The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Working with Faith Representatives to address Climate Change: The Two Wings of Ethos and Ethics

Global Environment Facility (GEF): c/o United Nations Development Programme, 304 East 45th St, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10017, USA; e-mail gefinfo@undp.org; internet https://www.thegef.org; f. 1991, by UNEP, the World Bank and UNDP; aims to support the implementation in developing countries of projects in the six thematic areas of climate change; the conservation of biological diversity; the protection of international waters; forests; arresting land degradation; and addressing harmful chemicals and waste. Capacity building to allow countries to meet their obligations under international environmental agreements, and adaptation to climate change, are priority cross-cutting components of these projects. UNEP services the Scientific and Tech-nical Advisory Panel, which provides expert advice on GEF programmes and operational strategies. Funding is channelled through a GEF Trust Fund, GEF Least Developed Countries Fund (LDC-F—established to address the special needs of the LDCs in relation to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, with a particular emphasis on financing the preparation and implementation of NAPAs), and a Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF, established in 2001). In April 2022 29 donor countries pledged US $5,250m. for the 8th periodic replenishment of GEF funds (GEF-8), covering the period July 2022–June 2026; by 2022 the programme, since its inception, had supported more than 20,000 community-based projects worldwide; it acts as the financial mechanism for the following major international environmental conventions: the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollu-tants, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; the GEF has 18 partner agencies; Chair. and CEO Dr Carlos Manuel Rodriguez (Costa Rica).

Poverty is intricately woven with ecosystem and biodiversity losses. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2012) has effectively emphasised that the achievement of several Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from Goal 1 of reducing extreme poverty and hunger to the improvement of maternal health (Goal 5), reduction of child mortality (Goal 4) and economic development (Goal 8) face severe challenges due to the deterioration of biodiversity and ecosystem losses. While urban inhabitants may also not be able to escape CC related impacts upon the economy, the 1.2 billion rural people living in abject poverty may suffer irretrievable damage to their lives. Most of the ecosystems which provide food, fuel, shelter, medicines, clean drinking water, grazing for livestock, a variety of crops and disaster mitigation may suffer extinction due to CC. Climate-change-related temperature variability has reduced resource availability due to a loss of capacity of ecosystems to function to their optimum, and an increase in intensity and frequency of droughts, desertification, species depletion, soil degradation and crop failures has reduced livelihood options and the vulnerability of human beings. Studies indicate that the world has already exceeded the desired limit of 2 °C, which was accepted at the Cancun Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (UNDP, 2012).

Service and Advocacy: Matters of Faith?

Planetary health: a new science for exceptional action

are living in a world that is facing multiple global challenges: the economic downturn, climate change, energy security, poverty, and ecosystem breakdown. Each of these challenges requires an unprecedented political response, a daunting prospect when viewed together. Our main difficulty is not that these challenges are insoluble--they are not. Instead, it is the fact that we are facing these modern-day challenges while using institutional frameworks and governmental structures that were designed for a post-World War II equilibrium. The existing international bodies responsible for tackling these current challenges are separate, disparate, and not sufficiently joined up. have the Group of 20 (G-20), the International Monetary Fund, and World Bank for the financial crisis; the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), G8, and Major Economies Forum for climate change; the International Energy Agency (IEA), and G8 for energy security; the UN Development Programme and World Bank for poverty; and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity for ecosystems. Each of these organizations is doing important work, but many are working with considerable constraint on issues that require a unified policy response. As a result, we have disconnected institutions responding to an interconnected An Interconnected World The interconnections between countries, regions, economies, and cultures are multiplying. Within national governments, the interconnections between policies across portfolios of energy, environment, transport, security, and foreign policy are increasing. Indeed, the recent financial crisis is a perfect illustration, beginning with the irresponsible lending of money to private homeowners in the United States and leading to a near global financial meltdown. This inter-connectedness has resulted in increased unemployment, increased national debt, reduced trade, and exacerbated poverty, which have reduced the ambition to tackle climate change. The current crisis has shown us, quite clearly, how a national or regional economic downturn can quickly and easily turn global and demand policy responses across a range of geographical and ministerial disciplines. serves as a warning that responses to the biggest global environmental challenges such as climate change or ecosystem loss cannot be tackled by environment ministers in isolation, but instead require enlightened policy interventions across the full range of ministerial portfolios from energy to economics and from finance to transport. Fundamentally, we require continued political leadership from the top of government, without which there is little hope of achieving meaningful solutions. Global Responses Meeting global challenges successfully will require unprecedented global coordination across the major economies. National and regional action is part of the solution, but to be successful, the right institutions and global governance structures will be needed in combination with political leadership from the major economies. have limped along over the past twenty to thirty years with institutions designed for a postwar world that are slow to respond and increasingly out of alignment with the challenges of the day. In parallel, on global governance, the G8 group of industrialized countries is increasingly being questioned as the political constellation best placed to deal with global issues. The debate around institutions and global governance is not new, but has been given political impetus by the comments of Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who, when referring to the G-20 summit in Washington, DC, in 2008, said: We are talking about the G20 because the G8 doesn't have any more reason to exist; emerging economies have to be taken into consideration in today's globalised world. (1) Many observers see the move away from the G8 and toward the G-20 as inevitable. As the former UK G8 Sherpa to Tony Blair in 2005 and 2006, Lord Michael Jay, who was also the architect of the Glen-eagles G8 summit, said: It is hugely significant that at a time of global financial crisis it was the G20 that met in Washington and not the G8. …

