Now Is The Time: We must find a global response to this most global of problems
By Ban Ki-moon01.06.2007
The lines were drawn as the industrialized nations of the Group of Eight gathered in Heiligendamm, Germany on 6 June 2007. The forces mustered to fight global warming were divided into competing camps.
From Stockholm to Kyoto: A Brief History of Climate Change
By Peter Jackson01.06.2007
In the midst of the current international debate on global warming, it is instructive to note that it has taken the United Nations and the international community some two generations to reach this point.
‘Warming Of The Climate System Is Unequivocal’: Highlights Of The Fourth IPCC Assessment Report
By Yuwei Zhang01.06.2007
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1988 to recognize the problem of potential global climate change.
The Challenge Of Building Consensus Beyond The Scientific Community
By Timothy E. Wirth 01.06.2007
The imminence and severity of problems posed by the accelerating changes in the global climate are becoming increasingly evident. Heatwaves are increasing in severity, droughts and downpours are becoming more intense, the Greenland ice sheet is shrinking, sea levels are rising and the increasing acidification of the oceans is threatening to disrupt the marine food chain.
Consolidating Political Will: We Need A New Vision Of Sustainability
By Helen Clark01.06.2007
The issues of sustainability, particularly climate change and clean energy, as well as energy security and access, are compelling concerns of our times. Through the issues raised by climate change, the goal of sustainable development has been given a tangible core and a renewed sense of urgency.
Confronting Climate Change: A Shared And Global Responsibility
By Portia Simpson Miller01.06.2007
Climate change is recognized as a most serious threat facing humanity. No one is immune to its effects. The impact of climate variability and climate change on human and natural systems poses serious challenges to our objective of reducing poverty and achieving sustainable development.
A Threat To Our Human Rights: Tuvalu’s Perspective On Climate Change
By Apisai Ielemia01.06.2007
If there is one issue that strikes at the heart of my nation, Tuvalu, it is climate change. Tuvalu is a small coral atoll nation located in the middle of the South Pacific. Our lives are closely linked to the marine environment and we live off the bounty of the ocean, with fish being our main source of protein.
The Greatest Threat To Global Security: Climate Change Is Not Merely An Environmental Problem
By Emyr Jones Parry01.06.2007
Climate change is transforming the way we think about security. “This will not be the first time people have fought over land, water and resources, but this time it will be on a scale that dwarfs the conflicts of the past”, said the Congolese representative at the UN Security Council debate in April 2007. The French called it the “number one threat to mankind”.
Guiding Principles Needed: Towards A Global Strategy For Climate Change
By Kiyo Akasaka01.06.2007
Ever since I attended the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change in 1997, I have been fascinated by the development of the international debate on this issue. There are few forces that can literally reshape the global landscape as climate change can. Rising sea levels, melting glaciers, lakes that are drying up and rainforests that become savannahs are just some of the changes that are wrought by climate change.
The UN Role In Climate Change Action: Taking The Lead Towards A Global Response
By Achim Steiner01.06.2007
Over the coming weeks and months, the three Special Envoys on climate change appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be making whistle-stop tours of key capital cities to build a solid and sustainable consensus on action over climate change.
Devastating For The World’s Poor: Climate Change Threatens The Development Gains Already Achieved
By Kemal Dervis01.06.2007
Climate change has emerged as one of the biggest environmental challenges facing the world. Twenty years ago at the United Nations, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway’s former Prime Minister and former Director-General of the World Health Organization, first drew global attention to the threats posed by climate change to the earth and its inhabitants.
Before The Next Disaster Strikes: The Humanitarian Impact Of Climate Change
By Margareta Wahlström 01.06.2007
Climate change is an issue so large in scope and so potentially overwhelming in importance that it might be helpful for us to pause and focus our attention on practical steps we can take to adapt to a warming planet and reduce its negative impacts.
Climate Change Around The World: A View From The UN Regional Commissions
The most recent meeting of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD 15) examined global climate change, along with energy, air and industrial development, as a comprehensive cluster of issues. The risk of climate change commands the most widespread preoccupation of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Governments throughout the world.
