Climate Change : Some Background

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The UNFCCC, which officially began on March 21, 1994, sets the international framework for governments to come together to draft policies for reduction of climate change effects and adaptation to existing threats.

The Kyoto Protocol
Entering into force on February 16 2005, the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC is an amendment to the international treaty on climate change, assigning mandatory emissions reductions to signatory nations.

The Stern Review
The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change examines the impacts of climate change and the risks and costs associated with the issue.  The report concludes that, as climate change is already a serious global threat, “the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting.”  The full report, as well as summaries, are available through this link.

Meeting the Climate-Change Challenge:  Avoiding the Unmanageable & Managing the Unavoidable
This short powerpoint was presented by its author, Harvard’s Prof. John Holdren, to the UN CSD-15’s high-level roundtable on climate change and details the strategies necessary for combining adaptation and mitigation.

The Guardian’s Climate Change Special Section
The Guardian’s link provides access to an interesting collection of articles on the science of climate change, carbon markets’ popularity, advocacy, activism, and various special reports on case studies.

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change
The Pew Center’s website provides an enormous amount of information at the regional, national, and international levels, bringing together business leaders, policy makers, scientists, and activists to strategize and present facts, data, and cross-sectoral policy initiatives.  Want to know what your state is doing about climate change? Read legislation and commitments here: http://www.pewclimate.org/what_s_being_done/in_the_states/

Climate Crisis
The official site for Al Gore’s Academy Award winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, supplies basic climate change statistics and advocacy information.

United National Environmental Programme (UNEP)
The UNEP’s site on climate change is comprehensive in science and policy, and it provides useful links like this one: http://www.grida.no/climate/vitalafrica/english/12.htm which graphs C02 emissions from selected counties.

DFID’s Climate Change Resource Base
The British Government’s Department for International Development provides this link to an excellent selection of publications called “Key Sheets on Climate Change and Poverty,” including papers on climate change and pro-poor growth, regional affects of climate change, and international climate change negotiations.

Climate Action Network
This website links to dozens of climate action networks around the world, on every continent.  Over 365 NGOs are represented here, stimulating government response to climate change, targeting reduction in emissions, mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Development Gateway Environment & Development
Starting with an article called “Rwanda and France:  Two Perspectives on Global Warming,” this site provides a range of articles under its “key issues” section for climate change, as well and environment and development.

Making the Links : Gender & Climate Change

Gender & Climate Change
This website, although a few years outdated, provides essential background information for the link between gender and climate change issues, including mitigation, adaptation, and critical research.

Mainstreaming Gender into the Climate Change Regime (2004)

Gender Perspectives on the Conventions on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Desertification (2004)

From Beijing to Kyoto:  Gendering the International Climate Change Negotiation Process (2003)

A Critical Look at Gender and Energy Mainstreaming in Africa: a draft paper, by Njeri Wamukonya (2002)

Gender and Climate Change (2002)
Jyoti Parikh and Fatma Denton summarize a COP-8 side event they held called Engendering the Climate Debate:  Vulnerability, adaptation, mitigation and financial mechanisms.

IUCN: Gender Aspects of Climate Change (2007)
This document details the ways in which climate change affects women, how women are still under-represented in decision-making and policy-making for adaptation and mitigation, and how a gender bias exists in carbon emissions and emissions calculations.

Mainstreaming gender perspectives in environmental management and mitigation of natural disasters (UN, 17 Jan 2002)
This paper discusses numerous aspects of women’s involvement and gender mainstreaming in adaptation and mitigation strategies, risk assessments, and and emergency response and management.

Instraw:  Disaster Management and Mitigation
The UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women provides gender mainstreaming guidelines and strategies for dealing with environmental risks like climate change.

Climate Change, Gender and Poverty—Academic Babble or Realpolitik? (Fatma Denton, ENDA, 14 Oct 2001)
Fatma Denton of ENDA addresses gender in mitigation and adaptation policy-making, as well as women’s roles in vulnerable sectors like forestry and fisheries.

