Sustainable Development within the Climate Context
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.
The Challenge Of Building Consensus Beyond The Scientific Community
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.
How To Avoid The Unmanageable And Manage The Unavoidable Climate Changes
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.
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?
Devastating For The World's Poor: Climate Change Threatens The Development Gains Already Achieved
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.
Green Architecture In India: Combining Modern Technology With Traditional Methods
We have been trying to address the ill effects of modern energy-depleting technology by inventing new technologies in architecture. While such a quest is inevitable, I propose combining solutions developed by our ancestors with contemporary technological innovations to achieve significant results in sustainable architecture.
Costa Rica's Commitment: On the Path to Becoming Carbon-Neutral
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.
Sixty-first General Assembly: Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary)
At the sixty-first session of the General Assembly, the Fifth Committee ensured that the United Nations would continue to function in the 2007-2009 biennium and finance its activities, by determining the contribution of each Member State to the Organization's regular and peacekeeping budgets.
Sixty-first General Assembly
General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, in her closing statement to the sixty-first session, told Member States that when we are united in partnership and overcome mistrust, we can achieve much more for each other, noting that the adoption of the long-awaited resolution on strengthening the UN Economic and Social Council was a good example.
A Special Partnership With the UN: An African Perspective
Even before formally assuming office, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had already made it very clear, in a series of public statements, that Africa would be among his highest priorities.
Sixty-first General Assembly: First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)
The First Committee, one of the main bodies of the General Assembly, enforces disarmament and the non-proliferation of weapons. In 2006, it made huge strides in international security when it adopted resolutions condemning surplus weapons stockpiles and agreeing on deeper international cooperation in the tracing of black market arms.
The UN General Assembly Advances the Global Agenda
Presiding over the sixty-first session of the General Assembly, I quickly learned that an effective president needs to be able to juggle many issues and remain in close contact with key negotiating groups and regional constituencies.
Sixty-first General Assembly: Sixth Committee (Legal)
The Sixth Committee, which deals with international legal matters confronting the 192 Member States of the United Nations, has helped give birth to judicial bodies like the International Criminal Court. Following the recommendations of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, the objective of strengthening the rule of law was at the top of the Committee's agenda in 2006.
ESSAY:Silent Reform Through The Global Compact
For the first time in its history, the United Nations is embracing business and civil society as vital partners in advancing its goals of international peace and development.
A Special Partnership With the UN: An Asian Perspective
The mission of the United Nations to carve out a safe, prosperous and just world from the ashes of the Second World War remains today an urgent global undertaking. For the past 61 years of its existence, the Organization's major organs contributed significantly, and greatly, to this end.