05 September 2024|News
September 4, 2024, Beijing – Dr. Youssef Nassef, Director of the Adaptation Division of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and Ms. Yu Chen from the Adaptation Division, UNFCCC, visited UNEP-IEMP and engaged in discussions with IEMP staff on global climate change adaptation strategies.
During the meeting, Dr. Nassef emphasized the ongoing challenges in defining the responsibilities of developed and developing countries under the framework of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR). He pointed out that the definition of "developing countries" remains ambiguous in international climate negotiations.
He also highlighted that by 2030, the demand for climate adaptation is expected to reach $100 billion annually, while the current global funding stands at only $2 billion, leaving a significant gap. He called for innovative financing mechanisms to meet the growing need for adaptation funds.
In addition, he emphasized the significance of establishing the "Loss and Damage Fund." Against the backdrop of the increasingly severe global climate situation, where climate disasters frequently occur, causing great losses and challenges for countries, the purpose of setting up this fund is to provide strong support, helping nations recover quickly after suffering climate disasters. Although the implementation of the fund faces many obstacles, such as difficulties in raising funds and coordinating national interests, it undeniably marks a solid and important step toward post-disaster recovery. This step not only brings hope to affected countries but also injects new momentum into the global effort to combat climate change.
Finally, UNEP-IEMP shared the profound insights on balancing preventive and reactive measures to address climate impacts. Resilience to climate change can be effectively strengthened through strategic planning, relocation, and the use of financial mechanisms such as insurance. At the same time, Director Zhang also emphasized the significant importance of upscale actions and called for further strengthening the coordination between government policies and incentive mechanisms to accelerate the advancement of climate adaptation efforts.
This exchange event explored how UNEP-IEMP’s ecosystem-based approach can further contribute to global adaptation strategies, particularly in supporting vulnerable regions facing urgent climate challenges.
04 September 2024|News
Beijing, September 3, 2024 – Mr. Gamal Hassan, Director of the Centre of Excellence for Climate Adaptation and Environmental Protection, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD-CAEP) and Mr. Josephat Onyari, Director of Finance and Administration of IGAD, visited UNEP-IEMP on September 3rd to explore potential avenues for future collaboration.
Dr. Zhang Linxiu, Director of UNEP-IEMP, warmly welcomed the delegation and introduced UNEP-IEMP's 10-year strategy, the UNEP Climate, Ecosystems, and Livelihoods flagship program, and its work in Africa. She emphasized the efforts of South-South cooperation and extended network of UNEP-IEMP with scientists and global partners. Dr. Zhang highlighted that UNEP-IEMP is leveraging China's extensive experiences on applying integrated approaches to addressing coupled environment and development issues. She also looked forward to showcasing joint successes on international platforms alongside IGAD.
Mr. Onyari shared IGAD’s longstanding expertise on development, peace-keeping, environment and climate change across Eastern Africa. He pointed out that despite IGAD’s efforts, the region continues to grapple with natural disasters such as floods and droughts.
Mr. Hassan shared that the IGAD-CAEP is continually working on climate risk management, policy advocacy and environmental managment with its eight member states, namely Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. He expressed great interest in establishing good partnership with UNEP-IEMP and joining the South-South cooperation efforts. Some of these areas identified for cooperation include enhancing climate change early warning systems, capacity building among partner institutions, student exchange programs, and sharing of best practices in ecological restoration, climate change adaptation, and livelihood improvement.
The meeting concluded with a mutual commitment to explore these collaborative opportunities further, with the shared goal of enhancing sustainable development in the Eastern Africa region.
Group photo of attendees
27 August 2024|News
The China Agricultural and Forestry Economics and Management Annual Conference, which is the biggest annual academic conference on this topic in China, was successfully held in Kunming, Yunnan Province, from August 22nd to 23rd, 2024. With the theme of "Accelerating the Modernization of Agriculture and Rural Areas and Ensuring National Food Security", the conference invited more than 600 experts and scholars to present reports on academic frontiers in various forms of academic exchanges, such as organized sessions, paper presentations, and excellent paper reports.
Six members of UNEP-IEMP were invited to participate in this conference. Associate Professor Yunli Bai from UNEP-IEMP and Professor Tonglong Zhang from South China Agricultural University led a session titled "Employment of Rural Labor Force" on August 22nd. Professor Yueqing Ji from Nanjing Agricultural University and Associate Professor Weidong Wang from Beijing Forestry University were invited as panel discussion members. There were 5 papers presented in this session by Zijin Wang, Yongyang Wu, Zihao Chen from China Agricultural University, Kaixuan Zhang from Nanjing Agricultural University, and Yutong Qiu from UNEP-IEMP. Yutong Qiu presented the paper titled "Impact of farmer cooperatives on labor employment: Evidence from rural China", which investigated the effect of farmer cooperatives on rural labor employment and explored its mechanism. More than 30 scholars participated this session. Additionally, Associate Professor Yunli Bai was invited to serve as a panel discussion member for the session "Sustainable Food Consumption".