Forests and Climate Change: From Complex Problem to Integrated Solution
By Hans Hoogeveen01.06.2007
Global warming has become everyday news, often featured in alarming statements by Heads of Governments, scientists or environmental activists. We now know that melting glaciers, erratic global weather patterns, droughts, raging wildfires and creeping invasive species of flora and fauna in new localities are all unmistakably the effects of climate change.
Climate Change In The Arctic: An Inuit Reality
By Duane Smith01.06.2007
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) characterizes the circumpolar Arctic as the world's climate change "barometer". The 160,000 Inuit who live in northern Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Chukotka in Russia have witnessed the changing of the natural environment as a result of global warming for almost 20 years.
Costa Rica’s Commitment: On The Path To Becoming Carbon-Neutral
By Roberto Dobles Mora01.06.2007
Current scientific evidence increasingly shows that the benefits of strong early action far outweigh the costs of inaction. If we do not drastically and promptly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions now, we are risking a catastrophic disruption of the complex of interlinked environmental, economic, health, moral, political and social systems that sustain civilization as we know it.
We Cannot Lose Our Green And Our Blue: Climate Change Threatens Our Urban Environment
By Cesar Maia01.06.2007
Global climatic change will affect all aspects of social life in the twenty-first century. The measures necessary to confront the challenges brought about by global warming and to mitigate its impact go far beyond the indispensable technological transition in the production process and changes in consumption habits of individuals. The future of cities and what we now call "urban" will also undergo transformations.
The Health Effects Of Global Warming: Developing Countries Are The Most Vulnerable
By Paritosh Kasotia 01.06.2007
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the increase in global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is primarily due to fossil fuel use and, in a smaller but still significant level, to land-use change.
Interaction Of Climate Change And Land Degradation: The Experience In The Arab Region
By Ismail Serageldin01.06.2007
The Arab region is comprised of 21 countries, extending from North Africa to South West Asia, over an estimated total area of 14.1 million square kilometres. Its vast terrain includes physiographic features of plains, plateaus, dry valleys and relatively limited highlands and mountainous areas.
How To Avoid The Unmanageable And Manage The Unavoidable Climate Changes
By Alexander Ginzburg01.06.2007
Alpine ski resorts are churning out artificial snow, wrote Laura MacInnis in her story, "Fake Snow in Alps, Moscow Blooms: Green Christmas?", published by Reuters News Service on 13 December 2006. Daisies are blooming by the Kremlin and retailers are fretting that Europeans are simply too warm to go Christmas shopping in a record mild winter.
Business And Climate Change: Rising Public Awareness Creates Significant Opportunity
By Sophy Bristow 01.06.2007
Imagine the scene: the year is 2027-China is responsible for 15 per cent of the world's energy consumption; California has imposed permanent water rationing; relief agencies warn that late rains again raise the spectre of widespread hunger in southern Africa; and cases of malaria are being reported among holidaymakers in Greece and Turkey.
Sustainable Development And Climate Change: A Business Perspective
By Herman Mulder 01.06.2007
Twenty years after the Brundtland Report asserted it was in the common interest of all peoples and nations to establish policies for sustainable development, the pace of sustainability is finally accelerating. Notwithstanding a number of serious political and security issues that politicians are struggling to effectively address, the case for sustainability in a global context has become more apparent, and even mainstreamed in some countries, during the last few years.
Industrial And Rural Energy In China: Innovative Private-Sector Initiatives Lead The Way
By Derek Newberry 01.06.2007
China's massive industrial sector is an economic juggernaut, helping to drive national gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates of around 10 per cent per year. But while the country's highly productive factories and plants may be boosting national prosperity, their rapid expansion carries with it a serious environmental burden and costly energy inefficiencies that are increasingly becoming a barrier to China's sustainable development, thus contributing to climate change.
The Promise Of Solar Energy: A Low-Carbon Energy Strategy For The 21st Century
By Rhone Resch 01.06.2007
In an increasingly carbon-constrained world, solar energy technologies represent one of the least carbon-intensive means of electricity generation. Solar power produces no emissions during generation itself, and life-cycle assessments clearly demonstrate that it has a smaller carbon footprint from "cradle-to-grave" than fossil fuels.
