Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has called for the rapid launch of the new institutions and funds agreed at the Cancún climate summit to confirm that a new era of international cooperation on climate change is an established fact. "Many millions of the poor and vulnerable people of the world have been waiting years to get the full level of assistance they need. Industrialized nations will soon have a clear, comprehensive structure into which they can direct the funding they have promised," she said.

"Cancún has significantly expanded the menu of climate implementation and resources available to countries under the United Nations, and the United nations system together is ready to respond rapidly in line with countries' needs. The imperative to act is now," Figueres said. She has asked all countries, particularly the industrialized nations, to deepen their emissions reductions commitments. "Cancún was a big step, bigger than many imagined might be possible. But the time has come for all of us to exceed our own expectations because nothing less will do," she said.

The United Nations has approved the creation of the Intergovernmental Science Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The IPBES aims to catalyse a global response to the loss of biodiversity and the world's economically-important forests, coral reefs and other ecosystems. "IPBES represents a major breakthrough in terms of organizing a global response to the loss of living organisms and forests, freshwaters, coral reefs and other ecosystems that underpin all life, including economic life, on Earth," said Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme.

The IPBES will fulfil a function similar to that of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in bridging the gap between scientific knowledge and understanding of effective solutions and government action required to reverse degradation of the natural world. It will carry out high-quality peer scientific reviews covering the state, status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystems and policy options and responses, making sense of and bringing consistency to the variety of reports and assessments conducted by United Nations bodies, research centres, universities and others. A major role will be to catalyze funding to assist developing countries.

Nitrogen in waterways has driven part of the 20 per cent increase in atmospheric nitrous oxide over the century, according to a recent study. Based on analysis of production rates in 72 streams draining multiple land-use types across the United States, the researchers estimate that the role of rivers and streams as a source of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere appears to be three times as high as estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The growth of nitrogen fertilizers and the cultivation of crops that return nitrogen to the soil naturally increases nitrogen in streams and some of this nitrogen is converted to nitrous oxide. "Changes in agricultural and land-use practices that result in less nitrogen being delivered to streams would reduce nitrous oxide emissions from river networks," commented Jake Beaulieu of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, lead author of the report. The global warming potential of nitrous oxide is 300-fold greater than carbon dioxide.