Energy

August 2008: The Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building (GIPB), a platform and partnership of public, private and civil society institutions hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in collaboration with the FAO Inter-Departmental Working Group on Bioenergy, has called for expanded, up-to-date information on genetic resources and breeding of selected underutilized species, together with detailed analysis of their potential as bioenergy crops adaptable to sustainable smallholder production systems.

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13 August 2008: A UN-backed expert group, the Steering Board on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB), has endorsed a draft sustainability standard that would evaluate the economic, social and environmental effects of biofuels over their entire life-cycle.

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12 August 2008: A two-week course on Sustainable Communities has commenced in Bangkok, Thailand, bringing together 28 urban professionals representing academia, NGOs, local

authorities and central government agencies from 15 African and Asian

countries.

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6 August 2008: The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has invited submissions regarding experiences in the

development and application of tools relevant to the sustainable production and

use of biofuels, as well as relevant information from research on, and

monitoring of, the positive and negative impacts of the production and use of

biofuels on biodiversity and related socioeconomic aspects, including those

related to indigenous and local communities.

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11 August 2008: The International Atomic Energy Agency

(IAEA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) are organizing

an International Symposium on Induced Mutations in Plants, from 12-15 August

2008, in Vienna, Austria. The event will bring together scientists to focus on

the latest innovations aimed at improving crop productivity in an effort to

solve the food and energy crises.

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August 2008: The latest issue of the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) Journal features, inter alia, an article by Jane Hupe, Secretary to the ICAO Council Committee on Aviation Environmental

Protection (CAEP), entitled “En Route to Copenhagen: International Aviation

Action on Climate Change,” in which she outlines the technical, economic, legal

and social implications of the various measures being considered to reduce

emissions from the aviation sector.

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5 August 2008: China has made an effort to improve the

sustainability of the Olympic Games and improve the air quality in Beijing,

according to a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Publication published in late

2007, ‘Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: An environmental review.'

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4 August 2008: In an address to the Joint Session of the

Mexican Senate and Chamber of Deputies, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon,

noted their pivotal role in bridging the local and global, highlighting the

three inter-related challenges faced by the world today, namely, a climate

crisis, a food crisis, and an emerging development emergency.

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4 August 2008: The

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released its 2007 Annual Report,

which notes that the nuclear development is increasingly shaped by issues

linked to concerns over and climate change, food and energy.

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3 August 2008: The fifteenth Summit meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), held from 2-3 August 2008, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, concluded with the adoption of the Colombo Declaration and the Colombo Statement on Food Security. In the Declaration, entitled “Partnership for Growth for Our People,” the Heads of State and Government reiterate the need for increased regional cooperation in tackling climate change, in particular for capacity building, the development of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, and awareness raising.

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