Tunza: The UNEP Magazine for Youth, Volume 8, Number 1, 2010 (open access)

Tunza: The UNEP Magazine for Youth, Volume 8, Number 1, 2010

Tunza is a UNEP magazine for and by young people. This issue is devoted to biodiversity and threatened habitats.
Date: 2010
Creator: Lean, Geoffrey
Object Type: Journal/Magazine/Newsletter
System: The UNT Digital Library
Extreme Weather: Does Nature Keep Up? Observed Responses of Species And Ecosystems to Changes in Climate and Extreme Weather Events: Many More Reasons for Concern (open access)

Extreme Weather: Does Nature Keep Up? Observed Responses of Species And Ecosystems to Changes in Climate and Extreme Weather Events: Many More Reasons for Concern

The authors of the report found that there were “many more reasons for concern” and specifically pointed out that “it will be impossible under such conditions of rapid climate change to uphold the UN Convention on Biodiversity’s aim to reduce the rate of biodiversity decline significantly by 2010.”It seems that extreme weather events contribute disproportionately to recently observed climate change explaining why ecological impacts have become so abundant over the last decade. In response, the authors clearly state their scientific judgment is that “efforts be made to limit the increase in global mean surface temperature to maximally 1.5 ºC above preindustrial levels and limit the rate of change to less than 0.05 ºC per decade.” In other words, there can be no further delay in reducing emissions. In fact, the scale and urgency just got bigger and greater. Global emissions must be on a steep downward trend in the next decade in order to avoid the worst impacts.
Date: August 2010
Creator: Leemans, Rik & Vliet, Arnold van
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Past Climate Variability and Change in the Arctic and at High Latitudes (open access)

Past Climate Variability and Change in the Arctic and at High Latitudes

This Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product addresses current capabilities to integrate observations of the climate system into a consistent description of past and current conditions through the method of reanalysis. In addition, the Product assesses present capabilities to attribute causes for climate variations and trends over North America during the reanalysis period, which extends from the mid-twentieth century to the present. This Product reviews Past Climate Variability and Change in the Arctic and at High Latitudes. Paleoclimate records play a key role in our understanding of Earth's past and present climate system and in our confidence in predicting future climate changes. Paleoclimate data help to elucidate past and present active mechanisms of climate change by placing the short instrumental record into a longer term context and by permitting models to be tested beyond the limited time that instrumental measurements have been available. Recent observations in the Arctic have identified large ongoing changes and important climate feedback mechanisms that multiply the effects of global-scale climate changes. As discussed in this report, paleoclimate data show that land and sea ice have grown with cooling temperatures and have shrunk with warming ones, amplifying temperature changes while causing and responding to …
Date: January 2009
Creator: Climate Change Science Program (U.S.). Subcommittee on Global Change Research.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study: Science Plan and Implementation Strategy (open access)

Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study: Science Plan and Implementation Strategy

The iLEAPS Science Plan and Implementation Strategy defines the scientific objectives and key research issues of the land-atmosphere project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. It also outlines a strategy for addressing the key research questions. The scope of iLEAPS research spans from molecular level processes - such as synthesis of volatile organic compounds in vegetation - to Earth System science issues, climate and global change. iLEAPS research emphasises the importance of connections, feedbacks and teleconnections between the numerous processes in the land-atmosphere interface. Due to the complexity and wide range of scientific issues, iLEAPS stresses the need for increased integrative approaches and collaboration, involving scientists from various disciplines, experimentalists and modellers, and international research projects and programmes.
Date: 2005
Creator: Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Global Land Project: Science Plan and ImplementationStrategy (open access)

Global Land Project: Science Plan and ImplementationStrategy

The Global Land Project (GLP) Science Plan and Implementation Strategy represents the joint research agenda of IGBP and IHDP to improve the understanding of land system dynamics in the context of Earth System functioning. This plan is therefore a first critical step in addressing the interaction between people and their environments. It is part of the broader efforts to understand how these interactions have affected, and may yet affect, the sustainability of the terrestrial biosphere, and the two-way interactions and feedbacks between different land systems within the Earth System. GLP will play a clear role in improving the understanding of regional and global-scale land systems, as well as promoting strong scientific synergy across the global change programmes. This Science Plan and Implementation Strategy develops a new integrated paradigm focused on two main conceptual aspects of the coupled system: firstly, it deals with the interface between people, biota, and natural resources of terrestrial systems, and secondly, it combines detailed regional studies with a global, comparative perspective. GLP takes as its points of departure ecosystem services and human decision making for the terrestrial environment. These topics are at the interface of the societal and the environmental domains, and serve as conceptual lenses …
Date: September 2005
Creator: Global Land Project (GLP)
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Tunza: The UNEP Magazine for Youth, Volume 7, Number 1, 2009 (open access)

