Saturday, 22 March 2014

United Nations Partners on Climate Change

Climate change affects us all. Here are tips on how you can personally make a difference.

At Home – reduce, reuse, recycle!
  • Buy minimally packaged goods
  • Recycle paper, plastic, glass, and metal. Reuse, mend, and repurpose things to save money and divert waste from your local landfill
  • Plug air leaks in windows and doors to increase energy efficiency
  • Adjust your thermostat, lower in winter, higher in summer
  • Replace old appliances with energy efficient models and light bulbs
  • Save electricity by plugging appliances into a power strip and turning them off completely when not in use
  • Wash clothes in cold or warm water
  • Run dishwashers only when full and don’t use heat to dry dishes
  • Eat less meat, poultry, and fish
  • Plant Trees – Enter tree planting pledges online, then plant indigenous or locally appropriate trees where you live. View results of tree planting efforts globally.

 

United Nations Partners on Climate Change

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

World Meteorological Day 2014, March 23.

Message on the occasion of WMD 2014 "Weather & climate: Engaging Youth" by Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of WMO. 


Recognizing the strong stake that young people have in the future, WMO has chosen “Weather and climate: engaging youth” as the theme for this year’s World Meteorological Day.

Today, people between the ages of 15 and 24 make up a sixth of the world’s population. About 85 per cent of these 1 billion young men and women live in developing countries. Compared to their peers of only 50 years ago, the young people of today are on average healthier, more educated and skilled. Technologies permeate their lives, enabling them to better interact with the world around them. Yet many young people still suffer from poverty and discrimination, inequality and exploitation; many of them still lack access to education, health and other basic services.
These problems are exacerbated by the hazards of climate change and extreme weather, which characterize the lives of young people today and will have an even greater impact in the decades to come. Atmosphere and ocean temperatures continue to increase, ice caps and glaciers around the world are steadily declining, sea level is rising and a number of extreme weather and climate events are becoming more frequent and/or more intense.
Human influence on the climate system is unequivocal. The global concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere keeps growing unabated and is reaching unprecedented levels in human history. Maintaining our current dependence on fossil fuels will lead us to a significantly warmer planet: by the end of the century the temperature could be up to
4 degrees Celsius higher than in pre-industrial times. Limiting the warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius can still be achieved, but it will require a rapid significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Achieving this objective demands urgent, decisive and courageous action. The world’s youth can be a powerful actor of change in this regard. Climate action is not just about CO2 emissions, it is about people, about the values we share and what each of us is ready to do to promote them. Young people are a source of innovation and of fresh insights into problems and their possible solutions. They call for just, equitable solutions.
As the next generation prepares for changing weather and climate, young people can play an active role in monitoring, understanding and responding to the weather and climate of today and tomorrow. They have the capacity to promote climate awareness, mitigation and adaptation, but in order to unleash the youth’s full potential for addressing climate change, we need to be able to involve them in the formulation and implementation of the policies that affect them today and will concern them tomorrow.
Scientific understanding of how the atmosphere, ocean, land and water interact to generate weather and climate is improving, making it increasingly easier to generate seamless weather and climate forecasts. The WMO community has already developed tools for understanding and forecasting the weather and climate, and over the coming decades these tools will become more skillful, more widely shared and used. Information products and services based on climate predictions will strengthen our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as to pursue sustainable development — making us better prepared to face coming storms, floods and heatwaves; helping farmers to better organize planting and harvesting; and increasing the safety of ship and air navigation... Young people who choose a career in meteorology, hydrology or climate science will be able to play an increasingly important role, and thus make a vital contribution to the safety and well-being of their communities and countries.
Climate change makes us more uncertain about our future and yet, despite this uncertainty, one thing is clear: our society bears a responsibility not only to itself but also to future generations. The youth of today will live through the second half of this century and, if we do not act urgently, they will witness the severe impacts of climate change foreseen by the latest assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a result of the choices we are making in the present, young people will have a major role to play in shaping the Earth’s future. While the challenges facing the next generations are enormous, the opportunities for addressing them have never been greater.




