach to the general public.
Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change, Report to Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.
The final report from an advisory panel of 15 scientists and industry experts finding that humans are responsible for climate warming and that Utah is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions per capita than the rest of the nation. It makes about 70 recommendations for fighting global warming including: developing significant amounts of renewable energy with incentives and tax credits, encouraging the capture and disposal of carbon dioxide, improving efficiency at power plants, implementing an aggressive mass-transit strategy, and preserving open space and agricultural land and protecting forests. The report, however, does not include specific policy recommendations or rules to implement action.
Breaking Records in 2007 – Climate Change
Record breaking events during 2007 will have serious impacts on the entire planet.
British Columbia Climate Action for 21st Century
The report fulfills the Greenhouse Gas Reductions Target Act requirements with respect to the progress, action and plans to achieve the emissions reduction targets.
Building Standards for State Buildings
This map shows states with energy efficiency standards for government buildings.
Buying Time: A User’s Manual for Building Resistance and Resilience to Climate Change in Natural Systems
This publication is meant for Protected Areas Managers. It gives detailed information about assessing occurring and possible damage from climate change and fending off the damage - buying time for our protected areas while the world works out the only long-term solution - reducing CO2 emissions.
California Assembly Bill No. 1493
The "Pavley" bill requires the registry, in consultation with the State Air Resources Board, to adopt procedures and protocols for the reporting and certification of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from mobile sources for use by the state board in granting the emission reduction credits. This bill requires the state board to develop and adopt, by January 1, 2005, regulations that achieve the maximum feasible reduction of greenhouse gases emitted by passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks.
California Legislature, 2001-2002 Session, Senate Bill No. 527
Bill introduced by the California Senate to revise the functions and duties of the California Climate Action Registry and requires the Registry, in coordination with CEC to adopt third-party verification metrics, developing GHG emissions protocols and qualifying third-party organizations to provide technical assistance and certification of emissions baselines and inventories. SB 527 amended SB 1771 to emphasize third-party verification.
Can Cities Reduce Global Warming?: Urban Development and the Carbon Cycle in Latin America
This report includes case studies on urban development and the carbon cycle in the Americas. The authors intend to demonstrate the consequences of different pathways of urban development on the carbon cycle, and identify points of management and intervention aimed at designing less-carbon intensive development.
Capability and cost assessment of the major forest nations to measure and monitor their forest carbon
According to the Executive Summary, the aims and objective of this report are to provide an assessment of national capacity and capability in 25 tropical countries for measuring and monitoring forest as a requirement for reporting on REDD under IPCC guidelines. This paper was commissioned by the United Kingdom Office of Climate Change as background work to its report 'Climate Change: Financing Global Forests' (the Eliasch Review).
Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage
This report provides information for policy makers, scientists and engineers in the field of climate change and reduction of CO2 emissions. It describes sources, capture, transport, and storage of CO2, as well as the costs, economic potential, and societal issues of the technology, including public perception and regulatory aspects.
Carbon/Efficiency Labelling & Bio-Blending for Optimising Benefits of Biodiesel & Additive Use
The Carbon Labelling project implemented several labelling measures in Europe focused on transportation products and services with low CO2 emissions. The project promoted biodiesel, low-viscosity lubricants and ‘low carbon’ freight services. This first European carbon labelling initiative supported the discussion about measures for the greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) targets of the European Union and the role of biofuels to mitigate GHG emissions. Carbon life cycle numbers were calculated with GHG models from leading European research institutes. The identified carbon reduction numbers were used for pilot labelling initiatives via the label “CO2Star” developed by a professional advertising agency. The label and consumer information websites provided information to consumers about environmental and economic benefits of the labelled biofuels, lubricants and freight services. For instance, the German fuel distributor Q1 implemented a carbon labelling pilot programme for biodiesel (B 100) and lubricants at its fuel stations, while Dutch horticulture freight companies implemented the carbon label to promote "low carbon" freight services.
Carbon Forestry Projects in Developing Countries: Legal Issues and Tools
Paper outlining basic legal issues related to international forestry carbon projects. It includes introductory and legal background information, pre-implementation issues and activities, and a sample contract and annotated hypothetical project description, as well as a bibliography of relevant sources.
Carbon Monoxide from California Fires
Large fires can be blamed for some polluted air. In addition to ash and smoke, fires release carbon monoxide into the atmosphere as they burn. This false-color image shows the atmospheric column of carbon monoxide, with yellow and red indicating high levels of pollution. (The gray areas show where no data were taken, likely due to cloud cover.) The data were taken by the Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite for the period October 26-31, 2003.
Carbon Sequestration - Field Hearing
This brief document contains remarks by Dr. James Mahoney to the U.S Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
CCCC Kick the Habit: A UN Guide to Climate Neutrality
This book describes the importance of climate neutrality in order to reduce the impact of global warming. Climate neutrality requires reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and others.
Challenges and Successes in Technology Roadmap Implementation: Lessons Learned from Public and Private Sector Roadmaps
This document is a PDF version of MS Powerpoint presentation by Jack Eisenhauer and Ross Brindle from Energetics Incorporated (www.energetics.com) to Energy Technology Roadmaps Workshop, organized by the International Energy Agency (IEA). This event was held in Paris, France on May 15-16, 2008.
China Climate Change Partnership Framework
.Mainstreaming of climate change mitigation and adaptation into national and sub-national policies, planning, and investment frameworks. Establishment of innovative partnerships and dissemination of dissemination of technologies to mitigate climate change and increase local access to sustainable energy. Accelerated action by China in assessing vulnerability to climate change and developing adaptation plans and mechanisms.
China in the International Politics of Climate Change: A Foreign Policy Analysis
This report looks into the developments in China’s political response to the threat of climate change from the late 1980s when the problem emerged on the international political agenda, until 2004. Three theoretically based explanatory models are employed to identify the factors that have influenced Chinese foreign policy-making on climate change in the past, and furthermore how these factors are likely to influence China’s future climate change policy. The three models emphasize respectively: national interests in terms of costs and benefits; domestic political bargaining; and learning through diffusion of knowledge and norms.
China’s National Climate Change Programme
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.
.CHINA’S PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT AND GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE
.Climate Change Issues during China’s Peaceful Development and its International Impact. International Law on Climate Change Involved in China’s Peaceful Development. Policy and Legal Reactions to Climate Change involved in China’s peaceful Development.
.China’s Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change
.China has formulated and implemented its national climate change programme, and adopted a series of policies and measures in this regard. China addresses climate change in the context of implementing sustainable development strategy, combined with its accelerated steps to build a resource-conserving and environmental-friendly society and an innovation-oriented country.
.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.
China’s Scientific & Technological Actions on Climate Change
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.
Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation [Map]
The Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map shows the types of vegetation that occur across the Arctic, between the ice-covered Arctic Ocean to the north and the northern limit of forests to the south. Environmental and climatic conditions are extreme, with a short growing season and low summer temperatures. As one moves southward (outward from map's center in all directions), the amount of warmth available for plant growth increases considerably.
A Citizen's Guide to the NEPA: Having Your Voice Heard
This introductory guide to the National Environmental Policy Act describes the NEPA process and provides information on how citizens can get involved.
The Clean Air Act
The United States Clean Air Act is legislation authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency to control air pollutiants on a national level.
Clean Energy: Jobs for America’s Future
This study analyzes the employment, macroeconomic, energy and environmental impacts of implementing the Climate Protection Scenario.
Climate and Airborne Pollutants
This brochure provides an overview of how air pollutants have an impact on climate change.
Climate and Global Change Interagency Inventory Data Sheet
The Climate and Global Change Interagency Inventory Data Sheet is a working document (dated August 2002) that includes information provided by federal agencies regarding their climate and global change research activities.