Tunza: The UNEP Magazine for Youth, Volume 7, Number 1, 2009

Tunza is a UNEP magazine for and by young people. This issue is about environmental policies and practices that reduce one's carbon footprint, and protect threatened species.
Date: June 30, 2010
Creator: Lean, Geoffrey
Object Type: Journal/Magazine/Newsletter
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Global Drylands Initiative: Land Tenure Reform and The Drylands (open access)

The Global Drylands Initiative: Land Tenure Reform and The Drylands

The paper focuses on the need to rethink conventional wisdom on land tenure approaches and asks how we can best respond to the land tenure problems. It provides a comparative overview of land tenure systems in the drylands, identifies challenges and trends in land tenure reform projects, and offers ideas for decision-makers.
Date: April 2003
Creator: United Nations Development Programme
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Bali Action Plan: Key Issues in The Climate Negotiations: Summary for Policy Makers (open access)

The Bali Action Plan: Key Issues in The Climate Negotiations: Summary for Policy Makers

To assist policy makers in understanding the complex issues under discussion in the negotiating process, UNDP commissioned a series of background briefing papers on the key issues under the four main "building blocks" of the current international negotiations -- mitigation, adaptation, technology and finance -- as well as land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). This document contains summaries for policy makers of these briefing papers.
Date: September 2008
Creator: Carpenter, Chad
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Science Plan and Implementation Strategy (open access)

Science Plan and Implementation Strategy

This Science Plan and Implementation Strategy sets out the research agenda for the second phase of IGBP. The document describes the IGBP strategy for producing high quality, unbiased, credible, fundamental scientific research in the area of global change: a strategy centered on ten projects, to be carried out by the several thousand scientists worldwide who are part of the IGBP network. Further, the document describes how the organization will communicate the results of this research to different audiences, in order to realize its vision: "to provide scientific knowledge to improve the sustainability of the living Earth".
Date: 2006
Creator: International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Earth System Governance: People, Places, and the Planet (open access)

Earth System Governance: People, Places, and the Planet

This science plan elaborates upon the concept of Earth system governance, defined as the interrelated systems of formal and informal rules and actor-networks that are set up to steer societies towards preventing, mitigating, and adapting to environmental change within the normative context of sustainable development. The notion of governance here refers to a less hierarchical and more decentralized system than traditional governmental policy-making, inclusive of non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations, indigenous communities, and international organizations.
Date: 2009
Creator: Earth System Governance Project
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Sustainable Development Report 2009 (open access)

Sustainable Development Report 2009

This Sustainable Development Report provides a comprehensive description of the economic, ecological and social challenges that are linked to Bayer's operations and show stakholders the strategies and solutions that are applying to meet them.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Bayer AG
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
GEO Year Book 2006: An Overview of Our Changing Environment (open access)

GEO Year Book 2006: An Overview of Our Changing Environment

This publication describes major global environmental issues and policy decisions during 2006.
Date: 2006
Creator: United Nations Environment Programme
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Latin America and the Caribbean: Environment Outlook (open access)

Latin America and the Caribbean: Environment Outlook

This Global Environmental Outlook report (GEO LAC 3) is the third comprehensive environmental assessment of the status and perspectives of the environment in the Latin American and Caribbean region. It highlights the need to move away from sectoral, uncoordinated and short-term policies, and to work towards consolidating comprehensive and cross-sectoral environmental ones that put sustainability at the centre stage. GEO LAC 3 is part of UNEP’s contribution to catalyzing improvements to human well-being and framing a fresh debate around the concept of sustainability in the context of a world evolving from six billion, to nine billion people by 2050.
Date: 2010
Creator: United Nations Environment Programme. Oficina Regional para América Latina y el Caribe
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
World Investment Report 2010: Investing in a Low-Carbon Economy (open access)

World Investment Report 2010: Investing in a Low-Carbon Economy

According to the preface, this report focuses on climate change and the role of transnational corporations in investing in a low-carbon economy.
Date: July 22, 2010
Creator: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Abrupt Climate Change: Final Report (open access)

Abrupt Climate Change: Final Report

This document is part of the Synthesis and Assessment Products (SAP) described in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Strategic Plan. This report is meant to reduce uncertainty in projections of how the Earth's climate and related systems may change in the future. It provides scientific information for supporting the decision-making audience and the expert scientific and stakeholder community.
Date: December 2008
Creator: Climate Change Science Program (U.S.). Subcommittee on Global Change Research.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment (open access)

Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment

This comprehensive atlas provides data, satellite imagery, and analysis of the environmental conditions and issues relevant to each African country, and several surrounding island nations. The atlas also covers trans-border international issues in Africa.
Date: 2008
Creator: United Nations Environment Programme
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library