This report highlights the incompatibility between continued rapid growth in the global economy and the sustainability of the environment with global warming presenting an increasing threat to future living standards. In the first part of the report focus on climate change and the response of governments and companies. The second part contains results and analysis of data collected as part of the IBR survey, identifying the attitudes of privately held businesses towards global warming and what action they are taking to limit the effects.
This report brings together a wide range of water-related issues, problems, and challenges from a future-oriented, multi-disciplinary, and multisectoral perspective from around the Asia and Pacific region. Highlighted are important topics that have been neglected or are being inadequately considered in most countries of the region.
Australia’s overseas development aid assistance is set to increase substantially over the next four years. This much welcomed increase could be stretched in multiple directions to satisfy multiple needs. This paper is a contribution to the debate on how best to direct Australia’s investments to meet the objective of reducing poverty and achieving sustainable development. The paper suggests that a focus on domestic water and sanitation is critical and will contribute significantly to poverty reduction in the region.
Climate change adaptation requires the use of good agricultural, forestry and fisheries practices to meet changing and more difficult environmental conditions. To make sure appropriate nformation is shared and put into practice, FAO works to build capacities at the national, local and community levels to raise awareness and prepare for climate change impacts. At the government level, the goal is to mainstream climate change strategies and actions in agricultural policies and programmes to reduce vulnerability and provide local communities with site-specific solutions
This publication provides policy-makers and project personnel with tools to assess present energy flows and future energy scenarios. It uses a geographic information system to generate and manage data independently of political boundaries, integrating and analysing relationships among socio-economic and environmental variable and facilitates the identification of priority areas and population that deserve greatest attention in efforts to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
This report shares field experience and lessons in developing incentive-based mechanisms for watershed protection services and improved livelihoods at micro- and macro-scales at three locations in Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The process, progress and problems in the three sites, and the initial findings, are presented. Key lessons are discussed and specific recommendations made.
Under the World Bank's Sustainable Development Network Integration "Challenge Fund Initiative,' a joint "ESMAP - Carbon Finance Unit' team examined the synergies and possibilities of scaling up implementation of dispersed, demand-side EE efforts using the emerging programmatic CDM (pCDM) concept. This paper focuses on the key recommendations of this analysis, the potential scaling-up opportunities, and underlying operational synergies between EE programs in developing countries and pCDM.
