A Climate Neutral UN

Combating climate change and catalyzing the transition to a low carbon,
more resource efficient global Green Economy is everyone’s responsibility
– international, regional and national organizations and the individuals
that work for them, regional and municipal authorities and companies
and civil society.


The UN system:

The UN system is made up of the organizations established
by the Charter of the United Nations, namely,
the United Nations principal organs, the specialized
agencies provided for in Article 57 of the Charter and
a number of programmes established by the General
Assembly under its authority derived from Article 22
of the Charter. The agencies are legally independent
international organizations with their own rules, membership,
organs and financial resources.

The international institutions that make up the UN system
have diverse fields of action and operations, structures,
mandate and governing body arrangements,
and varying field office presence.

Progress so far:

The aggregated GHG emissions of the UN system organizations
for their facility operations and travel in 2008, not including
peacekeeping, are estimated at approximately 770’000 tonnes of
CO2 equivalent. The average annual
GHG emissions across the UN system are approximately 8.3
tonnes of CO2 equivalent per staff member.

The UN system set out its approach in the UN Climate
Neutral Strategy. In this document, the UN defined its
“climate neutrality” as the entire set of polices that it
uses to estimate its known GHG emissions, measures
to reduce them, and to purchase carbon offsets to
“neutralize” those emissions that remain, aiming at the
highest standards possible. It identifies the following
elements that should be included:

1. A commitment to reducing GHG emissions as part
of an integrated and comprehensive environmental
management approach;
2. The preparation of consistent, comparable and transparent
inventory data, according to agreed methodologies,
which subsequently undergo periodic independent
verification;
3. The development and implementation of a package
of measures to reduce GHG emissions;
4. A decision to offset the remaining emissions through
a reasoned choice of offsets that satisfy a list of
agreed criteria, ensuring their high quality;
5. Regular transparent reporting combined with the
public communication of each organization’s emissions
inventory, together with any targets or goals
for emissions reductions;
6. The development and implementation of a knowledge-
management system serving the entire UN,
to document initiatives, data, lessons learned and
best practice; to post guidelines and methodologies;
to post model strategies and work plans; to provide
e-training courses; to host Q&A; to provide technical
assistance; and to host e-discussions.

For more information on the UN Climate Initiative, please see www.unep.org