Tackling climate change – First grab the world’s attention

The latest science cited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, provides conclusive evidence that human activities are causing unprecedented changes in the Earth's climate. As many have stated, it is time to take immediate and robust action to mitigate the impacts of climate change against the risks of a greater than 2ºC temperature rise.

For those who want to focus on the scientific question marks, it is their right to do so. But today we need to focus on the fundamentals and on actions.

The Fifth Assessment Report will be considered by negotiators responsible for concluding a new agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Climate agreement is vital

As greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase – inducing changes in the oceans, ice caps, glaciers, the biosphere and other components of the climate system that are very likely to be unprecedented over decades to thousands of years – it is clear that such a universal climate agreement by 2015 will be vital.

Any agreement will need to be backed by supportive voluntary initiatives such as those bringing down short-lived climate pollutants.

And, as work on the inclusive green economy and the transition to a low carbon economy continues to show, there are multiple benefits of such immediate policy action including improved public health, food security and job generation.

Of course, there can be different pathways to reach the 2ºC target, and the stepping stones to future emissions targets will need to be clearly articulated and contextualised for each country.

But as the work of the United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP, has shown, should the global community not immediately embark on wide-ranging actions to narrow the greenhouse gas emissions gap, the chance of remaining on the least-cost path to keeping global temperature rise below 2ºC this century will swiftly diminish and open the door to insurmountable challenges.

Not narrowing the emissions gap will mean greater lock-in of carbon intense infrastructure, greater dependence on often unproven technologies in the medium term, greater costs of mitigation and greater risks to many people.

The stepping-stone of the 2020 target can still be achieved by strengthening current pledges and by further action, including scaling up international cooperation initiatives in areas such as energy efficiency, fossil fuel subsidy reform and renewable energy.

Mitigating climate change

UNEP, the International Resource Panel and UN REDD – the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries – have launched a new report outlining how integrating REDD+ programmes into a green economy approach can help mitigate climate change, while conserving and even boosting the economic and social benefits that forests provide to human society.

Agriculture is also critical, as direct emissions from this sector are currently responsible for 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions, even more if its indirect emissions are taken into account.

The recent report by UNEP's International Resource Panel, which assesses global land use and options for sustainable land management, shows that changes in land use and land cover due to expansion of global crop land is accelerating climate change through the release of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases including nitrous oxide.

However, this trend can be reversed through sustainable consumption and production actions such as adopting best management practices in agricultural production and implementation of policy instruments that address food waste and consumption.

In November last year, the Climate Technology Centre and Network opened to serve the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change parties. This network represents another building block in a low-carbon future.

This facility will make a substantive contribution to accelerating the use of existing and new technologies that can improve the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in developing countries who are dealing with the impacts of climate change on a daily basis.

And the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants celebrated its second anniversary this year. It has led the first global effort to treat short-lived climate pollutants as an urgent and collective challenge. After starting with seven partners in 2012, today it has 80.

With its rapid growth, this global effort to reduce emissions of black carbon, methane and many hydro-fluorocarbons has already touched numerous sectors of society in the effort to slow the rate of global warming and protect human health, agriculture and the environment.

UNEP’s work

At the heart of all our activities lies the need for assessments that are credible, transparent, relevant and based on up-to-date knowledge.

In its drive to strengthen the science policy interface, UNEP is embarking on a wide-ranging shift towards working with all countries, especially developing countries, to expand their analytical capacities and to help make their own information and scientific knowledge more accessible, across language regimes and up-to-date, through UNEP Live, the UN system-wide knowledge management platform.

Our focus over the next year will be on the regional environmental information networks and the Small Island Developing States. Already we have linked many developing countries to global services on air quality, sea level rise and temperature and ecosystems.

UNEP Live will enable the research and policy communities and data providers in developing countries to provide inputs to the work of the panels – not only the IPCC but also the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the International Resource Panel – through better access to their own knowledge repositories.

* Dr Jacqueline McGlade is a British-born Canadian marine biologist and a professor of environmental informatics. Her research focuses on the spatial and nonlinear dynamics of ecosystems, climate change and scenario development. She is currently on leave from the mathematics department at University College London while holding the post of chief scientist at the United Nations Environment Programme.