Ph.D. candidate Shaoyue Ma of UNEP-IEMP delivered a report titled "Edutainment: Can the use of short video apps improve household food consumption? Evidence from rural China", which assessed the role of short video apps in promoting food consumption transformation among rural residents and its mechanism. Ph.D. candidate Xuanye Zeng of UNEP-IEMP gave a presentation on "Has Public Employment Service promoted off-farm employment of rural labor: Evidence from 2000 households in 100 villages across 5 provinces in China between 2004 and 2022". This study investigated the impact of Public Employment Service policy in rural China on the off-farm employment participation among rural labor and analyzed the minimum implementation period for the policy to be effective. The paper won the Excellent Paper Award at the conference. The master student Jiaojiao Wu gave a presentation on "The Impact of Extreme Weather on the Time Allocation of Rural Residents", which estimated the impact of four common extreme weather types on the overall time structure of rural residents and discussed the economic significance. Ziyi Zhou, an intern at UNEP-IEMP, gave a presentation on "Total Factor Productivity and GHG emissions intensity of Crop Planting: Evidence Based on the Fixed Observation Rural Survey in China".
With these activities, UNEP-IEMP members had in-depth exchanges with scholars and students from more than 10 universities and research units and broaden the collaboration network.
12 August 2024|News
During 20 July - 2 August 2024, the "Training Workshop on Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring and Assessment for BRI African Countries" was organized by UNEP-IEMP and Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, ChineseAcademyofSciences, with financial support from the Bureau of International Cooperation, ChineseAcademyofSciences.
It brought more than 20 participants from 5 countries in Africa to participate in the 2-week long training event. It covered the topics of monitoring and assessing ecological restoration of forests, grasslands, croplands and drylands in Africa and China through a combination of lectures on state-of-the-art progress, field trips, and round-table discussions on current ecological restoration policies, efforts and challenges.
Opening ceremony of the training workshop
During the visits to partner organizations like SuperMap GIS Co., Ltd., China Foundation for Rural Development, Yucheng Integrated Agricultural Experimental Station, there were more hands-on experiences shared and in-depth exchanges in relation to the African context.
Field trip to Yucheng Ecological Station in Shandong Province
Through these interactive events, attendees have gained valuable insights on the principles, methodologies, practices and challenges inherent in ecological monitoring and restoration efforts. This mutual learning workshop allowed both the participants and expert team to build mutual understanding and explore further cooperation. Some of the potential areas for joint efforts include big-data based ecosystem assessment and its user-friendly tool demo, AI-supported biodiversity monitoring, mining areas re-habitation, climate-smart agriculture, develop agriculture products under Geographical Indications Environment & Sustainability (GIES) branding, lake ecosystem monitoring.
During this workshop, UNEP-IEMP team shared its global, regional and national level experiences on promoting nexus approach in address challenges like climate changes, ecosystem degradation and unsustainable livelihoods. In particular, UNEP-IEMP`s efforts in different African countries and bamboo restoration and utilization work in Kenya were discussed for expanding such cooperation.
24 July 2024|News
On June 10th, UNEP-IEMP together with the Kenya local partners, the Wildlife Research and Training Institute, and the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, launched an ecosystem restoration project in the Lake Victoria Basin.
In recent decades, the combined effects of climate change and human interventions have had a significant impact on the environment and community of the Lake Victoria Basin. Frequent floods are reshaping life of the local communities. For example, after the first rainy season in 2024, flooding in Lake Victoria resulted in the water level rose to 1,137.5 meters, 2.5 meters above the baseline, and the lake water flowed back into the floodplain, affecting more than 160,000 people on the Kenyan side and the disaster displaced 17,000 families.
In this context, UNEP-IEMP initiated the project entitled "Ecosystem Restoration for Enhancing Livelihoods and Addressing Climate Change: China-Kenya Cooperation on Bamboo Technology Transfer" in the Nzoia catchment of the Lake Victoria Basin. It focuses on ecological restoration, technology transfer, and assessment in the degraded Nzoia catchment by addressing challenges like rebuilding riverbanks with bamboo as flood buffer zone, restoration priority areas and techniques, science for policy. It also seeks to address Kenya national policy priorities on "15 Billion Tree" initiative and the "National Bamboo Policy 2022".
During June 5-9th, the joint project team surveyed the Nzoia catchment to understand ecosystem degradation status, local stakeholders` needs, practices, success and lessons on restoration, and identified key intervention sites for restoration. Local communities, including sand harvester, farmers, restoration practitioners and water user groups were consulted for building consensus on restoration actions.
Project team visit to the Busia county government, June 7th, 2024
The project was launched with different local stakeholders in Busia County in the west Kenya on June 10th, together with a training session organized. During the launched, Dr Linxiu Zhang, Director of UNEP-IEMP, expressed her expectations on this project to join hand with local communities living in the flooding zone, and jointly build functional ecosystems, climate resilience and alternative livelihoods in the coming 3 years.
