Archives
Launching Event of the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development
The launching event of the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development, 2022, aimed to raise awareness of the importance of mountains for sustainable development. Speakers drew attention to the ecosystem services that mountain ecosystems provide and the challenges mountain communities face, including in the context of climate change.
Moving Beyond GDP: The Case for Wealth as a Core Measure of National Progress
Despite its frequent use as the main measure of progress, GDP fails to account for health, happiness, inequality, and environmental sustainability. An expert panel explored how a focus on wealth could inform policymaking in Africa—and how to make the shift.
4th Asia-Pacific Water Summit
The Water Action Decade 2018-2028 is now at its mid-point, and the Asia-Pacific region is gearing up to review progress and chart a roadmap for the next five years of the Decade.
36th UN-Water Meeting
During the two-day meeting, participants discussed the Sustainable Development Goal 6 Global Acceleration Framework, linkages between climate and water, planning for the UN 2023 Water Conference, and planning for the SDG 6 Synthesis Report 2023, among other agenda items.
Resumed Session of the 12th Meeting of the Open-ended Working Group of the Basel Convention (OEWG-12)
Meeting face-to-face for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, parties tackled key issues to address prior to the face-to-face segment of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties in June 2022. Issues discussed included plastic waste, electronic waste, waste lead-acid batteries, and mercury waste.
56th Session of the IPCC (IPCC-56) and 14th Session of Working Group III (WGIII-14)
With greenhouse gas emissions at their highest ever and rising, delegates and authors worked overtime to finalize the Summary for Policymakers, which presents the key findings of their report, “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change.”
4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury (2nd Part)
Parties adopted 12 decisions, including on artisanal and small-scale mining, phasing out products containing mercury, waste containing mercury, and the effectiveness evaluation of the Convention, that have set the course of implementation of the Minamata Convention in the years to come.
13th Meeting of the Monaco Blue Initiative
In a year when the Ocean features prominently in global environmental negotiations, attendees were urged to view the status quo as "the enemy."
Geneva Biodiversity Conference
Delegates prepared the foundations for the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, which must adopt the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF) later this year. Work on the GBF progressed slowly so delegates had no choice but to schedule a fourth meeting of the Working Group in Nairobi in June 2022.