16 May 2008: The sixteenth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), which met from 5-16 May 2008, in New York, US, has reviewed the thematic cluster of agriculture, rural development, drought, desertification, land and Africa. Many delegations and speakers tied these agenda items to the current global food crisis and climate change, and highlighted in particular land degradation, high energy costs, climate change, poor harvests, speculation in agricultural commodities, inequitable terms of trade, decline of investments in rural and agricultural development, and increased production of biofuels from food crops as drivers of high food prices.
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7 May 2008: UN-HABITAT intervened in the discussions on “land” during the sixteenth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, which met in New York, US, from 5-16 May 2008. Clarissa Augustinus, Chief, Land, Tenure and Property Administration Section, of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), noted that “climate change refugees will flood into the cities and as the cities grow to accommodate these refugees they will further impact their rural environs.”
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May 2008: The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has published a new study on how climate change impacts migratory processes, in particular the livelihoods of the poor and the most vulnerable.
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8 May 2008: In advance of the fourteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the fourth Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, to be held in December 2008 in Poznan, Poland, UNDP Poland has called for the submission of innovative climate-friendly solutions and best practices to be exhibited during the meeting.
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7 May 2008: The UN International Strategy on Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) intervened during the discussion of “drought” at the sixteenth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, which convened in New York, US, from 5-16 May 2008. The UN/ISDR delegation highlighted that regional and sub-regional networks that address drought risk reduction exist or are in the process of being formed, although their establishment has not been as successful as desired due to “overlapping political jurisdictions, differences in the types of participants and policy issues in each region, varying degrees of interest among potential regional participants, and different implementation timelines.”
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14 May 2008: Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, addressed the Ministerial Roundtable on Inter-linkages among the Thematic Issues, Including Adaptation to Climate Change, at the sixteenth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development held from 5-16 May 2008 in New York, US. During the 14 May discussion he asked, “if we agree that climate change is impacting, and will further impact, agricultural production, what are we doing in terms of adaptation?”
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20 May 2008: In her address to the ECOSOC special session on the global food crisis, UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro (right) urged policymakers to carefully examine the cause of crisis, including the increasing use of grain-based biofuels.
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7 May 2008: Speaking during the thematic debate on drought at the sixteenth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD16), which took place at UN headquarters in New York, US, from 5-16 May 2008, a representative of the World Metrological Organization (WMO) provided an overview of the Organization’s work on drought and climate change.
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15 May 2008: The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have agreed to strengthen their cooperation and co-financing to support strategic development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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19 May 2008: In her address to the sixty-first session of the World Health Assembly, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan identified climate change, together with soaring food prices and pandemic influenza, as three humanitarian crises looming on the horizon that represent international security threats.
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