The year 2020 has been the year of COVID-19. The fallout of the pandemic is expected to significantly influence the ability of countries to plan for, finance and implement adaptation actions in response to current and future climate impacts, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable countries and population groups.
Rapid rate of urbanization in Ulaanbaatar in recent decades has led to accelerated rates of deforestation within the city’s Green Zone. UNESCAP and UN-Habitat has been working closely with The Asia Foundation to tackle issues surrounding Sustainable Forestry Management in Ulaanbaatar on the Localizing the 2030 Agenda in Asian-Pacific Cities project via a Sustainable Urban Resource Management Approach. Check out this video to hear about Ulaanbaatar’s call to action to protect their forests and how the SDGs are at play in this effort.
Five years after the adoption of the Paris Agreement, it is time for countries to step up their commitments to combat the climate crisis. Accelerating Implementation of the Paris Agreement in Asia-Pacific: A Guide for Policymakers is developed to support policy- and decisionmakers in understanding the need and identifying opportunities to accelerate the implementation of the Paris Agreement and to provide tools, measures, policies, actions, and case studies that could be applied to their national circumstances and update of their NDCs during the review p
More than 2 decades ago, the public debate focused largely on how to design a single global market for trading carbon units as the key instrument for addressing global climate change. The argument emphasized that since 1 ton of a greenhouse gas emitted anywhere in the world has the same climate change consequences for everyone, a single global market would be an economically desirable outcome, equalizing incentives to reduce emissions everywhere. Today, this late-1990s dream of a top-down global design seems far away, if not impossible.
Climate change discussions about forests and trees have for a long time focused mainly on their mitigation potential. However, the mitigation potential of forests and trees also depends on their capacity to adapt to a changing climate as well as to increased human pressure. Moreover, forests and trees play a crucial role in the resilience of landscapes and people as well as in their capacity to adapt to climate change. The National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process offers an opportunity to better integrate these roles in national strategies and policies.
Asia and Pacific countries have made major commitments to implement the UN’s Paris Agreement of 2015, in particular through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). However, while 8 countries in the region already have carbon neutral commitments, and others have begun to implement their NDC commitments, progress is highly uneven.
For World Cities Day on 31st October, we follow the story of how the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is working with San Salvador city and its surrounding coffee farms to create a ‘natural’ defence against floods.