The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, released a report yesterday that concluded that human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, despite efforts to reduce the risks.
According to the IPCC report, the world at a tipping point in terms of that threat climate change poses to human and planetary health. “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC. “It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks.”
The IPCC report noted that the world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F). Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible. Climate Action is one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Among the risks are increased heatwaves, droughts, and floods are already that are exceeding the tolerance of plants and animals. These weather extremes are occurring simultaneously, causing cascading impacts that are increasingly difficult to manage. In particular, these weather-related changes are causing acute food and water insecurity for millions of people.
The report says that to avoid mounting loss of life and adverse impacts on biodiversity, accelerated action is required to adapt to climate change, at the same time as making rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
“This report recognizes the interdependence of climate, biodiversity and people and integrates natural, social and economic sciences more strongly than earlier IPCC assessments,” said Lee. “It emphasizes the urgency of immediate and more ambitious action to address climate risks. Half measures are no longer an option.”
Learn more about the Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability report.
Posted: September 16, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
The SDG Moment: Update from the United Nations
The SDG Moment serves to place an annual spotlight on the Sustainable Development Goals and will be held at the beginning of the United Nation’s General Assembly’s High-Level Week. It takes place as the world faces a deepening cost-of-living crisis that carries huge implications for the advancement of the SDGs, especially in developing countries.
The third SDG Moment will take place in-person on Monday, 19 September 2022. This 90-minute event in the United Nations General Assembly Hall, will set the scene and lead into the Transforming Education Summit.
Goals include:
Posted: August 23, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
Nations United: Urgent Solutions for Urgent Times
Nations United is a special, first of its kind film, created by the United Nations on its 75th Anniversary and to mark five years since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals. In the midst of a pandemic radically transforming our world, Nations United tells the story of the world as it is, as it was, and as it could be. It focuses on the solutions and action we need to tackle poverty, inequality, injustice and climate change.
Featuring the UN Secretary-General António Guterres and UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Malala Yousafzai, Don Cheadle, Michelle Yeoh, Forest Whitaker, Thandie Newton, Sugata Mitra and an exclusive performance from Grammy nominated singer Burna Boy, and a new version of a previous UN performance by multi-Grammy award winning artist, Beyoncé.
Last Updated: July 17, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
UN Releases Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022
The newly released United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 reviews progress of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Using the latest available data and estimates, the report gives the global community a reality check on the devastating impacts of multiple crises affecting people’s lives and livelihoods. It details the reversal of years of progress in eradicating poverty and hunger, improving health and education, providing basic services, and much more. The report also highlights areas that need urgent actions in order to rescue the SDGs and deliver meaningful progress for people and the planet by 2030. The report is prepared by UN DESA in collaboration with more than 50 international and regional organizations.
Last Updated: July 2, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
2022 UN Ocean Conference Focuses on Sustainability
The UN Ocean Conference, from June 27-July 1, provides a unique opportunity to boost collective efforts and find innovative solutions to effectively address the challenges facing the world’s oceans.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 is about conserving and sustainably using the world’s ocean and marine resources. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface. As the planet’s largest ecosystem, the oceans regulate the climate, generate oxygen, and provide livelihoods for billions.
Oceans also contributes to current and future sustainable economic growth. Healthy, productive, sustainable, and resilient oceans are fundamental to life on our planet and to our future.
But climate change poses adverse effects on the ocean and marine life, including the rise in ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, deoxygenation, sea level rise, the decrease in polar ice coverage, decrease in marine biodiversity, as well as coastal erosion and extreme weather events and related impacts on island and coastal communities. Cumulative human activities also cause ecosystem degradation and species extinctions. 2022 is the year to stop the decline.
“We need to save our ocean to protect our future,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Posted: May 30, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
World Faces a New Era of Risk
World leaders are failing to prepare for a new era of complex and often unpredictable risks to peace as profound environmental and security crises converge and intensify, according to a major report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The report, Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk, offers policymakers principles and recommendations for navigating this volatile future. It will be launched today in a special session before the opening of the ninth Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development.
The report provides the most comprehensive account to date of how different aspects of environmental crisis—including climate change, mass extinctions and resource scarcity—are interacting with today’s darkening security horizon and other phenomena such as the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic. It also offers governments and other decision-making bodies recommendations for action, and principles to guide them.
