UNEP has announced the winners of the 2008 Champions of the Earth award for spearheading initiatives in many different areas, from environmental policy to cutting-edge research, with a particular focus on sustainable development and the fight against climate change.
In an address to the 9th Annual Global Development Network Conference in Brisbane, Australia, the World Bank’s Managing Director, Operations, Graeme Wheeler, said “climate change is more than an immense development challenge,” and emphasized that “it is a major threat to all our economic and political systems and requires vision, courage, and leadership to address it.” 
Speaking prior to a meeting with key government officials in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, IFAD Assistant President Matthew Wyatt said the “urgent new challenges such as climate change, a precarious global food supply and rising commodity prices,” make our long and successful partnership more crucial than ever. 
The Joint Liaison Group of the three Rio Conventions (the Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on Climate Change, and Convention to Combat Desertification) has issued an information brochure on the important contribution of forests to the achievement of their respective goals and objectives. 
In his address to the tenth African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, UNIDO Director-General Kandeh K Yumkella said that “priority must be given to all forms of renewable energy for productive use and to ensuring a high degree of energy efficiency in industrial production.” 
In his address to the tenth African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “our best efforts in peace, development and human rights will be undermined if we do not effectively address the threats posed by climate change.” 
Koïchiro Matsuura, UNESCO’s Director-General, will officially launch the International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) during ceremonies on 12-13 February 2008 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. 
The UN Secretary-General’s report entitled ‘Overview of United Nations activities in relation to climate change (A/62/644)’ has been released in advance of the General Assembly’s High Level Thematic debate on climate change, to be held in February 2008. 
IISD Reporting Services’ flagship publication, Earth Negotiations Bulletin, will be published daily from the tenth special session of the Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum, which will convene in Monaco from 20-22 February 2008. 
Funding for the Climate-L.org Project has been provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
Climate-L.org is a knowledge management project for international negotiations and related activities on climate change run by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), which is fully responsible for the content posted on Climate-L.org. Information on United Nations activities is provided in cooperation with the UN system agencies, funds and programmes through the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) Secretariat and the UN Communications Group (UNCG) Task Force on Climate Change.
