Awareness, Action, Adaptation
UNU and Climate Change
Portrait of a Warming Ocean and Rising Sea Levels: Trend of Sea Level Change 1993-2008 — Warming water and melting land ice have raised global mean sea level 4.5 centimeters from 1993 to 2008. But the rise is by no means uniform. This image, created with sea surface height data from the Topex/Poseidon and Jason-1 satellites, shows exactly where sea level has changed during this time and how quickly these changes have occurred. Image: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
From UNU Rector
Konrad Osterwalder
All must innovate in this time of climate change
Asahi Shimbun, July 4 2008 (44 KB PDF)
What price an environment bailout?
Japan Times, October 24 2008 (92 KB PDF)
See also: UNU and the Bali Climate Change Conference (144 KB PDF)
Climate change is not a lost cause, nor its outcome a foregone conclusion. Policies that effectively and efficiently mitigate climate change at a very reasonable cost exist. We need only the sense and courage to adopt them.
The United Nations University (UNU) works to meet the challenges of climate change in several important ways.
By engaging in policy-relevant research, we help customise global knowledge to local solutions. Our joint research programmes focus on the economics of climate change, activating innovation, disaster risk reduction and financial instruments for recovery, ecosystem management, water and food security, migration, and community action.
Our capacity building activities in developing countries apply this knowledge on the ground, providing the necessary training and skills for professionals and the higher education sector, empowering them to take leadership in adaptation and mitigation programmes to effect local change. More than mere ‘survival skills,’ these programmes evolve under the broader rubric of sustainable development.
We enlarge the dialogue and help to bring more diverse stakeholders to the table. UNU’s Traditional Knowledge Initiative focuses on indigenous communities, recognising the importance of local knowledge, and seeks to enfranchise indigenous people as key actors in policy development. The initiative also strives for a more robust science: the IPCC has identified indigenous knowledge as an important missing element in its previous assessments and a focus for its next assessment process.
Learn more about our activities
I am convinced that this challenge, and what we do about it, will define us, our era and, ultimately, our global legacy. It is time for new thinking.
—UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
31 July 2007, New York
Events
The Role of Higher Education in Adapting to Climate Change
2009.06.10–12, UNU Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan
Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies: Post-2012 Options
2008.10.28, 4:00 to 5:30 pm at UNU-IAS in Yokohama. Part of the Climate Change Lecture Series on Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies.
International Conference on Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability
2008.10.09–11, Bonn, Germany. Organised by UNU-EHS and the Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios project.
The Climate Change Challenge
2008.03.06 — Kemal Derviş delivered the 11th WIDER Annual Lecture at the Marina Congress Center in Helsinki on 6 March 2008.
Selected Publications
Policy Brief
Toward a Global Science and Technology Policy Agenda for Sustainable Development
By Paul A. David, Can Huang, Luc Soete and Adriaan van Zon
Making severe emissions cuts less burdensome would reinforce efforts to achieve that goal by “cap-and-trade” programmes and carbon taxes. The global community should commit itself to making major, coordinated investments in a diversified portfolio of climate change R&D, and to providing global access to the emerging technologies.
UNU Press
Climate Change in Asia: Perspectives on the Future Climate Regime
Edited by Yasuko Kameyama, Agus P. Sari, Moekti H. Soejahmoen and Norichika Kanie
Countries in Asia have particularly high stakes in the intense and growing international debate over the future climate change regime.
UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security
Control, Adapt or Flee: How to Face Environmental Migration?
Fabrice Renaud, Janos J. Bogardi, Olivia Dun and Koko Warner
Part of the UNU-EHS InterSecTions series, this issue explores an issue where "the interlinkage of environment and human security is nowhere else more pronounced."
UNU Traditional Knowledge Initiative
The Anchorage Declaration
Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change, April 2009
A Carbon Guide for Northern Indigenous Australians
January 2009
REDD Guide for Indigenous Peoples
Available in English, Spanish and French, November 2008
A Guide to Emissions Trading, Carbon Financing and Indigenous Peoples
May 2008
Visit the UNU Traditional Knowledge Initiative Publications page for information on forthcoming publications and the Indigenous Perspectives on Climate Change video series.
GEIC
Innovative Climate Change Communication – Team Minus 6%
Chun Knee Tan, Akinori Ogawa and Takashi Matsumura
This working paper is highlighting the importance of effective communication strategies to increase the public awareness on climate change issues. The study was focused basically on the climate change campaign strategies at developed countries, in particularly Japanese “Team Minus 6%” campaign. Successful climate change campaign is attributed to its communication strategies and attractive content. The lesson learned from successful campaign can help to duplicate the experience at other part of the world.
From the UNU G8 Dialogue Series
- David Runnalls on Climate Change and World Trade
- Akiko Domoto and Ahmed Djoghlaf on Climate Change and Biodiversity
- Jean Pierre Contzen on the Renaissance of Nuclear Energy
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Page last modified 2009.11.20.