“Our new report for policymakers goes beyond simply showing that environmental change can increase risks to peace and security. That’s established,”said SIPRI Director and Environment of Peace author Dan Smith. “What our research reveals is the complexity and breadth of that relationship, the many forms it can take. And most of all, we show what can be done about it; how we can deliver peace and security in a new era of risk.”
More than 30 researchers from SIPRI and other institutions contributed to the Environment of Peace report, guided by a panel of international experts on environment and security led by Margot Wallström, the former Swedish Foreign Minister and European Commissioner for the Environment.
Posted: April 18, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
Highlights from Sustainability Live 2022
Throughout the two-day Sustainability Live event, attendees heard from 60 speakers from various corporations. The event brought global of business leaders together — in-person and virtually.
Last Updated: March 2, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
IPCC Report: Half Measures on Climate Change Are No Longer an Option
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, released a report yesterday that concluded that human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, despite efforts to reduce the risks.
According to the IPCC report, the world at a tipping point in terms of that threat climate change poses to human and planetary health. “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC. “It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks.”
The IPCC report noted that the world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F). Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible. Climate Action is one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Among the risks are increased heatwaves, droughts, and floods are already that are exceeding the tolerance of plants and animals. These weather extremes are occurring simultaneously, causing cascading impacts that are increasingly difficult to manage. In particular, these weather-related changes are causing acute food and water insecurity for millions of people.
The report says that to avoid mounting loss of life and adverse impacts on biodiversity, accelerated action is required to adapt to climate change, at the same time as making rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
“This report recognizes the interdependence of climate, biodiversity and people and integrates natural, social and economic sciences more strongly than earlier IPCC assessments,” said Lee. “It emphasizes the urgency of immediate and more ambitious action to address climate risks. Half measures are no longer an option.”
Learn more about the Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability report.
Posted: February 14, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
United Nations Sustainable Development Events in 2022
The United Nations has eight global events planned in 2022 to focus on sustainable development. The events will focus on everything from climate change and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to the need to safeguard the world’s oceans and provide clean water for all.
Last Updated: January 12, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
Past 7 Years: Hottest Ever on Record
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which is supported by the European Union, has released new data showing that the past seven years globally were the seven warmest on record.
Globally, noted a C3S report, 2021 was the fifth warmest year on record, but only marginally warmer than 2015 and 2018. The annual average temperature was 0.3°C above the temperature of the 1991-2020 reference period, and 1.1-1.2°C above the pre-industrial level of 1850-1900.
Compared to this latest 30-year reference period, regions with most above average temperatures include a band stretching from the west coast of the USA and Canada to north-eastern Canada and Greenland, as well as large parts of central and northern Africa and the Middle East, the report noted. The most below-average temperatures were found in western and easternmost Siberia, Alaska, over the central and eastern Pacific – concurrent with La Niña conditions at the beginning and the end of the year – as well as in most of Australia and in parts of Antarctic.
More data and details are available on the project’s website.
Posted: January 8, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment
UN Leads Effort To Reduce Dependence on Fossil Fuels
The United Nations is urging the world to speed-up the worldwide transition to cleaner forms of energy and end the use of coal, if we are to stand a chance of limiting temperature rises.
According to the UN, under current plans governments will continue to produce energy from fossil-fuel sources in quantities that will lead to more warming, despite improved climate commitments.
Over the next two decades, the UN report notes, governments are projecting an increase in global oil and gas production, and only a modest decrease in coal production. Taken together, these plans mean that fossil fuel production will increase overall, at least until 2040.
The fossil fuel findings were laid out in the latest UN Production Gap report, which included profiles for 15 major fossil fuel-producing countries, showing that most will continue to support fossil fuel production growth.
In an effort to change this trajectory, the UN held a summit on energy, the first of its kind in 40 years. National governments committed to provide electricity to over 166 million people worldwide, and private companies pledged to reach just over 200 million.
Governments also committed to install an additional 698 gigawatts of renewable energy from solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and renewables-based hydrogen, and businesses, notably power utilities, pledged to install an additional 823 GW, all by 2030.
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