Electronic Library
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT FOR THE CDM
INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES
INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Uniting on Climate (2007)
Since climate change is a global problem, it needs a global response that embraces the interests and needs of all countries. Since taking effect in 1994, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been crucial in addressing climate change and the need for a reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases.
The Kyoto Protocol, the daughter Treaty of the Convention, entered into force in 2005. The Protocol constitutes an important first step in the fight against global climate change by setting out specific, binding emission reduction commitments. The Treaty has meanwhile spawned an international carbon market that has brought about significant emission reductions and contributed to the transfer of clean technologies from industrialized to developing countries.
This guide provides an overview of the Convention's and Protocol's evolution, as well as providing an overview of the commitments that countries have taken on so far. It also outlines several of the building blocks already understood to be needed for an ambitious post-2012 climate change framework - the type of international framework that can bring about emission reductions in line with what science tells us in needed whilst generating essential and significant funding for adaptation.
The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is a 700-page report released on October 30, 2006 by economist Nicholas Stern for the British government, which discusses the effect of climate change and global warming on the world economy. Although not the first economic report on global warming, it is significant as the largest and most widely known and discussed report of its kind.
Its main conclusions are that one percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) per annum is required to be invested in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, and that failure to do so could risk global GDP being up to twenty percent lower than it otherwise might be. Stern's report suggests that climate change threatens to be the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen, and it provides prescriptions including environmental taxes to minimize the economic and social disruptions. He states, "our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century.
Download the Review from the HM Treasury website.
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up jointly by the WMO and the UNEP to provide an authoritative international statement of scientific understanding of climate change. The IPCC's periodic assessments of the causes, impacts and possible response strategies to climate change are the most comprehensive and up-to-date reports available on the subject, and form the standard reference for all concerned with climate change in academia, government and industry worldwide.
Through three working groups, many hundreds of international experts assess climate change in the Fourth Assessment Report. The Report consists of three main volumes under the umbrella title Climate Change 2007, all available from Cambridge University Press:
Climate Change 2007 - The Physical Science Basis
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC
The Working Group I contribution to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report describes progress in understanding of the human and natural drivers of climate change, observed climate change, climate processes and attribution, and estimates of projected future climate change. It builds upon past IPCC assessments and incorporates new findings from the past six years of research. Scientific progress since the Third Assessment Report (TAR) is based upon large amounts of new and more comprehensive data, more sophisticated analyses of data, improvements in understanding of processes and their simulation in models and more extensive exploration of uncertainty ranges.
The report provides: (i) the most complete and quantitative assessment of how human activities are affecting the radiative energy balance in the atmosphere; (ii) a more extensive assessment of changes observed throughout the climate system than ever before using the latest measurements covering the atmosphere, land surface, oceans, and snow, ice and frozen ground; (iii) a detailed assessment of past climate change and its causes; (iv) the first probabilistic assessment of climate model simulations and projections using detailed atmosphere-ocean coupled models from 18 modeling centers around the world; (v) a detailed assessment of climate change observations, modeling, and attribution for every continent.
Download the document in Russian from the IPCC website
Climate Change 2007 - Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC
The document provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date scientific assessment of the impacts of climate change, the vulnerability of natural and human environments, and the potential for response through adaptation. The report: (i) Evaluates evidence that recent observed changes in climate have already affected a variety of physical and biological systems and concludes that these effects can be attributed to global warming; (ii) Makes a detailed assessment of the impacts of future climate change and sea-level rise on ecosystems, water resources, agriculture and food security, human health, coastal and low-lying regions and industry and settlements; (iii) Provides a complete new assessment of the impacts of climate change on major regions of the world; (iv) Considers responses through adaptation; (v) Explores the synergies and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation; (vi) Evaluates the key vulnerabilities to climate change, and assesses aggregate damage levels and the role of multiple stresses.
Download the document in Russian from the IPCC website
Climate Change 2007 - Mitigation of Climate Change
Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC
The Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) focuses on new literature on the scientific, technological, environmental, economic and social aspects of mitigation of climate change, published since the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) and the Special Reports on CO2 Capture and Storage (SRCCS) and on Safeguarding the Ozone Layer and the Global Climate System (SROC).
