MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOAL 7
Environmental sustainability means using natural resources wisely and protecting the complex ecosystems on which our survival depends. But sustainability will not be achieved with current patterns of resource consumption and use. Land is becoming degraded at an alarming rate. Plant and animal species are being lost in record numbers. The climate is changing, bringing with it threats of rising sea levels and worsening droughts and floods. Fisheries and other marine resources are being overexploited.

CLIMATE CHANGE ARTICLES

THE KYOTO PROTOCOL: WHERE ARE WE NOW?
On the final day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal on 10 December 2005, Kyoto Protocol signatories agreed to extend the treaty on emissions reductions beyond its 2012 deadline. The existing Protocol, which entered into force on 16 February 2005, sets legally binding targets and timetables for cutting the greenhouse-gas emissions of industrialized countries.

Formal negotiations can now begin over the precise targets which will be set when the ‘first commitment period’ of Kyoto expires in 2012. There is an urgent need to formulate a more demanding set of targets for this post-2012 period. Whereas the existing Kyoto requirements call for a reduction in overall emissions of greenhouses gases by at least 5 percent below existing 1990 levels by 2012, scientists say an emissions cut of at least 60 percent is needed to prevent the catastrophic impact of climate change this century. The Report of the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change has stressed that special attention needs to be placed on the development of low-carbon energy sources, including natural gas, renewable power and nuclear power, in order to gradually correct today’s excessive dependency on fossil fuels.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has stated that there needs to be a “broader participation by all major emitters and both developed and developing countries, to ensure a concerted globally defined action” on combating climate change.

THE KYOTO PROTOCOL: LATEST NEWS

Kyoto Protocol set to help green economies of eastern and central Europe
26 October 2006, Bonn
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) today launched a new mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol expected to generate significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which cause global warming. With the launch of the Kyoto Protocol’s joint implementation (JI) mechanism, developed countries will be able to acquire carbon credits from greenhouse gas emission reducing projects undertaken in other industrialised countries, in particular central and eastern European transition economies.

A UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATION?
In September 2003 at the UN General Assembly, French President Chirac called for the creation of a United Nations Environmental Organization (UNEO) to replace the existing United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Many countries have since given their backing to the call, and at the UN Summit in September 2005 world leaders agreed to ‘explore the possibility of a more coherent institutional framework’ for environmental activates within the UN.

A UNEO would strengthen the effectiveness, efficiency and coherence of international environmental governance. The UNEP was established in 1972 to raise awareness of global environmental issues but has suffered from a lack of influence within the UN system. The UNEO is envisioned as a decentralized umbrella organization, along the lines of the World Heatlh Organization (WHO) or the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), which could correct the lack of integration among existing global observing systems.