Global Environment Facility
About –
- The Global Environment Facility was established in October 1991 as $1 billion pilot program in the World Bank
- It was established to assist in the protection of the global environment and to promote environmental sustainable development
- GEF provides grants for projects related to –
- biodiversity, climate, change, international wasters, land degradation
- the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants
- GEF also serves as financial mechanisms for the conventions
- convention on biological diversity (CBD)
- United Nations Framework Convention on climate change (UNFCCC)
- UN convention to combat desertification (UNFCCD)
- Stockholm convention on persistent organic pollutants
- Minamata convention on Mercury
Organization –
- GEF is an independently operating financial organization
- GEF is the largest public funder of projects to improve the global environment
- The GEF council is the main governing body of the GEF
- It functions as an independent board of directors, with primary responsibility for adopting and evaluating GEF programs
- council members representation 32 constituencies meet twice each year for the three days
- the GEF CEO and chairperson, Dr. Naoko Ishii heads the secretariat
- The GEF scientific and technical advisory Panel (STAP) provides technical and scientific advice on the GEF’s policies and projects
GEF Agencies –
- GEF Agencies are responsible for creating project proposals and for managing GEF projects
- GEF Agencies play key roles in managing GEF projects on the ground.
- GEF Agencies assist eligible government and NGOs in the development, implantation, and management of GEF projects.
Areas of Work –
- Biodiversity
- GEF supports projects that address the key drivers of biodiversity loss which focus on the highest leveraging opportunities to achieve sustainable biodiversities conservation
- Climate change
- The GEF supports projects in
- Climate change mitigations
- climate change adaption
- Chemicals –
- Persistent organic pollutants (POPs)
- pesticides, industries chemicals or unwanted by-products of industrial processes
- The GEF supports projects in
- eliminating the production and use of specific POPs
- taking measures to ensure that POPs wastes are managed and disposal of in an environmentally sound manner
- identifying the sources and reducing releases of POPs by products
- International waters
- The GEF supports projects in helping countries work together to overcome the tensions in large water systems
- Land degradation
- The GEF supports projects in reversing and preventing desertification/land degradation and in mitigating the effects of droughts
- Sustainable forest management/REDD+
- The GEF supports projects in
- forest conservation protected areas and buffer ozone
- sustainable use of forests (forest production landscape, sustainable forest management) and
- addressing forests and trees in the wider landscape
- Ozone depletion
- The GEF supports projects in developing countries and countries with economic in transition (CEITs) that are not eligible for funding under the Multilateral fund of the Montreal Protocol
- It implements activities to phase out ozone depleting substances (ODS)
Facts –
- The United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Environment programme, and the world bank were the three initial partners implementing GEF projects
- In 1992, at the Rio Earth Summit, the GEF was restructured and moved out of the World Bank system to become a permanent, separate institution.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
About –
- IPCC is a scientific intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations, set up at the request of member governments
- It was first established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the WMO and UNEP
- membership of the IPCC is open to all members of the WMO and UNEP
- The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself
Functions –
- the IPPC produces reports that support the United Nations Framework convention on Climate change (UNFCCC)
- The preparation of the assessment reports is the major IPCC function
- IPCC assesses scientific information relevant to
- Human induced climate change
- The impacts of human induced climate change
- options for adaptation and mitigation
- Assessment Reports –
- The IPCC has published five comprehensive assessment reports reviewing the latest climate science, as well as a number of special reports on particular topics
- these reports are prepared by teams of relevant researchers selected by the Bureau from government nominations
- Each assessment reports is in three volumes, corresponding to working groups I, II and III
- The IPCC’s fifth Assessment Report (AR5) was completed in 2014
- Conclusions of AR5 –
- Working Group I
- Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennium
- Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years
- Human influence on the climate system is clear. It is extremely likely (95-100%) that human influence was the dominant cause of global warming
- Working Group II
- Increasing magnitudes of warming increase the livelihood of serve, pervasive and irreversible impacts
- A first step towards adaption to future climate change is reducing vulnerability and exposure to present climate variability
- The overall risks of climate change impacts can be reduced by limiting the rate and magnitude of climate change
- Working Group III
- projects suggest an increase in global mean temperature in 2100 of 3.7 to 4.8 C relative to pre-industrial levels
- The current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions is not consists with limiting global warming to below 1.5 or 2 c relative to pre-industrial levels
- The IPCC also often answers inquiries from the UNFCCC subsidiary body for scientific and technology advice (BBSTA)
Facts –
- In December 2007, the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Prize
- The IPCC first assessment report was completed 1990, and served as the basis of the UNFCCC.
International Tropical Timber Organization
About –
- The International tropical timber organization (ITTO) is an intergovernmental organization.
