For those of you interested in climate change adaptation, our forest adaptation project in Armenia decided to join the blogosphere to share information and knowledge. For our first blog, we wanted to present our project – and in as few points as possible.
Our project promotes adaptation to the impacts of climate change on mountain forest ecosystems in Armenia. The project is about three quarters down the line and will be wrapped in 2013. Although the project has stayed well on schedule and several project successes have already been posted on our web site, now is the time to get the last, and maybe the biggest, things done. (more…)
Last week’s policy brief, Natural Disaster Risks in Central Asia, based on a UNDP review of available risks assessments, has provided some interesting information on landslides in Central Asia.
Landslides are one of the main natural hazards facing Central Asia. Their triggers vary, but they include the steepness of slopes – which has been continuously increasing due to seismic events, mining, increased torrential rainfall as well as rising water tables and continued degradation.
As shown in the map below, landslide risks differ among Central Asian countries and are most pronounced in the mountainous areas of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Currently, Tajikistan has around 50,000 landslide sites, of which 1,200 directly affect settlements. (more…)
I’ve just returned from the launch of the first ever energy efficient kindergarten in our country. It’s days like this – when the result of our efforts become ever so tangible – that I particularly love this work.
I am proud that it took less than five months for our team to completely refurbish a 50 year-old Skopje building that was in a pretty bad shape. We changed the windows, the façades, the roof and we installed a hot water solar system – using approaches that will minimize the payback period (yours truly along with the ‘green team’ also planted a few flowers for the latest spruce up!). Our estimates are that the energy savings of the kindergarten will amount to almost 60%!
On April 24-25, the National Council for Sustainable Development in Montenegro and UNDP will organize a 2-day meeting on sustainable development in Kolasin (tip for the would-be tourist: around this northern city there are a number of hidden gems worth exploring).
The event is Montenegro’s contribution to a global dialogue on sustainability and an opportunity for the country to consolidate the platform it will present at the global Sustainable Development Conference, the Rio+ meeting in June.
There are several dominant themes of the meeting:
How does Montenegro deal with the legacies of its economic past- energy intensive industries and heavy reliance on foreign direct investment- in a resource-constrained world?
Can green economy deliver on a promise of social equity, in addition to competitiveness and low emissions?
How can tourism and agriculture reduce regional economic imbalances?
Where are the most immediate opportunities for renewable energy and energy efficiency in Montenegro?
Today is the last day of the climate change negotiations here in Durban. We are prepared to spend the day and the night here in the Conference center expected the final outcome. (Negotiations could likely spill over into tomorrow morning as well as was the case in Copenhagen.)
There was not much progress achieved last night, although some of the drafting groups are still working and in parallel the ministers are trying to resolve the crunch issues.
The biggest issue for the ministers is to resolve the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, in particular its length, legal form and specific numbers for reduction of emissions. Each of these categories has three options to choose from. If this is resolved the rest will follow, as the developing countries made it clear that without Kyoto there is no deal.
After a long night, negotiators are getting closer to agreeing on the structure of the Green Climate Fund.
The German Government pledged around $40 million to go to operational costs of the Fund – a sign they are confident that an agreement will be reached here in Durban.
Many are trying to decouple decisions on the Green Climate Fund from all other decisions that still need to be made, to better the chances of reaching an agreement on the Fund.
China wants the Fund set up before it makes its domestic climate change efforts binding under an international agreement. Other developing countries are also pushing for an agreement on the Fund’s design in Durban.
Is there still time to produce a climate change agreement for all countries?
Yesterday an amended text – the basis for an agreement – was produced and presented for negotiation under the Convention. Many Parties complained that there are missing positions, and that overall, it is not balanced. There is still a need for the ministers to be involved at this stage to seek their political guidance on many issues.
The Chair provided a list of issues to be forwarded to the high-level delegates, including:
A shared vision, including a global goal to limit emissions
Climate change mitigation for developed countries, resolution on pledges and levels of ambition, as well as compliance
Climate change mitigation for developing countries
Cooperative sectoral approaches, and an agreed programme on adaptation
Review of emission reduction commitments in order to keep the rise of the global temperature within the margins recommended by the scientific community
The high-level part of the climate negotiations started today, with 12 head of states and 130 ministers. Many events are taking place under the leadership of the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, together with the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Cristiana Figueres, the President of South Africa Jacob Zuma, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark, Sir Nicholas Stern, and many others.
However, there is still no text ready to be presented for political decision-making.
In the meantime, high-level officials began outlining their positions and are talking to each other.
It was a working weekend here at the conference – and, like all the delegates, we’ve been reading through the “amalgamation” text and its addendum, which was shared on Saturday. (“Amalgamation” was supposed to show that the text goes beyond simply compilation, however many did not agree that it succeeded.)
It’s the product of one week of negotiations under the Convention track, and compiles all the issues to create the basis for a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption. However the text still contains a variety of options, some of which are controversial, and many areas of disagreement. It cannot be presented to the ministers for adoption in its current shape. A lot of work still remains to be done by Wednesday.
As the last region to hold its Preparatory Meeting for the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, the United Nations Commission for Europe (UNECE) region is a bit of a test case for the global debate since it includes low, medium, and high-income countries. For the first two days of December, 350 representatives of governments, academic experts, United Nations, civil society and business organizations exchanged their proposals for what will come out of the meeting in Rio de Janeiro. (See: speech of UNDP regional deputy director Jens Wandel – well worth the read.)
What is at stake?
This regional debate touches the heart of the development conundrum. Daniel Ziegerer of Switzerland described the issue as the intersection between economic development, social justice and environmental protection. We at UNDP asked the question: is fossil fuel driven growth, which leaves a large gap between rich and poor, human development? Joachim Spangenberg put it this way: how do we look at two key questions: How do you transform economic advancement into something about humans rather than profit? And how do we imagine economic growth within the framework of actual planetary constraints?
RT @MarijaNovkovic: No single prescription for #dev. Best practice or best fit? Embrace experimentation and make small changes. Adapt to ... 17 hours ago
RT @gquaggiotto: Owen: Development policy needs stop looking the missing ingredient. Rather we need to harness & shape evolution #kapu17 hours ago
RT @gquaggiotto: "From best practice to best fit" --> we need a #globaldev sector promoting experimentation #kapu17 hours ago
