Agenda 21

Agenda 21 is a non-binding, voluntarily implemented action plan of the United Nations with regard
to sustainable development. It is a product of the Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and
Development) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. It is an action agenda for the UN,
other multilateral organizations, and individual governments around the world that can be executed at
local, national, and global levels. The "21" in Agenda 21 refers to the 21st Century. It has been affirmed
and had a few modifications at subsequent UN conferences.

Structure and contents

Agenda 21 is a 350-page document divided into 40 chapters that have been grouped into 4 sections:

Section I: Social and Economic Dimensions: is directed toward combating poverty, especially
in developing countries, changing consumption patterns, promoting health, achieving a more
sustainable population, and sustainable settlement in decision making.

Section II: Conservation and Management of Resources for Development: Includes atmospheric
protection, combating deforestation, protecting fragile environments, conservation of biological
diversity (biodiversity), control of pollution and the management of biotechnology, and radioactive
wastes.

Section III: Strengthening the Role of Major Groups: includes the roles of children and youth,
women, NGOs, local authorities, business and industry, and workers; and strengthening the role
of indigenous peoples, their communities, and farmers.

Section IV:

Means

of

Implementation:

implementation

includes

science, technology

transfer, education, international institutions and financial mechanisms.

United Nations Conference on Trade and

Development
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established in 1964 as a
permanent intergovernmental body.
UNCTAD is the principal organ of the United Nations General Assembly dealing with trade, investment, and
development issues. The organization's goals are to: "maximize thetrade, investment and development
opportunities of developing countries and assist them in their efforts to integrate into the world economy on an
equitable basis."

The primary objective of UNCTAD is to formulate policies relating to all aspects of development including
trade, aid, transport, finance and technology. The conference ordinarily meets once in four years; the
permanent secretariat is in Geneva.
One of the principal achievements of UNCTAD has been to conceive and implement the Generalised System
of Preferences (GSP). It was argued in UNCTAD that to promote exports of manufactured goods from
developing countries, it would be necessary to offer special tariff concessions to such exports. Accepting this
argument, the developed countries formulated the GSP scheme under which manufacturers' exports and some
agricultural goods from the developing countries enter duty-free or at reduced rates in the developed countries.
Since imports of such items from other developed countries are subject to the normal rates of duties, imports of
the same items from developing countries would enjoy a competitive advantage.
The creation of UNCTAD in 1964 was based on concerns of developing countries over the international
market, multi-national corporations, and great disparity between developed nations and developing nations.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was established to provide a forum where the
developing countries could discuss the problems relating to their economic development. The organisation
grew from the view that existing institutions like GATT (now replaced by the World Trade Organization,
WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank were not properly organized to handle the
particular problems of developing countries. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, UNCTAD was closely associated
with the idea of a New International Economic Order (NIEO).
Currently, UNCTAD has 194 member states and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Reports
UNCTAD produces a number of topical reports, including:

The Trade and Development Report[17]

The Trade and Environment Review[18]

The World Investment Report[19]

The Economic Development in Africa Report[20]

The Least Developed Countries Report[21]

UNCTAD Statistics[22]

The Information Economy Report[23]

The Review of Maritime Transport[24]

The International Accounting and Reporting Issues Annual Review[25]

The Technology and Innovation Report[26]

United Nations Framework Convention on

Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is
an international environmental treaty negotiated at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992,
then entered into force on 21 March 1994. The UNFCCC objective is to "stabilize greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with
the climate system". The framework set no binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries
and contains no enforcement mechanisms. Instead, the framework outlines how specific international treaties
(called "protocols" or "Agreements") may be negotiated to set binding limits on greenhouse gases.
Initially an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee produced the text of the Framework Convention during
its meeting in New York from 30 April to 9 May 1992. The UNFCCC was adopted on 9 May 1992, and
opened for signature on 4 June 1992.[3] UNFCCC has 197 parties as of December 2015. The convention enjoys
broad legitimacy, largely due to its nearly universal membership.
The parties to the convention have met annually from 1995 in Conferences of the Parties (COP) to assess
progress in dealing withclimate change. In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was concluded and established legally
binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the period 20082012. The 2010 Cancn agreements state that future global warming should be limited to below 2.0 C (3.6 F)
relative to the pre-industrial level. The Protocol was amended in 2012 to encompass the period 2013-2020 in
the Doha Amendment, which -as of December 2015- not entered into force. In 2015 the Paris Agreement was
adopted, governing emission reductions from 2020 on through commitments of countries in ambitious
Nationally Determined Contributions.
One of the first tasks set by the UNFCCC was for signatory nations to establish national greenhouse gas
inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, which were used to create the 1990 benchmark
levels for accession of Annex I countries to the Kyoto Protocol and for the commitment of those countries to
GHG reductions.

Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement (French: L'accord de Paris) is an agreement within the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) dealing with greenhouse gases emissions mitigation, adaptation
and finance starting in the year 2020. The language of the agreement was negotiated by representatives of 195
countries at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCCin Paris and adopted by consensus on 12
December 2015.[2][3] It was opened for signature on 22 April 2016 (Earth Day) in a ceremony in New York
City.[4] As of September 2016, 191 UNFCCC members have signed the treaty, 61 of which have ratified it. The
agreement will only enter into force provided that 55 countries that produce at least 55% of the world's

greenhouse gas emissions ratify, accept, approve or accede to the agreement; although the minimum number of
ratifications has been reached, the ratifying states do not produce the requisite percentage of greenhouse gases
for the agreement to enter into force.

Aim
The aim of the convention is described in Article 2, "enhancing the implementation" of the UNFCCC through:
"(a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial
levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels,
recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;
(b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate
resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food
production;
(c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and
climate-resilient development."
Countries furthermore aim to reach "global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible".
the Paris deal is the worlds first comprehensive climate agreement.

Green Climate Fund

Not part of the Paris Agreement (and not legally binding)[44] is a plan to provide US$100 billion a year in aid to
developing countries for implementing new procedures to minimize climate change with additional amounts to
be provided in subsequent years.[45]
In early March 2016, the Obama administration gave a $500 million grant to the "Green Climate Fund" as "the
first chunk of a $3 billion commitment made at the Paris climate talks