Is the gender dimension of the climate debate forgotten? (ENDA/ IRADe, 29 October 2006)
This link provides access to a summary of the COP8 session on climate change and gender, including recommendations, participants, and key statements from Jyoti Parikh and Fatma Denton, experts in the field.

Is climate change a gender issue? (AWID, 2005)
This article highlights the severity of climate change recognized by the global scientific community but ignored by international policymakers, and reports on the Inuit community’s vulnerability to climate change effects already occurring.

Oxfam:  Climate Change
Oxfam’s website provides excellent “key facts” and other information related to climate change issues around the world, as well as links to publications addressing gender, development, and climate change.

Canadian International Development Agency:  Gender Equality and Climate Change:  Why consider gender equality when taking action on climate change?
This short paper addresses such essential issues as food security, water resources, and the affects of climate change on human health.

U.S. Policy

The White House:  Energy Security for the 21st Century
This is the U.S. government’s link to energy policies, standards, and priorities.

Capitol Watch:  Congress and Climate Change
From the Foreign Policy Association’s website, this article by Daniel Widome discusses the current bills in Congress addressing climate change.

The U.S. EPA Guide to Climate Change
The Environmental Protection Agency’s site not only provides basic facts and policy overviews, but it also connects directly to links to find Energy Star products, to personal emissions calculators, “what you can do” advice, and other resources.
Also see: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/ for the informational site geared toward children.

Bush Policy vs. Kyoto:  Is the US Intensity Target Equivalent to Reductions by Countries in the Kyoto Protocol?
This article from the Pew Climate Center examines different policies for targeting a reduction in emissions, specifically drawing attention to the differences between US policies and signatories to the Kyoto Protocol.

U.S. Carbon Emissions Falls in 2006 (MSNBC, 23 May 2007)
“Bush hails it as progress, energy department cites mild winter.”  

U.S. Approach to Climate Change (26 October 2006)
This powerpoint by the US Department of Energy’s Dr. Robert C. Marlay outlines the tax incentives, involvement of federal agencies, and money spent on science R&D for climate technologies.

Struggling to Save the Planet:  A New Proposal on Combating Climate Change (The Economist, 31 May 2007)
Having formally withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S. is now beginning to acknowledge that its strategy to address climate change has failed.  This article discusses a new plan.

Impacts on the Developing World

The Impact of Climate Change in the Rest of the World
This link provides a quick summary of key points.  Climate change will be most urgently threatening for developing communities.

Adapting to Climate Change in Developing Countries (October 2006)
The U.K.’s Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology presents a succinct newsletter covering the most pressing issues for least developed countries as they adapt to climate changes.

News and More

The Carbon Folly (Newsweek, 12 March 2007)
A critical look at carbon-trading, the market-based approach to reducing global warming.

Greening the Big Apple (The Economist, 26 April 2007)
Sustainable New York City:  Mayor Bloomberg announces plans to address climate change in the city.

How to cool the world (The Economist, 10 May 2007)
Is the world ready to tax carbon?

No Future:  Democracy in the age of neoliberal speed (Re-Public:  Re-imagining Democracy, May 2007)
This article by Robert Hassan takes a critical look at the way climate change and other issues fit (or don’t fit) into the neoliberal obsession with speed, the present (as opposed to the future), and markets.

Sea No Evil:  Americans should open their eyes to the reality of climate change (The Nation, 5 February 2007)
Kari Manlove, from Washington State, discusses how climate change is affecting not just developing countries, but U.S. communities.  Insurance companies have been dropping coverage in vulnerable areas, and yet 13% of Americans says they’ve never heard of global warming.

Climate Politics (Open Democracy)
This link provides access to a collection of fascinating articles from “high-level political players and grassroots activists” concerned with climate change (as well as sections on Science & Environment, Creative Energy, and Zero Carbon City.)

Globalisation’s Broken Promise:  Globalisation’s gender side
by Roselynn Musa, 23 May 2007
Not directly about climate change but clearly relevant, Musa discusses the inequality inherent in market-based, “open trade” strategies and ideologies of globalization.)