The following summary is organized into six sections: (i) Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission trends; (ii) Mitigation in the short and medium term, across different economic sectors (until 2030); (iii) Mitigation in the long-term (beyond 2030); (iv) Policies, measures and instruments to mitigate climate change; (v) Sustainable development and climate change mitigation; (vi) Gaps in knowledge.
Download the document in Russian from the IPCC website
Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management
in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
This report on Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories is the response to the request from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to complete its work on uncertainty and prepare a report on good practice in inventory management.
This report provides good practice guidance to assist countries in producing inventories that are neither over nor underestimates so far as can be judged, and in which uncertainties are reduced as far as practicable.
To this end, it supports the development of inventories that are transparent, documented, consistent over time, complete, comparable, assessed for uncertainties, subject to quality control and quality assurance, and efficient in the use of resources.
Download the document in Russian from the IPPC website
2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
The 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories build on the previous Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines and the subsequent Good Practice reports in an evolutionary manner to ensure that moving from the previous guidelines to these new guidelines is as straightforward as possible. These new guidelines cover new sources and gases as well as updates to previously published methods where technical and scientific
knowledge have improved.
This guidance assists countries in compiling complete, national inventories of greenhouse gases. The guidance has been structured so that any country, regardless of experience or resources, should be able to produce reliable estimates of their emissions and removals of these gases. In particular, default values of the various parameters and emission factors required are supplied for all sectors, so that, at its simplest, a country needs only supply national activity data. The approach also allows countries with more information and resources to use more detailed country-specific methodologies while retaining compatibility, comparability and consistency between countries.
The guidance also integrates and improves earlier guidance on good practice in inventory compilation so that the final estimates are neither over- nor under-estimates as far as can be judged and uncertainties are reduced as far as possible.
Guidance is also provided to identify areas of the inventory whose improvement would most benefit the inventory overall. Hence limited resources can be focused on those areas most in need of improvement to produce the best practical inventory.
The series consists of the following five volumes:
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| General Guidance and Reporting | Energy | Industrial Processes and Product Use | Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use | Waste |
User manual for the guidelines on national communications from non-Annex I Parties
The user manual, launched at COP 9 (Milan 2003), is designed for use by Parties and national experts responsible for the preparation of the various sections of national communications, and also by national climate change teams or committees that facilitate the coordination, organization and management of various tasks and activities. It might also be useful for multilateral and bilateral programmes that support the preparation of national communications from non-Annex I Parties.
Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
The IPCC Guidelines were first accepted in 1994 and published in 1995. UNFCCC COP3 held in 1997 in Kyoto reaffirmed that the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories should be used as "methodologies for estimating anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases" in calculation of legally-binding targets during the first commitment period.
The Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines contain three volumes, each of which provides assistance to the analyst in the preparation of national GHG inventories.
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| Reporting Instructions |
Workbook (in Russian) |
Reference Manual |
CDM/JI Manual for Project Developers and Policy Makers - 2006
This manual was originally made for Japanese entities conducting CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) and JI (Joint Implementation) projects, supported by the Ministry of the Environment, Japan (MOE). As the CDM-related rules and procedures are rapidly evolving and have become more complex, there has been growing demand for a comprehensive guide for the CDM, both in Annex I countries and non-Annex I countries.
Eyeing the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol in February 2005, the MOE and Global Environment Centre Foundation (GEC) responded to this demand by releasing the first version of the CDM Manual in December 2004 that aimed at being a comprehensive guide for a wide range of stakeholders to further promote CDM projects. The COP/MOP 1 officially adopted the Marrakech Accords, including the CDM Modalities and Procedures and the JI Guidelines, as well as recognized the endeavors that the CDM Executive Board (EB) had undertaken. Moreover, the JI Supervisory Committee was officially established, and started to work at its 1st meeting in February 2006. JI-related rules are also rapidly being formulated referencing the EB efforts and CDM-related rules, where appropriate.
The current edition is the latest version of the CDM/JI Manual, updated with the technical assistance of Pacific Consultants Co., Ltd.
CDM in Charts, Version 4.0
This document aims to give a comprehensive and easy-to-understand description of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It should be noted that this document does not replicate in the exact manner all the texts agreed upon in the international negotiations. Also, there are issues yet to be settled in the international negotiations regarding detailed interpretations and processes.
The book is published by IGES as part of the CDM Capacity Building Programme under the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.
CDM and JI in Charts in Russina, Version 5.0
