Keeping Track of Our Changing Environment

This publication by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) was conceived with the idea of showing how the planet has changed in the twenty years since the first Earth Summit in 1992. The report was produced as part of UNEP’s Global Environmental Outlook-5 (GEO-5) series, the UN’s most authoritative assessment of the state, trends and outlook of the global environment. The full GEO-5 report will be launched in May 2011.

Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011
By Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Frankfurt School and the UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance.

Global investment in renewable energy jumped 32 per cent in 2010, to a record US$211 billion. In addition to this eye-catching record, the investment activity in developing countries increased strongly and it is the first time the developing world has overtaken the richer countries in terms of financial new investment. The Global Trends Report 2011 offers an elaborate analysis of Trends and Issues in the financing of renewable energy.

YouthXChange Climate Change and Lifestyles Guidebook

Published by UNEP and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), this booklet aims to promote sustainable lifestyles among young people aged from 15-24 by providing information and tips on topics such as water usage, waste reduction, energy and resource efficiency, travel and transport and responsible shopping and entertainment. By channeling the relevant information related to climate change in a less abstract manner, it seeks to help young people become the advocates and agents of change for sustainable lifestyles around the world.

IEA Training Manual Volume Two: Climate Change Vulnerability and Impact Assessment in Cities

Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All

This is the 2011 Human Development Report Development by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which argues that environmental sustainability can be most fairly and effectively achieved by addressing health, education, income, and gender disparities together with the need for global action on energy production and ecosystem protection. According to the Report, as the world community prepares for the landmark UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012 in Brazil, sustainability must be approached as a matter of basic social justice, for current and future generations alike.

Carbon Coalitions by Jonas Meckling

Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world’s primary policy response to global climate change despite considerable controversy. With carbon markets worth US$144 billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of the trend toward market-based environmental governance. In Carbon Coalitions, Jonas Meckling, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, presents the first comprehensive study on the rise of carbon trading and the role business played in making this policy a central pillar of global climate governance.

Encyclopedia Of Climate And Weather (2nd Edition)
Stephen H. Schneider, Mastrandrea, Schneider, Michael Mastrandrea, Terry L. Root and Terry L. Root (2011)

For most of history, humans have made every possible effort to accurately foretell the weather, evolving from the use of guesswork, rule of thumb, and signs in the sky to the development of contemporary forecasting techniques drawn from two scientific disciplines, climatology and meteorology. The Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather provides a comprehensive history of this development.