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Climate Change

Global Cooperation Is Key to Environmental Sustainability

Posted June 1, 2004

Environmental pollution from a factory in Estonia. Courtesy World Bank/Curt Carnemark.

• Climate change is a key component of Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals to ensure environmental sustainability as a poverty reduction measure. Calling for integrating principles of sustainable development within country policies and programmes to reverse the loss of environmental resources, Target 9 of MDG7 in particular promotes measures that reduce carbon dioxide emissions, energy use, and the use of solid fuels. Yet, without international cooperation, achieving this goal may be impossible.

• This Cross-Topic Special on Climate Change coincides with World Environment Day on June 5. Through the lens of 17 topic pages, it looks at global efforts to forge international cooperation in governance, donor aid, and policy implementation aimed at reducing the impact of climate change on the developing world. Motoharu Yamazaki, head of the Climate Change Programme in Hungary's Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) and director of the Japan Special Fund to REC, discusses how global cooperation from developed countries can help economies in transition establish environmental policy.

Icon indicates MDG related highlight

Governance
	The global and local in environmental governance for climate change mitigation: A view from Zimbabwe and The Southern Center for Energy and Environment. More

Capacity Development for MDGs
	The Equator Initiative is a partnership that promotes sustainable communities in developing countries within the equatorial belt.More

Urban Development
	Concern about automobile and motorcycle emissions in megacities of Asia is leading to new private-public partnerships in the transport sector.More

Water Resource Management
	The impact of climate change on catchment scale poses major challenges to water resource management. More

Environmental Law
	FIELD has been directly involved in the development of the international climate change regime since the very beginning. More

Trade and Development
	Does the liberalization of trade undermine the efforts of industrialized countries to mitigate climate change? More

Business Environment
	Climate change issues will drive creation of new regulations, taxes, international protocols, government incentives and market opportunities. More

Culture & Development
	How cultural practices are protecting--and harming--forest cover, one of the key indicators of MDG 7 to ensure environmental sustainability.More

Non-Governmental Organizations
	The Climate Action Network (CAN) is a worldwide NGO network that promotes government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change. More

Population and Reproductive Health
	Population, health and environmental change: Facing the Future.More

Food Security
	TGlobal environmental change has profound implications for food security. More

Indigenous People
	Global warming would bring irreversible damage to traditional cultures of indigenous people living in the circumpolar Arctic.More

ICT for Development
	Developing countries are using innovative satellite technology for weather disaster management. More

Afghanistan Reconstruction
	Environmental degradation in Afghanistan poses a big challenge to reconstruction efforts. More

Argentina: Challenges and Opportunities
	Fundacion Bariloche is one of the main actors in assessing Argentina's vulnerability to climate change. More

Microfinance
	Microfinancing supports a diverse range of microscale enterprises with an equally diverse range of potential impacts on the environment. More

Poverty
	Learn about the complex links between poverty and the environment. More

DG Expert Perspective:
Motoharu Yamazaki

Motoharu Yamazaki

Read an interview with Motoharu Yamazaki, head of the Climate Change Programme in Hungary's Regional Environmental Center (REC) for Central and Eastern Europe and Director of the Japan Special Fund to REC. He discusses the role that developed countries can play in shaping environmental policy for economies in transition. More

2004 World Environment Day

The UN Environment Program (UNEP) has sponsored World Environment Day (WED) on June 5 since 1972. For 2004, the theme is “Wanted! Seas and Oceans--Dead or Alive?” to be formally celebrated in Barcelona, Spain, as part of the Universal Forum of Cultures.

Partners

		GRID Arendal-UNEP (Norway)

		Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD)

		Climate Action Network
		PEW Center on Global Climate Change

		Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

		Global Environment Facility

		The Southern Center for Energy and Environment (Zimbabwe)

		Regional Environmental Center for Southern and Eastern Europe (REC)