Climate change remains a major concern for Member States and the United Nations system. The United Nations Secretary-General also identified climate change as a priority area in his five-year action agenda. The Board continued to support system-wide efforts in this area by focusing on the need for continued and enhanced inter-agency collaboration and coherence. To this end, CEB addressed climate change in its fall 2011 and spring 2012 sessions.
Sharing information on and lessons learned from actions undertaken by the United Nations system in support of Member States’ efforts in the implementation of climate change commitments was an important activity pursued by CEB in 2011. At the seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Durban, South Africa, in November and December 2011, the Secretary-General hosted a high-level CEB event highlighting the topic of “The United Nations System Delivering as One on Climate Change: Helping Countries to Implement the Cancun Agreements”. The event brought together the Secretary-General and several executive heads of United Nations organizations in a dialogue with ministers and high-level representatives of parties to demonstrate how joint activities of the United Nations system supported global, regional and national level efforts to address climate change. For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Bank and the World Food Programme are working together to develop an international collaborative initiative involving governments, universities, NGOs, private sector and other entities to facilitate the adoption of climate smart agricultural practices aimed at increasing productivity, improving rural livelihoods, and building resilience of rural populations.
Beyond coordinating system-wide participation in United Nations Climate Change Conferences, the High-level Committee on Programmes, through its Working Group on Climate Change, continued to facilitate a coherent approach and joint action of the United Nations system on climate change. The Working Group promoted programmatic coherence through information and knowledge-sharing, and concrete initiatives aimed at helping Member States in implementing the climate change agenda and streamlining climate-related issues into individual programmatic mandates of United Nations system organizations. For example, the One United Nations Training Service Platform for Climate Change (UN CC:Learn) which includes 32 partners, supports Member States, United Nations agencies and other development partners in designing and implementing results-oriented and sustainable learning to address climate change, while the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD Programme) assists developing countries in the preparation and implementation of national REDD+ strategies. As a result of a more coherent approach and a growing number of joint initiatives, United Nations support of global, regional and national climate action has been strengthened.