China: The China Climate Change Partnership Framework
Since 1978, China has lifted 600 million people out of poverty and has made good all-round progress towards achieving the MDGs. But one of the greatest challenges to its continued economic development is tackling climate change and reducing the impacts that rapid growth is having on China's natural environment.
In June 2007, China published its first National Climate Change Strategy after its first-ever National Climate Change Assessment showed scenarios of reduced food, land and water security and recommendations for adaptation measures. The Joint Programme supported China in implementing the Climate Change Strategy with a coordinated and multi-sector response that brought together nine UN Agencies, ten Government line ministries, local Governments and a host of other counterparts from academia, the public and the private sectors.
The programme's interventions promoted the mainstreaming of climate change mitigation and adaptation into Government policy and improved local capacities and partnerships for financing and technology. It also worked to ensure that vulnerable communities – including the world’s biggest rural population – can adapt to climate change's impacts.
- A new high-level Climate Change Policy Task Force was established to make policy recommendations on climate change issues. The programme also supported th development of the Basic Energy Law.
- The programme helped incorporate into China's Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development policy recommendations for reducing the impact of agriculture on climate change, sea-level rise and glacial retreat.
- Programme partners developed local environment and health action plans at the provincial level, which have produced better frameworks for dealing with the health impacts of climate change.
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The programme raised the awareness of more than 200 companies on climate change and corporate social responsibility. The UN-Business Compact on Climate Change was launched along with guidelines for private enterprises to respond to climate change. Three pilot enterprises were trained on how to develop climate change CSR operational policies. Green Business Options were introduced in a new training module for private companies as part of the Start and Improve Your Own Business programme (SIYB).
- Current environmental health monitoring systems were reviewed and new approaches to monitoring and surveillance of health/environment variables were tested. These knowledge-generating activities supported and fed local environment and health action plans at the provincial level.
- Vulnerability assessments on the impacts of climate change on water resources in the Yellow River Basin were completed. Pioneering research was also carried out, such as investigations into the effects of climate change on glacial melting in the Himalayas Mountains, depletion of groundwater resources in Northern China, and sea level rise in the country’s coastal areas.
- A pilot project effectively demonstrated waste heat-recovery power generation technology and clean coal technology in ten enterprises, including three of China’s major coal companies. The results were shared with 500 other companies across the country. This project also explored the effects on employment of a transition to a low-carbon economy.
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Some 140 authorities, 400 field technicians and 1,500 farmers participated in training on climate change and agricultural pollution to illustrate the impact on natural resource degradation and empower them to look for potential ways to improve agriculture.
Click for more detailed results from the Joint Programmes in China.