Climate change
The Earth's climate has not been constant over geological time. This record is contained in ice, which has built up as snowfall accumulated in distinct yearly layers. Pockets of air trapped between the snow crystals contain traces of past atmospheres, which in turn tell us about the climate at the time the snow formed. Glaciologists collect this record by drilling ice cores and then use sensitive chemical techniques to analyse the layers.
Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report
According to the introduction, this Synthesis Report is based on the assessment carried out by the three Working Groups (WGs) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It provides an integrated view of climate change as the final part of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). It discusses the observations of climate change, causes and effects, options for adaptation and mitigation, and remaining uncertainties.
Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events
The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of 1995 has been taken as a starting point. Since 1995 many new observations and reports have become available. Much of the information on observations and studies on climate change and its impacts can be found through the Internet. Where possible we have made references, such that the reader can easily verify and review our sources. This study addresses three main questions: To what extent can the human influence on the climate system presently be measured? What can we expect for the short term and long-term future? To what extent will measures to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions affect the future climate?
Climate Change and Insurance: An Agenda for Action in the United States
This report is the first report of its kind that attempts to overlay a detailed distillation of climate change science with U.S. insurance industry activities around climate change. This report aims to go beyond an investigation of only hurricanes to also address the implications for the U.S. insurance industry of other impacts of climate change including forest fires, floods, and storm surge (although storm surge is not commercially insured, this report describes how government insurance backstops interact intimately with commercial insurance products and with consumer perception of risk). The report finds that U.S. insurers are far ahead of many of their overseas counterparts in assessing current catastrophic (cat) risk through sophisticated cat risk modeling that is based on historical weather events; however, U.S. insurers appear to lag behind their European peers who have begun to conduct studies of climate change and are beginning, though slowly, to incorporate future climate change scenarios into cat risk models, particularly for flooding.
Climate Change and Water: Technical Paper VI
The Technical Paper addresses the issue of freshwater. Sea level rise is dealt with only insofar as it can lead to impacts on freshwater in coastal areas and beyond. Climate, freshwater, biophysical and socio-economic systems are interconnected in complex ways. Hence, a change in any one of these can induce a change in any other. Freshwater-related issues are critical in determining key regional and sectoral vulnerabilities. Therefore, the relationship between climate change and freshwater resources is of primary concern to human society and also has implications for all living species.
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).
Climate Change: Financing Global Forests
According to the Office of Climate Change press release, the Eliasch Review aims to provide an analysis of international financing to reduce forest loss and its associated impacts on climate change. The focus related to the international efforts to achieve a new global climate change agreement in Copenhagen in 2009. The Eliasch Review focuses on the financing required to produce significant reductions in forest carbon emissions. It also examines how mechanisms to address forest loss can reduce poverty while preserving ecosystem biodiversity and water services.
Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change
This assessment examines how global climate climate change affects the United States, and describes strategies for adaptation.
Climate Change Impacts on the United States The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. Overview: Alaska.
This document discusses climatic trends in Alaska and how changes in weather and climate are affecting plant and animal populations, other geographic and environmental factors, and the socio-economic impacts on the region.
Climate Change in Indonesia Implications for Humans and Nature
The report highlights that annual rainfall in the world’s fourth most populous nation is already down by 2 to 3 per cent, and the seasons are changing.
Climate Change: Meeting the Challenge to 2050
Climate change is already with us. Scientific evidence shows that past emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) are already affecting the Earth’s climate.Without further policies to combat climate change, the OECD projects GHG emissions will grow by about 52% by 2050.This Policy Brief highlights the OECD’s work on the likely impact of various courses of action to mitigate climate change, and the costs of inaction.
Climate Change Mitigation Negotiations, With An Emphasis on Options For Developing Counteries
Climate change is one of the greatest threats to our planet and its people. Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) is called mitigation. Responding to the impacts of climate change is called adaptation. A certain amount of adaptation will be necessary, no matter what we do. But, there will come a point where it will not be possible to adapt our way out of the problem.
Climate Change Science Compendium 2009
This document was compiled as an annual snapshot of peer-reviewed research about climate change.
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