Climate change and health—action please, not words

A Culture of Neglect: Climate Discourse and Disabled People

Climate Change and Health: Strengthening the Evidence Base for Policy

Joan Brown, a college student in Atlanta, Georgia, wakes up in the morning to an electronic alarm clock before she microwaves breakfast, takes a hot shower, grabs a latte at Starbucks, and drives h...

Presenting climate change as one of the most important challenges the world faces today, and one that already affects populations in the Pacific, in Africa, in the Caribbean and in Southeast Asia, the author links spirituality and mission with the advocacy work being carried on by the World Council of Churches on climate change issues. The article asserts that the ecumenical work on climate change is rooted in a biblical imperative. Two biblical insights, the wholeness of creation and the commitment for justice, are unfolded as guidelines for the ecumenical concern on climate change. The first one requests a renewed theology of creation that responds adequately to the accusation that Christianity is anthropocentric. In this theology, the trinitarian understanding of creation and the role of the Holy Spirit are highlighted. Together with theology, ethics is a core contribution churches make to the climate change debate. This ethical approach is based on the commitment for justice, biblically rooted, which pays special attention to the poor, the vulnerable ones. Main principles of climate justice from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are also analyzed. Finally, the spiritual dimension is presented following texts of Leonardo Boff and Larry Rasmussen, among others, as a specific contribution Christian churches make to climate change, ecology and environmental issues.

聯合國於1988年成立政府間氣候變遷小組(IPCC)，其成立宗旨在向全世界提供有關對當前氣候變化及其潛在環境和社會經濟影響認知狀況的科學觀點，並會在每五到六年發布評估報告，報告目的在評估關於氣候變化、影響和未來風險，以及因應措施與減緩方案的科學、技術和社會經濟的文獻報告。 IPCC給國際各國在氣候會議中制定政策時提供了建議，由於具備了科學性與跨政府性，再加上氣候議題的重要性與複雜性，使得各國對IPCC的專業與中立性相當依賴。在這種知識逐漸影響決策的情況中，國際關係學者提出所謂的「知識社群」來討論專業科學對國際政治的影響。知識社群是由「在專業領域議題中，公認具有專業知識和才能的專業人士」所建立的組織，而這種以科學知識為基礎所形成的團體對政策亦有一定影響，特別是環境議題，因為這關係到環境問題的界定、衝擊影響的評估、因應策略的選擇，決策者可藉由專家的專業知識，理解複雜的環境問題，聽取專家的建議並經由討論形成共識或認同，並制定出因應政策或公約。 本研究透過相關文獻的檢視後，歸納出最重要的研究問題「IPCC是否是知識社群？」的結論，即為IPCC是知識社群的代表之一，其原因在於IPCC首先經過整理相關的科學知識、分析資料、出版評估報告、在氣候會議上發表呼籲演說，督促各國政府努力達成共識，以便簽訂相關公約，並在近幾年的會議上開始與民眾接觸，讓民眾了解氣候變遷的嚴重性，由此可看出IPCC的工作與活動是科學性與政治性兩者兼具，是符合知識社群的特色。 身為國際上最具代表性的氣候變遷研究單位，IPCC的行為表現與研究成果是具有指標性的，而未來還會繼續在國際社會中持續活動，本研究希望藉由了解IPCC的組織架構、工作內容、成果報告以及在國際政治中的行為，更加認識這個具備科學性與政治性的知識社群，期待能為後續研究者提供一個參考的方向。

Australia's political engagement on health and climate change: the MJA-Lancet Countdown indicator and implications for the future.

Scientists welcome new global climate change pact

US Country Studies Program: an example of bilateral assistance to developing countries on climate change

Climate change and the right to health of people with disabilities