UN launches crucial report on climate change

Tuesday, 01 September 2009 12:35

As negotiations for a new global climate agreement enter their final stages, the United Nations is releasing a report analyzing the growing demands on developing countries as threats of a warming world add to longstanding developmental challenges.The report looks at what is required from the international community to make sure that climate and development goals can be advanced together.

The World Economic and Social Survey 2009: Promoting Development, Saving the Planet, was launched today in Geneva Johannesburg and Bangkok,as well as Beijing, Islamabad, Moscow, Nairobi, New Delhi and Santiago.

According to the report, big adjustments and considerable political effort will be needed if countries are to make the shift to low-emission economies in the required time frame. But the real challenge will be to ensure that this takes place without derailing longstanding development goals and in an equitable manner.
This will require some hard policy rethinking and a significant scaling-up of resources – financial and technological – at the multilateral level.

The World Economic and Social Survey 2009 argues that failing to address the current level of global inequality over the next half century or more, while the world goes about trying to solve the climate problem, is economically, politically and ethically unacceptable. It contends that low-emissions, high-growth pathways for development are both feasible and necessary.

For more information visit the Development Policy and Analysis Division of the department of Economic and Social Affairs.