Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The European Union and the United States have agreed to "act with resolve and urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," at an annual summit held in Vienna, Austria. Though the contentious issue of the Kyoto Protocol was side-stepped, a new EU-US High Level Dialogue on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development will hold its first meeting this autumn in Finland. Through strategic cooperation, the agreement aims to "accelerate investment in cleaner, more efficient use of fossil sources and renewable sources in order to cut air pollution harmful to human health and natural resources, and reducing greenhouse gases associated with the serious long-term challenge of global climate change." EU President Manuel Barroso reported that the Dialogue will "address ways to get cost-effective emission cuts, development and employment of new technologies, efficiency and conservation, renewable fuels and other environmental issues such as biodiversity."

The High Level Dialogue will advance the G8 Gleneagles Plan of Action for Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development. Topics to be covered include experience with different market-based mechanisms, advancing the development and deployment of existing and transformational technologies, producing energy with lower emissions, efficiency and conservation, renewable fuels, clean diesel, capture of methane, lower emitting agricultural operations and energy production and distribution systems. US President George Bush commented that he "kind of startled my country when, in my State of the Union, I said we're hooked on oil and we need to get off oil. That seemed counterintuitive for some people to hear a Texan say. But the truth of the matter is, we got to diversify away from oil. And the best way to do it is through new technologies."

More information

• ENS
• BBC
• edie

• Summit Declaration, Europa

A United Nations conference, held in Tunis, Algeria, during June 2006, has concluded that better management and a wider spreading of scientific knowledge are essential in the fight against desertification. The Tunis Declaration, resulting from the conference The Future of the Drylands, which was attended by 300 scientists, calls on governments to "place combatting desertification and development of drylands as a major priority and to create an enabling environment." Furthermore, governments and multilateral environmental agreements should "use sound scientific knowledge to formulate and implement policies, laws, regulations and action programmes vis-a-vis environmental issues stressing integrated management of natural resources and conservation practices."

The Tunis Declaration underlines the role of scientists in disseminating research results and making them available "to decision-makers and local dryland communities so that research can help shape sound policies and good governance as well as education on an interactive basis for sustainable dryland management and improved livelihoods." It identifies the preservation of cultural and biological diversity, management of water resources and the identification of sustainable livelihoods for dryland inhabitants as critical issues. "Drylands do have a future," said Walter Erdelen of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as the meeting ended. They should not "be neglected as remote or peripheral areas or considered as marginal with respect to their economic productivity," he warned.

More information

• Terra Daily
• Press release, UN News Service

• Tunis Declaration, UNESCO

A new project will bring high quality public transport to three of the most polluted cities in the world. The project was announced at the World Urban Forum III in Vancouver, Canada. Concepción, Chile, Guatemala City and Panama City in Central America will see new modern bus networks, cycle ways and pedestrianization schemes in a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 100,000 tonnes a year. A new information network, NESTLAC, will link these cities to others in the region, promoting cooperation.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), commented that "the urban environment is inextricably intertwined with the rural one and inextricably linked with the way local, regional and global natural resources are soundly and sustainably managed. So it is vital that we get cities right if we are to meet the internationally agreed development goals, if we are to deal with such pressing global issues as climate change." The project is being funded by the Global Environmental Facility and will be managed through the UNEP's Risø Centre.

More information

• Panama Guide
• Press release, UNEP

• Project summary, NESTLAC