Bibliothèque

At its 35th meeting, the Standing Committee on Finance concluded its work on the technical report on the second report on the determination of the needs of developing country Parties related to implementing the Convention and the Paris Agreement and its executive summary, which are contained in this document.

While climate change is a big threat to health, implementing solutions to address climate change presents a huge opportunity to promote better health and protect people from climate-sensitive diseases. Communicating the health risks of climate change and the health benefits of climate solutions is both necessary and helpful. Health professionals are well-placed to play a unique role in helping their communities understand climate change, protect themselves, and realize the health benefits of climate solutions. This toolkit aims to help health professionals effectively communicate about climate change and health.

The importance of integrating climate change considerations into water resources planning is recognized on a global scale. Various frameworks, such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Agreement, emphasize the need for proper planning, policy-making, and adaptation strategies. The Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA) methodology was launched in 2018 as a response to these international agendas, bridging the gap between climate change uncertainty and water resource planning.

Education is a powerful tool to transform the world and drive long-long-term climate change action.

This Guidance responds to the calls from young people for a holistic approach to climate change and sustainability in the curriculum. It outlines a common language on how quality climate change and sustainability can be reflected in the curriculum by setting expected learning outcomes per age group (from 5-yearolds and up to 18+ age group, including a lifelong learning approach).

This is crucial for accelerating country-level action and ensuring joint monitoring of progress. The objective is to have 90 per cent of all countries include climate change in their curricula by 2030, as established by the Greening Education Partnership.

This paper argues that climate change education needs to adapt to fulfil its potential. The education paradigm cannot rely solely on knowledge transfer but needs to focus on social and emotional, and action-oriented learning. The paper proposes a framework for a new global indicator on greening education. It was developed in response to a decision by the SDG 4 High-level Steering Committee in December 2022 to have a benchmark indicator developed on areas prioritized at the Transforming Education Summit, including on greening education.

Based on analysis of ‘green’ curriculum content across grades 3, 6, and 9, the 76 countries assessed scored an average of 50% on the maximum possible level of environment and sustainability content, but only averaged 21% of the maximum score on climate change content and just 12% on biodiversity content. Critically, less green content was found in social science than in science syllabi, and in grade 3 than in grade 6 or 9 subject syllabi.

There is an urgent need to transform the way climate change and sustainability are taught in classrooms and at schools. Learners must grasp the environmental impacts of climate change, how climate change relates to their own context and what actions can be undertaken and contribute to making societies more sustainable, equitable, just and climate-resilient.

The findings presented in this publication indicate that accelerated efforts are needed. In a study of over 530 Grade 9 science and social science curricula from 85 countries worldwide, we found that 69 per cent of curricula contained no references to climate change, while 66 per cent had no references to sustainability.

Climate change threatens our planet and future. Schools and other learning institutions are central places for accelerating climate action among learners and local communities.

By empowering teachers and students to understand climate change in their own context contribute to making societies more sustainable and climate resilient.

This publication provides for the first time ever a quality standard for greening schools and other learning environments. It outlines four core areas for integrating sustainability principles and climate action: 1) school governance, 2) facilities and operation, 3) teaching and learning, and 4) community engagement.

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024 details the significant challenges the world is facing in making substantial strides towards achieving the SDGs based on the latest data and estimates. It features areas with setbacks while also showcasing where tangible progress has been made, for instance, in reducing global child mortality, preventing HIV infection, and access to energy and mobile broadband. The report also highlights where action must accelerate, particularly in critical areas undermining SDG progress – climate change, peace and security, inequalities among and between countries, among others.

According to the report, with just six years remaining, current progress falls far short of what is required to meet the SDGs. Without massive investment and scaled up action, the achievement of the SDGs — the blueprint for a more resilient and prosperous world and the roadmap out of current global crises — will remain elusive. The lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, escalating conflicts, geopolitical tensions and growing climate chaos have severely hindered progress. The report details the urgent priorities and areas needed for stronger and more effective action to ensure the 2030 promise to end poverty, protect the planet and leave no one behind.

The world is facing a sustainable development crisis. The 2024 Financing for Sustainable Development Report: Financing for Development at a Crossroadsfinds that financing challenges are at the heart of the crisis and imperil the SDGs and climate action. The window to rescue the SDGs and prevent a climate catastrophe is still open but closing rapidly.

Financing gaps for sustainable development are large and growing – the estimates by international organizations and others are coalescing around $4 trillion additional investment needed annually for developing countries. This represents a more than 50% increase over the pre-pandemic estimates. Meanwhile, the finance divide has not been bridged, with developing countries paying around twice as much on average in interest on their total sovereign debt stock as developed countries. Many countries lack access to affordable finance or are in debt distress.

Weak enabling environments are preventing progress. Average global growth has declined, while policy and regulatory frameworks still do not set appropriate incentives. Public budgets and spending is not fully aligned with SDGs. Private investors are not incentivised to invest enough in SDGs and climate action. 

Climate change is already having serious impacts on the safety and health of workers in all regions of the world. Workers are among those most exposed to climate change hazards yet frequently have no choice but to continue working, even if conditions are dangerous. Global occupational safety and health (OSH) protections have struggled to keep up with the evolving risks from climate change, resulting in worker mortality and morbidity.

This report presents critical evidence related to the impacts of climate change on OSH, to bring attention to the global health threat workers are currently facing. The report addresses the following key issues:

• Excessive heat
• Ultraviolet (UV) radiation
• Extreme weather events
• Workplace air pollution
• Vector-borne diseases
• Agrochemicals

As countries prepare to revise their NDCs ahead of COP30, the analysis summarized in this technical brief shows: which countries have the biggest potential to work towards stronger integration of urban content in their NDCs; how they can reap co-benefits of sustainable urban development, effective local adaptation measures, and reducing emissions by stronger collaboration with local governments.

The report summarizes 6 main scenarios of digital technologies that applied to achieve urban net-zero carbon transition including urban building and housing, urban mobility, urban water, urban waste and circularity, urban energy and carbon management; it also provide a roadmap for cities and enterprises to achieve net-zero carbon from mastering carbon data, formulating carbon strategies and smart carbon actions. The 10 good practice cases exploring net-zero carbon development, from strategic planning, community governance, industrial park management, low-carbon buildings development, low-carbon transportation and other aspects to provide other cities around the world with Chinese solutions for urban net zero carbon transition. At the same time, the report also issued a global urban digital net zero carbon action initiative, calling for the urban net-zero carbon transition through the application of digital technology, digital innovation

In a world grappling with crises, cities emerge as pivotal agents of change. UN-Habitat’s 2023 report underscores the urgent need for urban transformation to tackle issues ranging from climate change to inequality, while emphasizing the pivotal role of cities in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

As one of the essential public services that supports our society in the 21st century, waste management is a basic human need and a critical infrastructure, especially in urban areas. Waste management is a cross-cutting issue that affects many aspects of society and the economy, closely linked to many other global challenges, including health, climate change, poverty reduction, food and resource security, and sustainable production and consumption. Waste management is a key component of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is considered as an entry point for achieving a range of SDGs.

In order to summarize the excellent experience in municipal solid waste (MSW) management and share with other cities, in December 2023, UN-Habitat China Office developed the China Waste Wise Cities Good Practices (Series I), which selected three representative cities/urban districts in China, including Suzhou, Ningbo and Yantian District of Shenzhen City, and put forward the following key lessons in MSW management in China through the case studies. The main lessons learned from the case studies are: (1) clear strategic planning and target aligning with the “Five-Year Plan” are the foundation of the MSW management sector; (2) use market-based mechanisms to leverage capital investment to promote rapid development of this sector; (3) strict environmental emission standards, open and transparent data disclosure, and continuous communication with the public support the shift from « neighbour avoidance » to « neighbour benefits »; (4) People-oriented digital governance became the new business card of China’s MSW management, and; (5) »Waste classification is the touchstone of social civilization » is an important experience provided by China’s waste management practices.

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are the cornerstone of the Paris Agreement and are the main policy instruments used to indicate national contributions toward global efforts for climate change mitigation and adaptation. This report, jointly prepared by UNDP, UN-Habitat, and the University of Southern Denmark, with support from C40 Cities, analyzes urban content in the 194 NDCs as of June 2023.

The report illustrates how, since the 2019 edition of this report, rising trends in global resource use have continued or accelerated. The report also shows how demand for resources is expected to continue increasing in the coming decades. This means that, without urgent and concerted action, by 2060 resource extraction could rise by 60% from 2020 levels – driving increasing damage and risks.

However, this fate is not sealed. The report also describes the potential to turn negative trends around and put humanity on a trajectory towards sustainability.

The WMO State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023, is the fourth edition of climate reports published annually for this region and has involved National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs), WMO Regional Climate Centres (RCCs), and several research institutions, as well as United Nations agencies, international and regional organizations. The report provides the status of key climate indicators and latest data and information on impacts, risks and policy from United Nations agencies. It addresses specific physical science, socio-economic and policy aspects that are relevant to LAC and responds to Members needs in the fields of climate monitoring, climate change and climate services.

Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) is a strategy for adapting to climate change that harnesses nature-based solutions and ecosystem services. Over the past decade, the UN Environment Programme has embraced the practice as a cost-effective and holistic adaptation approach, now supporting more than 50 EbA projects across the world.

Combined, these projects have enhanced long-term adaptive capacity in communities, improved livelihoods, reduced climate risks and improved the health of a diverse range of ecosystems. This policy brief summarizes the key lessons from UNEP’s experiences across multiple countries and ecosystems over the past ten years.

Over the past two decades, Resilience has served as a unifying theme for the APAN Forums. The past years have seen significant efforts towards generating knowledge and information on climate change adaptation at the global and regional levels. However, we are still significantly off-schedule to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and the world is in a state of climate emergency. The current climate change impacts are evident and disruptive in sectors like agriculture, ecosystems, human health, urban settlements, and infrastructure. The sub-theme is aligned with the overarching theme of KGAW 2023 — “A New Era for Adaptation: Scaling up and transformation in adaptation”. It is also in line with the key outcomes of COP27, further emphasizing the importance of transformative approach to accelerating and enhancing adaptation efforts.

This publication offers recommendations, entry points and pathways for policy makers, academics, research organizations, non-government organizations, private sector, funding institutions and global and regional negotiations on developing strategies and approaches to achieve transformative adaptation in the Asia-Pacific region. It was launched at the NAP Expo 2024 in Dhaka Bangladesh on 25 April 2024.