Tag: UNEP

Top policymakers, leading scientists, and representatives from major stakeholder groups from around the world gathered in Berlin to formally launch the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) sixth iteration of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report - the UN's authoritative assessment of the state, trends and outlook of the global environment. The fifth edition (GEO-5), launched on the eve of the Rio+20 Summit held in 2012, revealed that, of 90 of the most important environmental goals and objectives, significant progress had only been made on four. It was a crucial reminder to world leaders and nations of the need for urgent action to deliver on already agreed environmental goals. The upcoming sixth edition, expected to be launched in mid-2017, will build upon regional assessment processes and create a comprehensive picture of the environmental factors contributing to human well-being, accompanied by an analysis of policies leading to greater attainment of global environmental objectives and goals. The 133 delegates attending the GEO-6 Global Intergovernmental and Multi-stakeholder meeting in Berlin endorsed the guiding framework for the report, the methodologies by which it will be conducted, and the process for transparent engagement of authors and contributors to make the GEO-6 scientifically robust and credible. The ...

Leading scientists and policymakers meeting in Athens acknowledged that marine litter remained a "tremendous challenge" in almost all regions of the world, with significant socio-economic consequences and clear impacts on marine ecosystems. The three-day 16th Global Meeting of the Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans was held amid growing concern worldwide about the threat that widespread plastic waste poses to marine life, with conservative estimates of overall financial damage of plastic to marine ecosystems standing at US$13 billion each year. Participating experts recommended a three-tier approach to marine litter, saying that the problem needed to be tackled - not just at the regional and national levels - but at the municipal level, because in most cases it is municipalities that have responsibility for solid-waste management. "If we are serious about reducing the amount of solid waste being dumped in oceans, or flowing through waterways into oceans and marine ecosystems, then we need to work at all levels, including with municipalities which deal with solid waste management at grassroots level," said Julian Reyna, Secretary-General of the Permanent Commission on the South Pacific, Ecuador. On the issue of microplastics - tiny pieces of plastic less than one millimetre in size that pollute ...

In the last two decades, natural gas has become the fuel of choice for power generation, because electricity produced with gas has half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal power. Many see it as a "bridge" to a low-carbon energy future; in 30 countries, it already fuels more than half the electricity. But to the extent that gas isn't burnt for power, but escapes into the atmosphere, it harms the climate. That's because it's mostly methane, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, 84 times as potent as CO2 over a 20-year period. While the extent of these emissions is not well known - a problem in itself - it is clear that they must be stopped. That is the goal of the new CCAC Oil & Gas Methane Partnership, launched last week at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Climate Summit. The founding members include some of the world's top oil and gas companies: ENI of Italy, PEMEX of Mexico, PTT of Thailand, and Statoil of Norway, along with BG Group in the UK and Southwestern Energy in the US. "As a significant source of methane emissions, the oil and gas industry must take a leading role in addressing this issue," ...

A one-of-a-kind scientific expedition is currently heading to the Arctic, aboard the South Korean icebreaker Araon

Emissions Gap Report 2013 warns for gap between global emissions and 2C warming limit The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warns today that the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions are still much too high to meet the agreed international goal of holding global warming below 2C.''This is yet another call for climate action which shows the world is not getting its act together fast enough.The bad news of the report released today is that current carbon cuts are too slow to prevent dangerous climate change.But the good news is thatwe have options to close the gap although time is running out. And some of them are just a no-brainer:energy efficiency, renewable energy and fossil fuel subsidy reform. The report also shows that developing countries already account forabout 60% of global emissions, which underlines that the world simply cannot fight climate change effectively without all economies committing their fair share'', Connie Hedegaard, European Commission for Climate Action, saidIn its annual Emissions Gap Report, released today, UNEP says that countries' existing emission pledges, if fully implemented, will help reduce emissions to below the business-as-usual level in 2020, but not to a level consistent with the 2C limit, thus leaving a considerable and ...