The Third African Drought Adaptation Forum was held in September 2008 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Forum was organized so that participants could exchange practical experiences, findings and ideas on how to adapt to the increasing threat of drought and climate change in the drylands of Africa. The report contains a summary of sessions and outlines key themes that emerged from the discussions.

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 synthesize and communicate the current state of understanding about the characteristics and implications of uncertainty related to climate change and variability to an audience of policymakers, decision makers, and members of the media and general public with an interest in developing a fundamental understanding of the issue.

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.

The Carbon Labelling project implemented several labelling measures in Europe focused on transportation products and services with low CO2 emissions. The project promoted biodiesel, low-viscosity lubricants and ‘low carbon’ freight services. This first European carbon labelling initiative supported the discussion about measures for the greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) targets of the European Union and the role of biofuels to mitigate GHG emissions. Carbon life cycle numbers were calculated with GHG models from leading European research institutes. The identified carbon reduction numbers were used for pilot labelling initiatives via the label “CO2Star” developed by a professional advertising agency. The label and consumer information websites provided information to consumers about environmental and economic benefits of the labelled biofuels, lubricants and freight services. For instance, the German fuel distributor Q1 implemented a carbon labelling pilot programme for biodiesel (B 100) and lubricants at its fuel stations, while Dutch horticulture freight companies implemented the carbon label to promote "low carbon" freight services.

The paper presents UNDP's strategy to support the efforts of developing countries and vulnerable groups for scaling up mitigation and adaptation action to successfully meet the climate change challenge and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Representatives from 4 state agencies (Agency of Natural Resources, Agency of Transportation, Agency of Agriculture Food & Markets & Department of Public Service), known collectively as the Climate Change Transition Team (CCTT) worked over the past 5 months to review the recommendations in the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change(GCCC) Report (October 2007) and to develop work plans for each recommendation. The resulting report provides these draft work plans and also serves as a current inventory of ongoing activities and programs that either directly or indirectly address the climate change/GHG emission issue.

This report focuses on the Climate Projections Based on Emissions Scenarios. The influence of greenhouse gases and particle pollution on our present and future climate has been widely examined. While both long-lived (e.g., carbon dioxide) and short-lived (e.g., soot) gases and particles affect the climate, other projections of future climate, such as the IPCC reports focus largely on the long-lived gases. This U.S. Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product provides a different emphasis. The authors examine the effect of long-lived greenhouse gases on the global climate based on updated emissions scenarios produced by another CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Product (SAP 2.1a). In these scenarios, atmospheric concentrations of the long-lived greenhouse gases leveled off, or stabilized, at predetermined levels by the end of the twenty-first century (unlike in the IPCC scenarios). However, the projected future temperature changes fall within the same range as those projected for the latest IPCC report. The authors confirm the robust future warming signature and other associated changes in the climate.

The focus of this meeting was on the future of the IPCC, in particular the scoping of the 5th Assessment Report. The Panel was also invited to consider the outcome of the Scoping Meeting for a possible Special Report on "Extreme events and disasters: managing the risks", and of the Expert Meeting on "Alternative common metrics to calculate the CO2 equivalence of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases".

This report is about the impact of the green economy on the global job market.

Magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme discussing worldwide environmental policies and other concerns. This issue is devoted to forestry, deforestation, and the sustainable use of forest products.

Long-term, high-accuracy, stable environmental observations are essential to define the state of the global integrated Earth system, its history and its future variability and change. Observations for climate include: (1) operational weather observations, when appropriate care has been exercised to establish high accuracy; (2) limited-duration observations collected as part of research investigations to elucidate chemical, dynamical, biological, or radiative processes that contribute to maintaining climate patterns or to their variability; (3) high accuracy, high precision observations to document decadal-to-centennial changes; and (4) observations of climate proxies, collected to extend the instrumental climate record to remote regions and back in time to provide information on climate change at millennial and longer time scales. This report was requested by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in order to serve as input to see how progress has been made with respect to the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Implementation Plan developed in 2004 In accordance with the UNFCCC guidelines, the sections of the report delineate specific U.S. climate monitoring activities in several distinct yet integrated areas as follows: (1) common issues; (2) non-satellite atmospheric observations; (3) non-satellite oceanic observations; (4) non-satellite terrestrial observations; (5) satellite global atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial …