SUST 592 International Environmental Politics (Vabulas)

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), established in 1972, addresses environmental issues at the global and regional level for the United Nations. UNEP’s mission is “to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.”

The Group of Twenty (G20) is the premier forum for international economic cooperation. It plays an important role in shaping and strengthening global architecture and governance on all major international economic issues.

The Urban Health Initiative is an implementation framework which aims to reduce the deaths and diseases caused by air pollution and lack of clean energy access in cities. It aims to equip health and other sectors with the data, tools and capacity to demonstrate to the public and decision-makers the full range of benefits that can be achieved from creating healthy urban environments.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organisation that works to build better policies for better lives. Our goal is to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all. We draw on 60 years of experience and insights to better prepare the world of tomorrow.

At the centre of the UN development system, we conduct cutting-edge analysis, agree on global norms and advocate for progress. Our collective solutions advance sustainable development.

Advancing sustainable development and improving environmental, economic and social conditions of Indigenous peoples and Arctic communities

As part of the United Nations family, IMO is actively working towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the associated SDGs. Indeed, most of the elements of the 2030 Agenda will only be realized with a sustainable transport sector supporting world trade and facilitating the global economy.

The IPCC prepares comprehensive Assessment Reports about the state of scientific, technical and socio-economic knowledge on climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for reducing the rate at which climate change is taking place. It also produces Special Reports on topics agreed to by its member governments, as well as Methodology Reports that provide guidelines for the preparation of greenhouse gas inventories.

GCF is the largest global fund dedicated to help fight climate change.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury is the most recent global agreement on environment and health, adopted in 2013.

From its inception, the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) has been very participatory in its outlook. The Forum’s resolutions and decision have recognized the vital role forest-related stakeholders play in the implementation of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) of all types of forests.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is a federal program mandated by Congress to coordinate federal research and investments in understanding the forces shaping the global environment, both human and natural, and their impacts on society. USGCRP facilitates collaboration and cooperation across its 14 federal member agencies to advance understanding of the changing Earth system. Research supported by USGCRP informs the Nation in navigating the challenges of a changing environment and identifying opportunities for a more resilient future.

Together, USGCRP and its member agencies provide a gateway to authoritative science, tools, and resources to help people and organizations across the country manage risks and respond to changing environmental conditions.

The history of sustainable development in the United Nations dates back to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972.

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) were recognized as a distinct group of developing countries facing specific social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit, held 3-14 June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The UNFCCC secretariat (UN Climate Change) is the United Nations entity tasked with supporting the global response to the threat of climate change. UNFCCC stands for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Convention has near universal membership (198 Parties) and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The main aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep the global average temperature rise this century as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The UNFCCC is also the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The ultimate objective of all three agreements under the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a time frame which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.

Every year on April 22, Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was established in 1994 to protect and restore our land and ensure a safer, just, and more sustainable future.

CalEnviroScreen is a tool that can be used to help identify California communities that are disproportionately burdened by multiple sources of pollution.

EJSCREEN is an environmental justice mapping and screening tool that provides EPA with a nationally consistent dataset and approach for combining environmental and demographic indicators.

The BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) collaborates with countries around the world to reduce emissions from the land sector through smarter land-use planning, policies, and practices.

The objectives of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture are the conservation and sustainable use of all plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of their use, in harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity, for sustainable agriculture and food security.

Established in the aftermath of the Second World War, UNHCR has been protecting people forced to flee conflict and persecution for over 70 years.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is part of the United Nations System as the leading inter-governmental organization promoting since 1951 humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all, with 175 member states and a presence in over 100 countries.

Population movements at the international level are concurrently the result of global change and significant drivers of subsequent changes in both the societies from which they originate and those that receive them. In the Americas, the magnitude and characteristics of the migration phenomenon have profound social and economic impacts, be it on the migrants’ countries of origin, transit or destination. Thus, migratory issues are addressed and dealt with through the various organs and entities that make up the OAS, which demonstrates the complexity and cross-cutting nature of matters related to migration.