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Our relationship with our natural world is broken. This is why it is important that more and more people get involved in action to protect and restore nature and biodiversity.

Everyone deserves to have a voice and this is easier when we have a common understanding of the key terms used to discuss what’s happening. That is why we have produced this guide to the most frequently used and important terms and concepts, keeping the facts but leaving out the jargon.

We invite you to download it here, or explore our online version, and share it with anyone who might find it useful.

Around 47% of youth aged 18–29 live in countries with extreme or high levels of conflict, and 75% reside in less developed regions. Among them, 250 million are in least developed countries (LDCs), where climate change hits hardest, especially in the Sahel, Horn of Africa, and Central Africa. These areas face overlapping challenges of climate hazards, insecurity, and youth vulnerability.

In response, young people are driving efforts in climate mitigation, adaptation, and peacebuilding, reducing resource conflicts, enhancing carbon storage, and promoting sustainable livelihoods. Global youth networks also advocate for disarmament to reduce military emissions and engage in legal actions and activism for policy change.

This Guidance Note, developed by the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), with input from a Sounding Board of experts, is the first of its kind to bridge the Climate, Peace, and Security (CPS) and Youth, Peace, and Security (YPS) agendas. It highlights youth-led efforts to address climate-related security risks and provides practical guidance for advancing a unified agenda on youth, climate, peace, and security, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and supporting youth’s transformative role.

A new report from UNDP, launched on 15 October to mark the International Day of Rural Women, highlights good practices, concrete tools, and actionable lessons to help policy makers and practitioners put gender and climate theory into action.

The report draws on the findings of UNDP’s support to five innovative states and provinces of the Governors’ Climate & Forests Task Force to implement climate and forest actions at the subnational level from 2021 to 2023: Pará (Brazil), Pastaza (Ecuador), West Kalimantan (Indonesia), and Jalisco and Yucatán (Mexico).

Over 698 million young people, ages 15-35, live in fragile and conflict-affected settings. These settings are highly affected by climate change. Young people find themselves in unique positions – they are the most vulnerable to climate, conflict and insecurity, yet they also hold the key as critical actors who can drive change.

This policy paper explores early findings from how UNDP’s Climate, Peace, and Security (CPS) policy and programming engages youth, fosters inclusion, and promotes youth empowerment.

The paper examines potential gaps, challenges, and opportunities, offering early recommendations for improving the integration of youth-sensitive, responsive, and inclusive approaches to CPS.

The UNFCCC Paris Agreement at COP21 introduced Global Goals on Adaptation (GGA) and periodic progress assessments. In December 2023, COP28 adopted the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, outlining seven adaptation targets and four policy cycle targets to assess adaptation efforts and risk reduction. The first stock take at COP28 revealed insufficient data to determine the adequacy of current and planned adaptation measures against expected climate impacts.

This paper suggests methodologies for future Global Stocktakes, starting in 2028, to better measure adaptation progress.

The State of Finance for Nature in Cities 2024 report: From Grey to Green: Better data to finance nature in cities, highlights the need for better data and tools to help cities integrate Nature based Solutions (NbS) into their financial and planning frameworks. The report showcases how investments in urban nature can support cities in addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation, with global NbS financing needing to rise from USD 200 billion to USD 542 billion by 2030. Through case studies and an innovative Urban NbS Framework, this report guides cities on how to track, budget, and scale their investments in nature, offering a path toward greener, more resilient urban futures.

The report comes as countries around the world scale up action to curb climate change. Mitigation policies are on the rise, including carbon pricing policies, with 75 carbon taxes and emission trading schemes currently in effect worldwide, covering approximately 24 per cent of global emissions.

Published by UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic and Co-operation for Development and the World Bank, the report outlines pathways for coordinated approaches on climate action, carbon pricing and the cross-border effects of climate change mitigation policies, with a view to achieving global climate goals.

The report stresses the need to step up climate action to meet global emission reduction targets, while contributing to broader development goals. It makes four important contributions to that end:

• It provides a common understanding of carbon pricing metrics to improve transparency on how countries are shifting incentives for decarbonization.
• It examines the composition of climate change mitigation policies, emphasizing the important role of carbon pricing as a cost-effective instrument that also raises revenues.
• It outlines how international organizations can support the coordination of policies to foster positive and limit negative cross-border spillovers from climate change mitigation policies. It also analyses the advantages and disadvantages of carbon border adjustment policies, including their impact on developing countries.
• It shows how such coordination can help to scale up climate action by closing the transparency, implementation and ambition gaps.

The report makes clear that international organizations’ future work can help fill important knowledge gaps. These include a need for more granular and better data on embedded carbon prices and embedded emissions, the design of border adjustment policies and their interoperability, and other approaches to enhance cooperation to increase ambition and ensure a just transition for all.

As climate impacts intensify globally, theEmissions Gap Report 2024: No more hot air … please! finds that nations must deliver dramatically stronger ambition and action in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions or the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal will be gone within a few years. The report is the 15th edition in a series that brings together many of the world’s top climate scientists to look at future trends in greenhouse gas emissions and provide potential solutions to the challenge of global warming.

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.