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Alongside the destruction of habitats, the economic exploitation of animals and plants is one of the greatest dangers facing the animal and plant worlds. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, in short the Washington Convention, is a legally binding international agreement dating from 1973 to protect endangered species of animals and plants. It is also known internationally as CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
CITES - Protection of species of plants and animals from extinction
Climate change, biodiversity, energy efficiency, world food supplies and population growth: The Year of Science 2012 is fully focused on sustainable development. The aim is to stimulate public awareness about sustainability research under the motto “Future Project Earth” by making current scientific developments accessible to a broader public. In the coming months numerous events are planned throughout Germany.
Stimulating awareness for sustainability
Will the international community be able to make concrete steps towards global climate protection? This will be the decisive question when representatives from around 200 states meet from November 28 to December 9, 2011 in Durban, South Africa, at the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Cop 17) to negotiate an agreement for the years following 2012. That is when the Kyoto Protocol expires, so far the most important instrument in international climate change policy.
Climate protection
As the 21st century progresses the consequences of global climate change will have a major impact on people all around the world. The German government is keen to take international climate diplomacy forward.
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The Third World Health Summit, which is taking place in Berlin, will be spotlighting the worldwide challenges facing medical research and healthcare. Leading representatives from the fields of science, medicine, the healthcare sector, politics and civil society will be gathering at this important international forum at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin.
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The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association does research in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, as well as on coasts and in high and mid-latitude oceans. It coordinates polar research in Germany, analyses global environmental changes, and contributes to deciphering the complex natural connections in the Earth System.
The Alfred Wegener Institute
It is a major element in climate and environmental protection, a vital habitat, an important economic factor and a popular place for recreation: the forest is an indispensible ecosystem on our planet – and in 2011 it is the focus of a special International Year of Forests, called into being by the United Nations (UN). The year is aiming to raise people’s awareness about the significance of forests, their sustainable cultivation and their role in fighting poverty.
International Year of Forests
Developing cycle paths, improving public transport, putting more electric vehicles on the roads, modernizing houses, designating areas for new biotopes and using waste for energy production are just some of the environmentally friendly ideas with which Hamburg aims to make a mark as European Green Capital in 2011. Germany’s second largest city, which has 1.7 million inhabitants, was awarded the honour by the European Commission and beat 35 European competitors in the process. Hamburg is now the second city – after the Swedish capital Stockholm – to receive this title for an exemplary commitment to environmental protection and nature conservation.
Hamburg: Green Role Model for Europe
At the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15), which starts on Monday 7 December in Copenhagen, Germany wants to push for a new global climate protection treaty. In a recent government statement to parliament Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized the importance of the meeting with over 190 participating states. Ms Merkel said that a failure of the world climate conference would throw back international climate policy by years.
Climate Summit
The RETech portal gives you information on the engagement of German waste management companies abroad, ranging from country profiles on waste management for 33 countries, via promotion options, to specific approaches for doing business abroad or merely for making contacts.
RETech
With the international community having failed to reach agreement on a binding global climate accord at the international climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, expectations for a new post-2012 climate regime are now pinned on the next UN climate conference to be held in Cancún, Mexico, at the end of the year
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When the representatives from over 190 countries meet in December 2009 in Copenhagen at the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15), they will be focusing on the future of our planet. In the Danish capital the delegates will negotiate a new, binding international agreement on climate protection designed to succeed the present Kyoto Protocol in 2013. Many of the data used by the experts come from Bonn.
Ways out of the climate crisis
The future of energy: this is the motto of the Year of Science 2010, which begins on 22 January and is organized by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research together with the Science Initiative. The aim of the years of science, which were launched in 2000, is to stimulate greater public interest in questions surrounding science and arouse especially the young generation’s curiosity for scientific topics by collaborating with universities and research institutions.
The Year of Science 2010
The United Nations has designated 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity. Reason enough for the German Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) as official UN partner to devote this year – the 111th anniversary of its founding – to the dramatic decline in biodiversity. Globally, 16,000 species are regarded as threatened with extinction, that’s around a quarter of all mammals, a third of all amphibians and twelve per cent of birds.
NABU
