The UNEP Year Book 2008 (formerly the GEO Year Book) is the fifth annual report on the changing environment produced by the United Nations Environment Programme in collaboration with many world environmental experts.

The UNEP Year Book 2008 highlights the increasing complexity and interconnections of climate change, ecosystem integrity, human well-being, and economic development. It examines the emergence and influence of economic mechanisms and market driven approaches for addressing environmental degradation. It describes recent research findings and policy decisions that affect our awareness of and response to changes in our global environment.

In three sections, the UNEP Year Book 2008 focuses on recent environmental events, developments, and scientific findings:

The Global Overview surveys the significant environmental events that gained prominence during 2007. Using graphs, charts, and photos with examples from regional experiences, the overview also tracks new scientific and policy developments on the environmental front.

The Feature Focus documents some of the creative efforts already working in markets and financial circles to fight the growing climate crisis. The section also examines patterns that are emerging after a decade of carbon market experimentation. Finally, it attempts to map the next important steps that will assist the transition to an
environmentally-sound economy.

The Emerging Challenge examines recent scientific findings on the role of arctic climate feedbacks. Release of methane from thawing permafrost and from hydrate deposits are amplifiying warming trends. The section emphasizes the urgent need for increased investments in climate and energy research, knowledge partnerships, and global political responses to meet these serious challenges.

The UNEP Year Book 2008 is essential, informative, and authoritative reading for anyone with a role or an interest in our changing environment.

United Nations Environment Programme
www.unep.org
P.O. Box 30552, Nairobi 00100, Kenya
Tel: (+254) 20 7621234
Fax: (+254) 20 7623927
Email: uneppub@unep.org

Download The UNEP Year Book 2008

English, PDF format, 7MB, 60 Pages.

Download The UNEP Year Book 2008

Chinese, PDF format, 24MB, 60 Pages.

In 2008 the UNEP Year Book’s Feature Focus examines how market and financial mechanisms can advance the transition to a low-carbon and environmentallysound economy. The section emphasizes the need for sound policy response to support these mechanisms. The Emerging Challenge section explains some of the complexities presented by methane release from a warming Arctic and the regional feedbacks that enhance uncertainties about the risks these processes present.

Preface:

The momentum on climate change was nothing short of breathtaking in 2007, culminating in the adoption of the Bali Road Map at the climate convention meetings in Indonesia. Climate change and its implications for endangered ecosystems, geopolitical stability, and economic security have ceased to be the preoccupation of scientists and negotiators. It is now recognized as a universal public issue that will dominate global attention for at least a generation.

This 2008 UNEP Year Book documents some of the many insights, events, and issues that have emerged during 2007 and, not surprisingly, it is dominated by the theme of climate change. The findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—established by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization—put an end to the issue of whether climate change is happening and outlined in great clarity the likely impacts.

Together with the conclusions from other 2007 reports, such as the 4th UNEP Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4), these findings clarify the climatic but also wider challenges that intensifying environmental changes pose to ecosystem integrity and human well-being, and especially to the socio-economic systems that define this age.

The Global Overview of this UNEP Year Book highlights recent insights about accelerating carbon emissions including increasing ocean acidification, weather pattern variations, and global ice melt and the implications for sea level rise.

The Overview also examines mounting pressures on biodiversity and provides quick guides to significant environmental events and climate anomalies in 2007, as well as an overview of progress in international environmental governance.

The 2008 Feature Focus refines the Environment and Globalization theme of the 2007 Feature Focus by examining how market and financial mechanisms have been devised and tested over the last decade to respond to the crisis of climate change—led by the UN, civil society, and business and fi nancial sectors. The evolving carbon market is one such mechanism, which provides valuable lessons for governments on how to put the pieces together and develop effective policy incentives that support the transition to an environmentally-sound economy.

The demands for efficiencies and innovations in consumption and production that will emerge from this transition offer extraordinary opportunities. Extraordinary because the demands have the potential to transcend all environmental, economic, social, and security structures of our world. To cope we need to learn from the ingenuity that is already creating new tools and shaping new approaches in the rapidly globalizing marketplace.

The impact of climate change on physical and biological systems in the Arctic is well-documented: The Arctic, a key component of the global climate system, is warming at nearly twice the rate as the rest of the world. New findings in the Emerging Challenges confirm that major feedback mechanisms active in the Arctic are enhancing the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from thawing permafrost and marine hydrate deposits—deposits that could be tapped as a clean-burning fuel source. At the regional scale, the feedback mechanisms that amplify warming will likely dominate over the next century, so continuing methane release from the Arctic is inevitable. The unknowns about the amount and rate of methane release from the thawing Arctic region make it a wildcard when considering climate change risks.

The UNEP Year Book seeks to bridge science and policy-making and in doing so it aims to inform environment ministers and other decision-makers of new and emerging issues of global environmental importance. Some policy considerations identified in the UNEP Year Book 2008 include increasing investments in climate and energy research, building strategic knowledge partnerships, and developing global responses that facilitate the stable transition to an environmentally-sound, low-carbon economy.

You may have noticed that we have renamed the Year Book to the UNEP Year Book. This was done to better reflect the wider participation of experts within UNEP in the production of the Year Book. We have streamlined the overall content to ensure that we can address significant environmental developments in a timely fashion once the year draws to an end.

This allows us to provide the complete UNEP Year Book in all UN languages for your use. I hope the 2008 UNEP Year Book will prove informative and stimulate discussions during this 10th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum. As always, your feedback is most welcome.

Achim Steiner
United Nations Under-Secretary-General and
Executive Director,
United Nations Environment Programme 

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