Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and ... - ITU

The ultimate objective of the Convention is to stabilize GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level
that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system (Article 2 of the Convention 6 ). With
194 States and one regional economic integration organization (the EU), the Convention enjoys nearuniversal
membership. It entered into force on 21 March 1994, and its Secretariat is based in Bonn,
Germany. As Box 3 illustrates, the UNFCCC has been linked to a number of key international climate change
protocols and agreements.
Box 3. The Kyoto protocol
The Kyoto Protocol (KP) is an international agreement linked to the UNFCCC. The Protocol was adopted
at the third Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP-3), held in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December
1997. Although the Protocol shares the objective and institutions of the Convention the major
distinction between the two is that while the Convention encourages industrialized countries to stabilize
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so, establishing legally binding
targets and defining three innovative market-based “flexible mechanisms” (emissions trading, clean
development mechanism and joint implementation) to stimulate green investments and help reduce
emissions in a cost-effective way.
Source: UNFCCC
In 2007, the UNFCCC produced an analysis 7 on the necessary financial resources needed to develop an
effective and appropriate international response to climate change, with particular focus on the needs of
developing countries. As part of this project, which was based on previous work conducted by the World
Bank, Oxfam and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Secretariat assessed that the
investment flows that will be necessary to meet adaptation requirements could amount to USD 40-171
billion per year by 2030. According to the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
this estimation could be up to 3 times higher if it included other sectors not considered in the UNFCCC
analysis, such as energy, manufacturing, retailing, mining or tourism, among others.
Adaptation to climate change has had a pivotal role in the UNFCCC since the establishment of the
Convention 8 , which requires parties to make provisions to enable adaptation, including the formulation,
implementation, publishing, and updating of adaptation measures and the cooperation on adaptation.
Starting from tackling the issue of funding for adaptation, discussed in 1995 at the first Conference of the
Parties (COP-1), adaptation has since gained ground, marked by the Marrakesh Accords in 2001 (COP-7)
where climate change adaptation began to be more widely seen as a prominent area for action.
The first key milestone regarding climate change adaptation within the UNFCCC was the approval in 2004
(COP-10) of the Buenos Aires Programme of Work on Adaptation and Response Measures 9 , which set up
two complimentary tracks for adaptation: the development of a structured five-year programme of work on
the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, and
the improvement of information and methodologies, the implementation of concrete adaptation activities,
technology transfer and capacity building. In 2006 (at COP-12), parties concluded the initial list of activities
to be undertaken under the programme, which was then referred as the “Nairobi Work Programme on
Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change” (NWP) (Box 4).
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