Global development and climate objectives enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement require swift, transformative action. There are increasing calls for change to be ‘transformational’ rather than ‘incremental’, characterised by scale, speed and depth. This requires changing power relations, discourse, attitudes, policies and practices from global to local levels. Transformational change is central to the mandates of leading climate finance mechanisms,  including the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Climate Investment Funds (CIF). At COP25 of UNFCCC, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) joined the GCF and the CIF to present some of its latest...

On 9 December on the margins of the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25), the UN-REDD Programme, the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN University (UNU) held a side-event “Nature-Based Solutions on the Ground (SDG 15): UN Support to People and Landscapes”. The event, which featured four panels, brought together UN agencies and partners representing indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), the private sector, and youth to demonstrate collaborative actions between agencies, funds and programmes to address climate issues through the lens of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with...

 The role of forests and trees in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of Asia-Pacific countries is very significant, especially in areas of afforestation, forest fire management, reduced deforestation, biodiversity management and improved forest management. Emphasis is increasingly placed on forestry-related actions for climate change mitigation, and 22 out of 25 countries include forestry in their adaptation commitments. The implications of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) commitments in the forest sector, for domestic and external investment, are becoming clearer and require attention in order for countries to prepare for the implementation of their NDCs.  These implications were addressed at the side-event “Forestry in NDCs...

El uso de imágenes satélites y herramientas tecnológicas para trabajar en mejorar la calidad de vida de las personas y combatir el cambio climático en Costa Rica, se facilita gracias al apoyo de la cooperación internacional al Sistema Nacional de Monitoreo de Cobertura y Uso de la Tierra y Ecosistemas (SIMOCUTE). En setiembre de 2019, la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO) realizó el lanzamiento de la nueva versión de SEPAL (siglas en inglés de Sistema de acceso de datos de observación de la tierra, procesamiento y análisis para la vigilancia de la superficie terrestre). Esta...

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is joining forces with the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to strengthen the accessibility and accuracy of forest monitoring systems in developing countries around the world. With combined funding of almost USD$1 million, FAO and the FCPF will work together to make FAO’s SEPAL 2.1 more accessible than ever through the creation of professional training and guidance material. SEPAL is an innovative cloud-based super computing platform with more than 4,000 active users in 160 countries. The latest version, SEPAL 2.1, launched at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in...