- It promotes conservation of tropical forest resources and their sustainable management use and trade
- Objective
- to promote sustainable management and legal harvesting of forests that produce tropical timber
- to promote expansion and diversification of international trade in timbre from these forests
Organization –
- The organization was established under the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA)
- It was sponsored by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and was ratified in 1985
- The governing body is the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC)
Mandate and Activities –
- The ITTO was at first primarily a commodity organization, regulating the international trade in tropical timber
- In 1990 the ITTC proposed that by 2000 all exports of tropical timber would come from sustainable managed sources, and this goal was adopted
- In 1987 the ITTO commissioned the Harvard Institute for International Development
- to prepare a review of current knowledge of multiple-use management of tropical forests.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
About –
- UNCLOSS is the international agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the law of the sea (UNCLOS III), which took place between 1973 and 1982
- UNFLOUS is also called as
- the law of the Sea Convention or
- the law of the Sea treaty
- The UNCLOUS defines the rights and responsibilities of nations with respect to their
- use of the world’s oceans
- establishing guidelines for business, the environment, and
- the management of marine natural resources
Formations –
- UNCLOUS came into force in 1994
- As of January 2015, 166 countries and the European Union have joined in the Convention
Historical Background –
- Initially national rights were limited to three nautical miles, all waters beyond national boundaries were considered international waters
- In the early 20th century, some nations expressed their desire to extend national claims:
- to include mineral resources, to protect fish stocks, and
- to provide the means to enforce pollution controls
- Between 1946 and 1950
- Chile, Peru, and Ecuador extended their rights to a distance of 200 nautical miles (370 km) to cover their Humboldt Current fishing grounds
- other nations extended their territorial seas to 12 nautical miles (22 km)
- By 1967
- 25 nations still used the old three-mile (5km) limit, while 66 nations had set a 12-nautical-mile (22 km) territorial limit and eight had set a 200-nautical-mile (370 km) limit
- In 1956, the United Nations held its first conference on the law of the sea (UNFLOS I) at Geneva, Switzerland.
- resulted in four treaties concluded in 1958
- In 1960, the United Nations held the second conference on the law of the sea (UNCLOS II)
- no new agreements
UNCLOS III –
- In 1973 the third United nations conference on the law of the sea was convened in New York
- The conference used a consensus process rather than majority vote. With more than 160 nations participating, the conference lasted until 1982
- The resulting convention came into force on 16 November 1994, one year after the sixtieth state, Guyana, ratified the treaty.
- The convention set the limit of various areas, measured from a carefully defined baseline
- Areas –
- Internal waters
- covers all water and waterways on the landward of the baseline
- the coastal state is free to set laws, regulate use, and use any resource
- Foreign vessels have no right of passage within internal waters
- Territorial Waters
- Out to 12 nautical miles (22 km ; 14 miles) from the baseline, the coastal state is free to set laws, regulate use and use any resources
- Contiguous Zone
- beyond the 12-nautical-mile (22 km) limit, there is a further 12 nautical miles (22km) from the territorial sea baseline limit, the contiguous zone
- state can continue to enforce laws in four specific areas: customs taxation, immigration and pollution
- Exclusive economic zone (EEZs)
- These extend from the edge of the territorial sea out to 200 nautical miles(370 km; 230 mile) from the baseline
- within this area, the coastal nation has sole exploitation rights over all natural resources
- Continental shelf
- The continental shelf is defined as the natural prolongation of the land territory to the continental margin’s outer edge, or 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the coastal state’s baseline
- A state’s continental shelf may exceed 200 nautical miles (370 km) until the natural prolongation ends
- However, it may never exceed 350 nautical miles 650 km, 400 miles from the baseline
- Coastal states have the right to harvest mineral and non-living material in the subsoil of its continental shelf, to the exclusion of others
- Coastal states also have exclusive control over living resources “attached” to the continental shelf, but not to creatures living in the water column beyond the exclusive economic zone.
Subsidiaries –
- ISA
- International Seabed Authority (ISA)
- It is an intergovernmental body based in Kingston, Jamaica
- It was established to organize, regulate and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabed area beyond the limits of national jurisdiction
- It is an organization established by the Law of the Sea Convention
- ITLOS
- International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS)
- ITLOS is an intergovernmental organization creativity by the mandate of the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea
- It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, on December 10, 1982
- The convention entered into force on November 16, 1994 and established an international framework for law over “all ocean space, its uses and resources”.
- The tribunal is based in Hamburg, Germany.
- The Tribunal has the power to settle disputes between party states.
Facts –
- UN has no direct operational role in the implementation of the Convention
- The EEZs were introduced to halt the increasingly heated clashes over fishing rights, although oil was also becoming important.