Sustainable Development within the Climate Context SouthSouthNorth and the Clean Development Mechanism
By Barry Kantor01.06.2007
Sustainable development is an important requirement of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) set up under the Kyoto Protocol. It helps to maintain environmental integrity and should be assessed rigorously prior to any investment in a CDM project. The benefits include certainty in CDM application, reduction of risk to investors, developers and owners, and the provision of cost-free assistance to developing countries, which could reduce the enormous divide between the North and the South.
A Future To Look Forward To Youth and Children demand Global Climate Stabilization
By Juan Hoffmaister01.06.2007
Youth and children, as the next generations, have the right to a clean future-they do not wish to inherit a toxic, radioactive, dirty and carbon-driven world. We demand a clear definition of sustainable energy and time-bound targets for the implementation of a sustainable energy policy that will free us from respiratory ailments, air pollution, climate change and a radioactive legacy.
A Future To Look Forward To: Youth and Students Campaign for a Sustainable Future
By Josef Mantl01.06.2007
The Sustainable Future Campaign is a programme designed by an international team, in coordination with the United Nations Youth and Student Association of Austria, to provide educational platforms to engage global youth and encourage environmental development efforts.
Cool Globes: Increase Awareness and inspire Action Against Global Warming
In 2001, I read a Time magazine article on climate change, which stated that in the next 100 years the Earth's temperature could rise by 3? to 11? Celsius. It then dawned on me that this was within my children's lifetime. How would these changes impact the world they live in? Will they be left to deal with the consequences of our behaviours?
About this Issue
UN Chronicle, Volume XLIV, Issue 2, 2007
Climate change has finally taken hold in the public consciousness. With it, inevitably, comes a sense of urgency that decisive action is needed now, before it is too late. This special issue of the UN Chronicle offers, through a range of unique perspectives, a comprehensive snapshot of where we currently stand with regard to climate change. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon writes, in an exclusive essay for our magazine, "climate change, and how we address it, will define us, our era and ultimately the global legacy we leave for future generations".
During the recent G-8 summit in Germany, all eight Governments agreed, for the first time, that the multilateral process within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was the appropriate forum for negotiating future global action. There is not much time left: a global agreement is needed by 2009 to ensure that a new future climate change strategy is in place when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Major steps toward that goal will be the UN high-level meeting on climate change in New York in September 2007 and the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia, in December.
The current debate on global warming took over a generation to unfold, with the gradual emergence of environmental issues on the global agenda and the evolution of climate change within that context. The culmination of the scientific findings, and the point of departure for any future global action, is the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The challenge now is to build a consensus beyond the scientific community by recognizing the economic and social benefits of protecting the earth's climate.
Although the impact of climate change will be felt in all regions, it will particularly affect small island States. This raises the fundamental issue of equity, calling for a new partnership between wealthy nations and developing countries. Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller of Jamaica and Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia of Tuvalu each offer their unique contribution to the debate; at the same time, all three stress that a new vision of sustainability is required, along with a new way of working together that is fair and equitable to all.
The recent UN Security Council debate, held for the first time on climate change in April 2007, made clear that climate change can no longer be viewed as merely an environmental problem and must be considered a serious threat to global security. It will be particularly devastating for the world's poor and threatens to reverse the development gains already achieved. Meanwhile, the humanitarian impact of climate change will be felt in the increase in deforestation and land degradation, in melting permafrost, as well as vulnerability to disasters and infectious diseases.
Yet there is hope. Costa Rica is on the path to becoming a carbon-neutral country and Rio de Janeiro is implementing innovative initiatives to protect the urban environment. In Darfur, refugees are cooking with the help of solar energy. The rising public awareness of climate change is creating business opportunities in the areas of emissions reduction and sustainable development . Already, private-sector energy initiatives in China and "green" architecture in India are leading the way. Along with new visionary international agreements on climate change, these innovative public-private partnerships will contribute to a world that our children and youth can look forward to. If we want to move towards a sustainable future, we must tackle climate change head on and green our world!
Cover Information: Front cover Landscape architect Douglas Hoerr created the globe, titled “Plant It!”, as part of the public art exhibit “Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet”, on display in Chicago from June to September 2007. More than 2,000 colourful seed packets envelop this globe. Gardens absorb carbon dioxide. They help people tend the Earth and become aware of climatic changes. They also bring joy to people’s lives. Photo by Nick Zembruski