Dr Linxiu Zhang, Director of UNEP-IEMP, giving opening remarks at the launch workshop, June 10th, 2024
This project is funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and will be implemented in 2024-2026. For more, please find the project description here.
15 July 2024|News
July 12, 2024, at the invitation of Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation (GEIDCO), Professor Linxiu Zhang, Director of UNEP-IEMP attended the sub-forum on "Energy Transition and Sustainable Development" at Second High-level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development, which was hosted by GEIDCO, and chaired the high-level dialogue session of the sub-forum.
Representatives from State Power Investment Corporation Limited, United Nations World Food Programme, China Power Equipment and Technology Co., Ltd., Pakistan Embassy in China, LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd., and BYD Energy Storage and New Battery Division, participated in the panel discussion. The panelists shared their insights with emphasis that all countries should strengthen practical cooperation, reduce dependence on fossil energy, promote the development of renewable energy, and jointly contribute to the world’s sustainable development. Inclusiveness, cooperation, innovation and sustainability are the key elements to boost and implement the global energy transition. In the conclusion of the panel discussion, Director Zhang introduced UNEP's initiatives and cross-sectoral cooperation in the field of energy transition, and studies that have shown that the energy transition lays the foundation for sustainable economic development, social inclusion, energy security, health improvement, employment opportunities and other social benefits. Equity and inclusion are necessary to realize these possibilities. She ended her remarks by looking forward to all parties working together to make full use of the advantages of information, technology and resources to further deepen cooperation in the field of energy transition, and further explore new opportunities in the field of energy transition, so as to jointly contribute to the sustainable development of the world, especially of the Global South.
The venue of the panel discussion
The conference was hosted by the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDA). For more about the sub-forum, please see 全球共享发展行动论坛第二届高级别会议"能源转型与可持续发展"分论坛在京举行.
04 June 2024|News
During 27-31 May 2024, a 5-day capacity building event on sustainable bamboo utilization between Thailand and China was organized with an aim to initiate a potential collaboration on bamboo technology transfer. With support from UNEP-IEMP and the Royal Thai Embassy in Beijing, the event was hosted by Nanjing Forestry University (NJFU) and co-hosted by Zixi County Government, Jiangxi Province. The delegation from Thailand was led by DrToemsakSrikhirin,ExecutiveDirector of the National Metal and Materials Technology Center (MTEC) of the National Science and Technology Development Agency of Thailand. From UNEP-IEMP, Ms Guoqin Wang and Ms Tatirose Vijitpan participated in the event.
The event was kicked off through a workshop at the NJFU to exchange on experiences and technologies applied for bamboo life cycle management to ensure socio-economic and ecological benefits. The delegation then visited Zixi County in Jiangxi province to explore on bamboo material processing techniques and machines for furniture, construction, plastic substitute, bamboo carbon credits, as well as on planting and harvesting. At the closing workshop, prioritized areas were identified and agreed for cooperation.
Group photo at NJFU
With regard to this cooperation, UNEP-IEMP plays a facilitating role, providing platform for concrete cooperation to benefit not only for Thailand and China, but also the planet in general. "As bamboo is a nature-based solution, it very well supports the UNEP Climate, Ecosystems and Livelihoods Flagship Programme, especially when considering the bamboo in whole life cycle. It creates invaluable contributions towards ecosystem restoration, carbon sequestration, community resilience, supply for energy, food and clean water, alliterative building martial, substitutes for plastic." Ms Guoqin Wang mentioned in her remarks, "We hope this event will pave the way for substantial steps ahead."
Visiting bamboo scrimber factory in Zixi County
03 June 2024|News
On 15 May 2024, the science news article titled "Forests, Water, and Livelihoods in the Lesser Himalaya" was published on Eos science news magazine by the American Geophysical Union(AGU). It captures the essence of the International Symposium on "the Forests-Water-Livelihood Nexus in the Lesser Himalaya", which was organized in September 2023 in Nepal as part of the UNEP-National Natural Science Foundation of China funded project "Developing Nature-based Solutions for Nepal following a Nexus Approach towards Sustaining Forestry, Water Resources and Livelihoods", in which UNEP-IEMP is a co-leader.
The Himalaya region is one of the world’s biodiversity and climate change ‘hot spots’ where community-based forest management is applied increasingly to help balance a range of ecosystem services including stable water supplies and sustainable harvest of forest products. However, while the ‘High Himalaya’ are intensively studied, the Lesser Himalaya (i.e. Middle Mountain zone, Siwalik foothills, and Terai plain) have received far less scientific attention. These implications are critically important as over 80% of the total streamflow emanating each year from the mountain chain (excluding the westernmost and easternmost parts) derives from rain falling in the Lesser Himalaya. This article presents the complex changes in land use, land cover, climate, and demographics that are combining to stress water security for millions of people in the region. Moreover, it also outlines the cooperation on forest hydrological research and initial findings.
This project is a triangular cooperation of experts from Nepal, China and developed countries.
It is available here:
https://eos.org/features/forests-water-and-livelihoods-in-the-lesser-himalaya
