18 May 2008: “Information and Communication Technologies are gaining importance in addressing climate change and the food crisis” said International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré at the third annual meeting of the UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (GAID), held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 18-20 May 2008.
12 May 2008: “At a time that global cooperation to reduce the risk of climate change is more important than ever before, the prospects for developing countries benefiting from the carbon market are in question,” said World Bank Senior Carbon Market Specialist Karan Capoor, co-author of the “State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2008,” released on 7 May 2008 at the Carbon Expo in Cologne, Germany.
20 May: At a side event held during the ninth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, in Bonn, Germany, the European Commission presented its Natura 2000 network of conservation areas established to protect natural habitats.
Photo: L-R: Oliver Schweiger, Heimholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Astrid Kaemena, European Commission, Karin Zaunberger, European Commission.
21 May 2008: Speaking at the UN Economic and Social Council’s (ECOSOC) special session on the global food crisis, Léo Mérorès, President of ECOSOC, emphasized the “need to concentrate efforts on minimizing greenhouse emissions, deforestation and global warming, while finding ways to promote investments in agriculture [and] maximize the use of agro-science and technology.”
May 2008: Organized jointly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, the International Forest Adaptation 2008 Conference will take place in Umeå, Sweden, from 25-28 August 2008.
May 2008: As part of its Global Distance Learning Programme on Natural Disaster Risk Management, the World Bank Institute (WBI) will hold a series of online courses on natural disaster risk management, including on climate change and disaster risk management, from 26 May 2008 to 1 May 2009.
9 May 2008: Speaking during the UN Commission on Sustainable Development’s thematic discussion on inter-linkages and across-cutting issues, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) underlined the link between soil health and drought mitigation. The FAO representative noted that the world’s agriculture must not only guarantee food security, but also “a range of other supporting and regulating ecosystem services, in particular nutrient cycling, the hydrological regime and carbon sequestration.”
This Conference, which is supported by the International Hydrological Programme of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO-IHP), will be held in Kampala, Uganda, from 24-28 June 2008.
May 2008: The website for global consultations on a Strategic Framework on Climate Change and Development for the World Bank Group (WBG) has been updated with translations in Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
16 May 2008: The economic impact of climate change, rising food prices and a broad range of other trade, growth and development issues will be discussed at the OECD's annual ministerial meeting, to be held from 4-5 June 2008, in Paris, France.