Climate and Weather : Engaging Youth

A carrear in Meteorology

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Thursday, 20 March 2014

World Water Day 2014, March 22

Join the Forum : World Water Day - March 22



Water is at the core of sustainable development.
This year’s observance of World Water Day 2014 focuses on the links between water and energy.
Both are critical for eradicating poverty.
And they interact with each other in ways that can help – or hinder – our efforts to build stable societies and lives of dignity for all.
Climate change driven in great part by the unsustainable use of energy will exacerbate water stress and scarcity in many regions. Efforts to provide universal access to water and energy will be undermined if the current warming trend continues.
The many strong links between water and energy demand coherent, integrated policies and innovative strategies. Water must be used -- and electricity must be generated and distributed -- equitably and efficiently, so all users get a fair share.
These are the goals of the ongoing work of UN-Water and of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative.  These issues are also crucially important elements in our discussions on the post-2015 development agenda.
On World Water Day, let us pledge to develop the policies needed to ensure that sustainable water and energy are secured for the many and not just the few.

Ban Ki-moon






UNESCO Director-General's Message for World Water Day 2014 

Water is fundamental to life and is the common denominator of all sustainable development challenges. We need water to produce food and we need water to produce energy. Improving access to freshwater is about enabling millions of girls to go to school instead of walking kilometres to fetch water. It is about improving maternal health, curbing child mortality and preserving the environment.
We need to better understand the complex interactions between resources that are closely interlinked, such as water, food and energy. And we must acknowledge that it is impossible to manage these resources sustainably if we treat them in isolation. Each mode of energy production has implications for the quantity and quality of water available. The choices made in one sector have repercussions on the other, for better and for worse. The World Water Development Report released today confirms, for example, that people who lack electricity are also those who lack water. This is no mere coincidence – water is required to produce energy, and energy is required to sanitize and convey water. Both are essential to human wellbeing and sustainable development.
Sustainability depends on our ability to understand all these connections and to develop more relevant policies that take an integrated approach to interconnected resources. The challenge is all the greater as the demand for water and energy is soaring, particularly in emerging economies, where agriculture, industry and cities are developing at a tremendous pace. We must find ways to ensure access to water and energy in sufficient quantity and quality, in a sustainable way.
Sustainability also requires better cooperation between all water stakeholders – policymakers, scientists and businesses, both public and private, who all too often ignore each other while in reality they depend on each other. The International Year of Water Cooperation in 2013 set important milestones. The initiative on sanitation of Mr Jan Eliasson, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, also calls for greater collective action for the better management of human waste and wastewater. Poor sanitation has devastating consequences, particularly for children, and the key to the problem includes energy.
There is enough water in the world for everyone. What we continue to lack is better governance and the collective courage to craft fair compromise solutions. These should be based on research results and reliable data. UNESCO will continue to commit its resources to this cause, in particular through our International Hydrological Programme, the Institute for Water Education in Delft, our centres and Chairs specialized in water, and the data from the World Water Assessment Programme, which are all ways of building capacity, carrying out research and sharing good practices. Together, we can better integrate water and sanitation and the link between water and energy as positive levers for sustainable development.

Irina Bokova
 The energy and water sectors have different drivers behind decision-making: energy planners are more focused on diversifying sources of producing low-carbon energy, while water managers have to satisfy a diversity of water users including the environment. Cross-sector cooperation and coordination in policies and planning can maximise the supply of one resource while minimising overuse of the other.



Produced by the Global Water Partnership, 2014

 The global goal for water is supported by a coherent, cohesive and mutually reinforcing set of targets that will help countries reach the goal by 2030. To facilitate understanding of the multiple functions water plays in society, the framework is structured into five measurable and interconnected targets. The short versions of these targets are below. Under each link, you will find descriptions of each of the targets and more resource material.



° Target A: Achieve universal access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene

° Target B: Improve by (x%) the sustainable use and development of water resources in all countries

° Target C: All countries strengthen equitable, participatory and accountable water governance

° Target D: Reduce wastewater pollution and improve water quality by reducing untreated domestic and industrial wastewater by (x%); increasing wastewater reused safely by (y%); and reducing nutrient pollution by (z%) to maximize water resource availability and improve water quality.

° Target E: Reduce mortality by (x%) and economic loss by (y%) from natural and human-induced water- related disasters

A post-2015 Global Goal for Water : Securing Sustainable Water for All
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)