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This impact story shows Cubo and Susteq plan to bring safe drinking water to over 20,000 beneficiaries in Nigeria and Kenya by 2019, with the possibility to extend their impact in countries like Senegal and India in the near future.

This report takes a comprehensive approach by covering the social impacts of climate change and related ICT-based responses, in addition to those focusing on the reduction of greenhouse gas and carbon footprint impacts.

The objectives of this study is to:

– Test the set of U4SSC initiative indicators in the context of a Swiss city, in order to evaluate its suitability for measuring the level of digitalization and sustainable development.

– Evaluate the strengths of this system of indicators and identify any areas for improvement.

– For Pully, to profit from this exercise, in order to find its place within this system of indicators and evaluate its use over the long-term as a contribution to the management of the city.

This call to action is a result of the 9th Green Standards Week held in 1-4 October 2019 in Valencia, Spain. Participants discussed the opportunities that smart sustainable cities bring and acknowledged that the transition to smart sustainable cities is the cornerstone of achieving the SDGs.

This document was produced as a result of the 13th Symposium on ICT, Environment and Climate Change, which was held on 13 May 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The aim of the GLO is to communicate and raise awareness of evidence-based, policy-relevant information and trends to a variety of stakeholders, including national governments formulating their responses to commitments to better manage and restore land resources, including the SDGs and associated targets, such as Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN). The evidence presented in the Global Land Outlook thematic regional reports demonstrates that informed and responsible decision-making can if more widely adopted help to reverse the current worrying trends in the state of our land resources.

The UNCCD-SPI technical report “Realising the Carbon Benefits of Sustainable Land Management Practices: Guidelines for Estimation of Soil Organic Carbon in the Context of Land Degradation” provides decision guidance for the estimation of soil organic carbon (SOC) in support of appropriate deployment of sustainable land management (SLM) technologies, in order to maintain or increase carbon in the soil and contribute to the achievement of land degradation neutrality (LDN). The report was produced to support the need for policy tools that provide guidance on harmonized methods for accurate estimations of changes in soil (SOC) stocks resulting from SLM interventions.

The UNCCD-SPI technical report “Creating an Enabling Environment for LDN and its Potential Contribution to Enhancing Well-being, Livelihoods and the Environment” provides science-based evidence on the potential contribution of LDN to enhancing the well-being and livelihoods as well as the environmental conditions of people affected by desertification/land degradation and drought. This is done by capturing evidence on the configuration of an enabling environment for LDN drawn from the scientific literature, the outcomes of the LDN target setting programme, and the experiences of individual stakeholders directly involved in LDN initiatives gathered through a global LDN survey.

This guide represents the first effort to gather, in a practical and pragmatic manner, all relevant information related to the development and implementation of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) Transformative Projects and Programmes. Countries can use this document for the identification and design of interventions to address land degradation, as well as to guide their dialogue with funding agencies and implementing partners. The guide  is intended for stakeholders involved in the design of LDN Transformative Projects and Programmes, particularly policy-makers, technical experts, international organizations, civil society organizations (CSOs) and the private sector.

his rapid review explores the application of available approaches and methods for assessing drought impacts and vulnerability. It is based on a series of interviews with expert practitioners from different drought-affected regions of the world. This was complemented by a brief review of the relevant published literature and a summary appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the range of assessment approaches available. At the present time, most of the available assessments still fall short in their consideration of the longer-term impacts and vulnerability associated with drought.

This publication includes a set of 14 case studies on the applications of United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC) to geothermal energy from Australia, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines and Russian Federation. The case studies are presented here to illustrate the application of the geothermal energy specifications for the uniform use of UNFC in different contexts. These application examples from different countries provide a range of scenarios in the classification of geothermal resources in a manner consistent with the classification of other energy resources.

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the status quo, recent developments and prospects of renewable energy markets within the UNECE area. 

Moreover, it examines the renewable policy promotion schemes put in place in the respective countries and offers recommendations for successful policy formulation and implementation. The report draws significantly on the results from two expert workshops with regional energy insiders conducted in November of 2017 in Bonn, from the UNECE Renewable Energy Hard Talks, multi-stakeholder dialogues held in Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, as well as on other recent publications and trends.

This report shows how uranium resources could create a platform for innovative engagement with the integrated challenge of natural resource management and climate action. The United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC), the comprehensive resource management scheme, provides the necessary tools and conditions for the redesign of the uranium resource pathway. 

This report argues that the conventional model of uranium as a mineral commodity needs to give way to a new model of uranium as a “critical energy material” for meeting the global sustainability objectives on energy and climate action.

This publication explores the progress in energy efficiency and renewable energy in selected countries of South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and in the Russian Federation. The study analyzes policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks, financial environment and level of awareness in the areas of energy efficiency and renewable energy from 2010 to 2018. It identifies existing gaps in the required frameworks and environment to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy investments in the countries. It also proposes a set of recommendations for necessary steps in achieving the long-term objectives for energy mix and meeting the ambitious related targets set by the countries. The Governments must address these barriers and deploy consistent and coherent energy policies and measures. Identifying and implementing such policies and measures can help in increasing investment and financing flows to energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

This booklet provides an overview of the nature and pace of the ongoing transition to low carbon electricity systems and discusses some of the inherent challenges. The booklet provides a reality check through selected indicators, notably in relation to income levels.1

This factsheet focuses on the CLEW framework for integrating different assessment approaches and methodologies and facilitating collaboration between policy analysts and planners dealing with climate, land, energy and water. 

This booklet focuses on the role and impacts of nuclear power on climate change.

The objective of this publication is to explore the diverse range of impacts on the energy sector resulting from gradual climate change (GCC) and the related shifts in extreme weather events (EWEs), as well as potential adaptation options. This publication presents three national case studies to show various possible framing and analytical techniques to tackle the challenges posed by these events in the energy sector.

The least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) and small island developing States (SIDS) are among the most vulnerable groups of countries in the world. They are disproportionately affected by the negative impacts of climate change due to their structural constraints and geographical disadvantage. In 2016, 13 out of the 15 countries with the highest vulnerability to natural hazards were from the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS groups.

The migration and climate change nexus is present across all three groups of countries. The programmes of action of LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS, namely the Istanbul Programme of Action, the Vienna Programme of Action and the SAMOA Pathway, point out the vulnerability of these countries to external shocks, including climate change, and recognize the role of migrants in the development of their communities through remittances, as well as transfer of skills and knowledge.

This paper aims to inform policymakers of the complex dynamics of climate-induced migration in LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. It provides an overview of the migration and climate change nexus in each group of countries and proposes ways forward to address it.

This study results from the decision of States parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to produce a study on “The role that measures taken to implement the Convention can play to address desertification, land degradation and drought as one of the drivers that causes migration” (UNCCD 2017a). The study was commissioned to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), who worked in partnership with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).