Water plays a key role in the development and functioning of society by serving as a basic resource for activities such as irrigation, livestock production, fisheries, aquaculture, and hydroelectric power. Adequate water use in house-holds, businesses and manufacturing is a prerequisite of economic growth. Since many of the world's diseases are waterborne, we need clean water and sanitation for reducing the incidence of these diseases. And, most significantly, water provides habitat and sustenance for a rich diversity of plant and animal species that make up aquatic and riparian ecosystems, providing the basis for many of the goods and services received by society. Society is forcing unprecedented changes on global water resources through worldwide abstraction and pollution of water. Society also has a pervasive indirect impact because anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are causing long-term global changes in weather extremes and climate. Changes in the global water system are difficult to understand with simple cause-effect relationships because of the intense and complex linkages and feedbacks between different parts of the system. These changes and linkages also sometimes lead to abrupt changes in water systems such as the eutrophication of coastal aquatic systems, loss of biodiversity, the exceedance of safe water supply in …

Tunza is a magazine published by the UN Environment Programme about environmental issues from a youth perspective. This issue is about international cooperation to reduce or end poverty and the promotion of sustainable development.

Tunza is a magazine published by the UN Environment Programme about environmental issues from a youth perspective. This issue is about consumption, consumerism, recycling, the sustainable use of resources.

This document is part of Technical Report (ref: EUR 21758 EN) from the Joint Research Centre and presents part of the modelling work conducted by DG JRC/IPTS as a contribution to the DG ENV Communication on post-2012 climate policy analysis (June 2005). The analyses with the POLES and GEM-E3 models show that the costs of abatement policies, both in marginal terms and total terms, can be significantly reduced if emissions trading and project based mechanisms are used.

This report presents scientific analysis of the costs, benefits, and effectiveness of federal programming to reduce acid rain.

This report includes case studies on urban development and the carbon cycle in the Americas. The authors intend to demonstrate the consequences of different pathways of urban development on the carbon cycle, and identify points of management and intervention aimed at designing less-carbon intensive development.

This book describes the mission of the World Future Council, which came into existence shortly after publication. Many values are shared across cultures and those values need to be represented by a common voice. The World Future Council was launched to fill that role, and seeks to be an ethically powerful global voice that appeals and responds to basic human values.

This report looks into the developments in China’s political response to the threat of climate change from the late 1980s when the problem emerged on the international political agenda, until 2004. Three theoretically based explanatory models are employed to identify the factors that have influenced Chinese foreign policy-making on climate change in the past, and furthermore how these factors are likely to influence China’s future climate change policy. The three models emphasize respectively: national interests in terms of costs and benefits; domestic political bargaining; and learning through diffusion of knowledge and norms.

Tunza is a magazine published by the UN Environment Programme about environmental issues from a youth perspective. This issue is about transportation, urban planning, waste management, and ecology.

The Energy Policy Act (EPA) addresses energy production in the United States, including: (1) energy efficiency; (2) renewable energy; (3) oil and gas; (4) coal; (5) Tribal energy; (6) nuclear matters and security; (7) vehicles and motor fuels, including ethanol; (8) hydrogen; (9) electricity; (10) energy tax incentives; (11) hydropower and geothermal energy; and (12) climate change technology. For example, the Act provides loan guarantees for entities that develop or use innovative technologies that avoid the by-production of greenhouse gases. Another provision of the Act increases the amount of biofuel that must be mixed with gasoline sold in the United States.

This publication discusses global environmental efforts, successes, and setbacks of 2004.

Western Development is an important strategy of China Government. The ecological environment in the western region of China is very fragile, and any improper human activity or resource utilization will lead to irrecoverable ecological degradation. Therefore, the integrated ecosystem assessment in the western region of China is of great significance to the Western Development Strategy. This project, Integrated Ecosystem Assessment of Western China (MAWEC), will provide very important scientific foundations for both the central and local governments to make decisions on ecological construction, thus assuring the successful implementation of the Western Development Strategy. Meanwhile, MAWEC as one of the MA sub-global assessments is contributing to strengthen capability in boosting the development of the ecological science, interaction between different subjects, and combination between scientific research and practice, and pushing forward international cooperation in the relevant fields.

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme ('EU ETS') began on 1 January 2005. The implementation of the EU ETS has raised interest in market-based approaches to achieving environmental and related public policy goals in the EU, particularly those related to promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Indeed, national and regional markets in tradable green certificates ('TGCs') and (to a lesser extent) tradable white certificates ('TWCs') already exist. Green certificate schemes are established or proposed in a number of Member States (e.g., Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK) and form part of a growing portfolio of measures to achieve the renewable targets outlined in Directive 2001/77/EC. White certificate schemes are considerably less widespread, although schemes have been established in Italy and the UK and further activity may be stimulated by the Commission proposal on energy services (COM(2003)739). Both the renewables Directive and the energy services proposal envisage the possible evolution and harmonisation of these instruments into EU-wide certificate schemes. This study has two major objectives: -1. Analyse interactions among EU ETS and green/white certificate markets. The first major objective is to describe the interactions between green and white certificate programmes and the EU …

This report summarizes the Expert Meeting on Emission Scenarios to help inform the fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.

This Special Report on Safeguarding the Ozone and the Global Climate System has been developed in response to invitations from Parties to the UNFCCC and the Montreal Protocol. It provides information relevant to decision-making in regard to safeguarding the ozone layer and the global climate system: two global environmental issues involving complex scientific and technical considerations.

Coastal zones play a key role in Earth System functioning, by contributing significantly to the life support systems of most societies. Human activities modifying riverine hydrology and riverine material fluxes to the coastal zone, have increased in both scale and rate of change in the last 200 years. The underlying processes that drive changes to coastal systems occur at a multiplicity of temporal and spatial scales. These changes alter the availability of ecosystem goods and services. However, disciplinary fragmentation impedes our ability to understand the regional and global changes that affect coastal systems, and thus limits our ability to guide management and decision making. Progress has been made in understanding the changes in Earth System processes that affect the coastal zone, and the role of coastal systems in global change. This includes identifying proxies that describe the state of coastal systems under existing conditions and change scenarios. Typologies have been developed to assist in the interpolation of results into areas where primary information is lacking. This has enabled a first-order up-scaling to a global synthesis.

This report provides information for policy makers, scientists and engineers in the field of climate change and reduction of CO2 emissions. It describes sources, capture, transport, and storage of CO2, as well as the costs, economic potential, and societal issues of the technology, including public perception and regulatory aspects.