The climate emergency is a direct consequence of carbon-heavy land-use and agriculture, transport, buildings and industrial processes and polluting energy sources. Without profound changes to these sectors and a drastic cut to carbon footprints, there is little hope of protecting the planet from the devastating effects of a warmer world.
Below are climate-related news and events from the United Nations and partners.
While COP29 in Baku is focusing on climate, next month another COP is taking place in Saudi Arabia from Dec 2- 16. UNCCD COP16 will focus on accelerating action on land, drought resilience and green transition in Saudi Arabia, the region and beyond. Desertification and land degradation is a huge issue, with the planet losing 100 million hectares of healthy and productive land each year.
Global Leaders Dialogue: Aligning Climate Action and Biodiversity Conservation for Achieving a Nature-Positive Future and the Paris Agreement Goals
Today focuses on the rather wide-ranging themes of nature and biodiversity, indigenous people, gender equality and ocean and coastal zones. It’s also a day where we will hopefully see progress on negotiations in Baku although much work needs to be done.
This event will highlight how the UN system is supporting Parties' strategies and plans to scale up and implement water-related mitigation and adaptation measures, including through National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Climate change is taking a toll on the South Caucasus, so how can science best translate into policies for adaptation? What does successful regional cooperation look like? This event will dive into these questions and feature the launch of UNEP’s Caucasus Environment Outlook.
This event will focus on overcoming the predominant barriers faced by nature-based solutions inside urban areas, particularly around policy and regulation; finance; and space and scale. A panel discussion will offer several examples from cities that demonstrate how Nature-based Solutions can be rolled out in cities and made attractive to policymakers.
Taxi driver Chanjira Ruangchan is weaving her electric motorcycle through the crowded streets of downtown Bangkok when she spots what looks like a bank of airport lockers.
Ruangchan, 53, pulls over and with a few presses on her phone, a door pops open. Inside is a freshly charged battery. Ruangchan swaps it in for the nearly depleted power cell in her bike and in two minutes speeds off in search of her next fare.
The battery swap station, which sprung in part from a project supported by UNEP, addresses a major drawback of electric vehicles: the relatively long time it takes to charge a battery from scratch. Read the full story.
Forty-four per cent of reef-building coral species globally are at risk of extinction, it was revealed in a new report today.
The conservation status of 892 warm-water reef-building coral species has now been reassessed for the IUCN Red List, and analysis shows that 44 per cent are threatened. The threats to reef-building corals were last assessed for the IUCN Red List in 2008, and at that time one third were found to be threatened.
The report highlights the impact the climate crisis is having on ecosystems, with warming oceans and increased CO2 levels leading to ocean acidification - both impacting coral reefs.
On the latest episode of UNEP’s Resilience podcast, we ask what could be one of the most important questions of the 21st century – to what extent can restoring nature tackle the climate crisis?
The award-winning restoration hero Constantino Aucca Chutas explains what drove him to plant ten million trees in the Andes to protect his indigenous community from the impacts of melting glaciers. Plus, UNEP's Mirey Atallah highlights why a grand restoration project in Africa is generating hope for the future.
Negotiations continue in Baku, with next round of draft texts expected at midnight tonight, with a number of big issues remaining.
There is debate about what constitutes a “developing country” with some pushing for the likes of China and the Gulf countries to be taken out of that category, given the growth of their economies since 1992 when the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC).
Under the UNFCCC’s classification system, developing countries are not obligated to provide financial aid to poorer countries and are instead eligible to receive aid.
There is also, unsurprisingly, debate about the amount developing countries should provide for the new climate finance goal (NCQG) – the main outcome expected at COP29. The figure of US$200-US$300 billion per year has been bandied about, although Developing Countries want at least US$1 trillion a year.
Speaking at a stocktaking plenary earlier today, Bolivian negotiator Diego Pacheco said on behalf of the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) group – which includes economies like China and India – that the lower figure was not acceptable.
“We are unable to fathom this $200 billion to step up ambition in developing countries,” said Pacheco. “This is unfathomable. We cannot accept this.”
Climate finance is vital for poorer countries – which are hit the hardest by climate change – to adapt to the climate crisis and be able to transition away from fossil fuels.
So, what happens now? Currently, negotiators, under the eye of a “ministerial pairs” - one minister from a developing country and one from a developed country – are attempting to find consensus on everything from adaptation funding to carbon trading.
The next texts are due at midnight tonight Baku time, according to Yalchin Rafiyev, the COP29 presidency’s lead negotiator. These texts are eventually narrowed down (often very slowly) until the final decision is released, hopefully at some point on Friday.
Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Purja has spent years scaling the world’s highest peaks. During a seven-month stretch in 2019, he climbed all 14 of the world’s 8000m-plus mountains. The fastest anyone had ever accomplished the feat.
But during a 2021 visit to Nepal’s Mount Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain, Purja wasn’t going for the summit. He was there to clean up piles of rubbish, including ropes and oxygen canisters, left behind by other climbers.
While they appear imposing, mountain ecosystems are fragile, say experts. Rubbish is a threat to wildlife and pollutes water, posing a health risk to downstream communities. Most plastic and other waste is moved by wind, melting glaciers and rain, and eventually ends up in rivers and in the oceans. This is especially worrying as the mountain ranges with their glaciers, snowpacks, lakes and streams act as water towers of the world, providing freshwater to 1.9 billion people. Read the full story.
With one of today's themes focusing on transport, it's important to highlight the role decarbonising public transport systems can play in reaching countries emissions targets. Ensuring cycling is possible - and safe - is one way of doing that with dedicated cycle lanes important. Yet cycling, and even walking, can be a challenge in African cities.
Ephrem Bekele Woldeyesus co-founded a community organization, Along the Way, that aims to make cycling common in Ethiopia’s capital, Adis Adaba. Woldeyesus is among a growing number of campaigners and government officials who want to make cycling and walking safer in Africa’s cities, where roads are notoriously dangerous.
They believe that will lead more people to choose what’s known as active mobility, reducing gridlock and helping to counter a climate crisis that is already sowing chaos on the continent of 1.3 billion. Read the full article here.
The interconnected crises of climate change, land degradation, and biodiversity loss threaten food security, clean water, and climate regulation. With global warming likely to exceed 1.5°C within the next decade, urgent adaptation is required in human settlements, focusing on ecosystem protection and restoration for planetary and human health.
This event will explore the role of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in tackling climate and biodiversity challenges while improving food security and urban health. It will feature discussions on best practices for integrating NbS into urban planning.
It’s getting close to crunch time in Baku with negotiations on a number of issues from Article 6.2 and 6.4 to climate finance.
One issue with finance is how much developing countries should pay developing countries and what form these payments should take.
Cedric Schuster, the chair of The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) said yesterday that the “top level priority is minimum allocation floors for Small Island Developing States of US$39 billion a year and US$220 billion a year for Least Developed Countries both in grant equivalent terms. Any texts that do not include these aspects will not be acceptable for these groups.”
Sierra Leone’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Jiwoh Abdulai highlighted the issue many developing countries are focused on, namely what form this money should take. “Don’t use the word ‘donor’,” he said yesterday at COP29. “That implies charity. There is a climate debt that needs to be paid. We are talking about lives and livelihoods. Our people are paying with their lives.”
UN Executive Secretary, Antonio Guterres told G20 leaders in Brazil last night that the “the success of COP29 is largely in your hands. I appeal to the sense of responsibility of all the countries around this table to help ensure that COP29 will be a success.”
It is hoped that progress will be made today, although the mood in Baku is more cautious than optimistic.
