Schoolhouse Model United Nations 2023

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Committee Sessions

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Rules of Procedure

Training Guide for Delegates

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Study Materials

UNEP Study Material

Agenda - Enhancing climate resilience for sustainable development in the post-pandemic world

Chairperson’s Letter - Rayyann A

Dear Delegates,

My name is Rayyann, and I’d like to formally welcome you to Schoolhouse.world’s Inaugural Model United Nations (MUN) Conference! Together with Hafsah, I will be chairing the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Committee. I have completed my high school studies, now awaiting college decisions, and throughout my recent years, I’ve maintained a great interest in MUN. Hence, I am extremely excited to be chairing this committee and look forward to seeing you all. During the next few sessions, you will be meeting new faces and learning about new cultures, as we work together in an attempt to solve one of humanity’s greatest challenges.

Climate Change affects us all: you, me, your neighbor Joe (if you really do have one, tell me!), your cousin Sandra (extra points if you have both!), even your best friend Chloe (really!? You have all three!? I’ll have to give you some sort of special prize). And in this post-pandemic age, Climate Change has become an increasingly worrying concern. As such, the agenda of this conference will revolve around the relationship between Climate Change and the current state of the world. In these couple of days, we will hold six individual committee sessions, during which various discussions – from heavily structured debates to slightly structured caucuses – will be held concerning how we should deal with Climate Change in this new world. The goal of these discussions is to eventually arrive at a draft resolution, written by various delegates. By the end of the conference, it will be voted on and (hopefully) passed as a successful resolution. So be bold in your thoughts and ideas! Who knows, you may be the key to our success…

But whether we are successful, or not, don’t forget to have fun, for that’s the only way to learn anything from this; and as long as each of you take something away from this conference, we haven’t truly failed.

I’d now like to invite you to step beyond the threshold and into the shoes of a UNEP delegate. I eagerly await meeting you. See you on the other side, I remain

Yours in Eagerness Rayyann A

Chairperson’s Letter - Hafsah M

Greetings Delegates!

It is an immense pleasure to have you here as part of the United Nations Environment Programme Committee.

I am Hafsah, a high school freshman from India. Model United Nations has been a passion of mine ever since I first started participating. I have taken part in several MUN conferences, winning accolades, and feel truly honoured and excited to be the chairperson for the United Nations Environment Programme Committee of the Inaugural Schoolhouse Model United Nations, along with Rayyann. In addition to chairing this committee, I am also leading the organising committee for this event. I also currently serve as the co-lead of the community engagement team at Schoolhouse.

If this is your first time joining an MUN conference, I understand that it may feel intimidating, but I encourage you to not feel so, read the rules of procedure and study material thoroughly and research further in order to be fully prepared for the conference. I encourage you to not limit your preparations to this study material, but try and research further on the agenda. The agenda we have at hand is a major issue throughout the world, and something we need to discuss about. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the same and your participation in the conference.

Best,

Hafsah M

Mandate

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

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is in charge of coordinating responses to environmental challenges within the United Nations system. Following the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in June 1972, it was founded by Maurice Strong, the organisation's first director. A wide range of concerns, such as climate change, the management of marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and green economic development, are among the topics covered by its mandate to provide leadership, deliver science, and develop solutions. Additionally, the group creates worldwide environmental treaties, distributes and promotes environmental knowledge, and aids national governments in meeting environmental goals.

Introduction

Understanding Sustainable Development

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Sustainable development means that human social orders should try to live and address their issues without compromising the capacity and possibilities of people in the future to address their own issues. The official meaning of the name was produced in the Brundtland Report in 1987.

The very noted change of the industrial revolution is associated with the increase of changes in the normal ecological order and for the need for sustainable development. In particular, this is a method of getting society sorted out with the goal that it can exist in the long haul. This implies considering both the objectives present and those of things to come, like the conservation of the climate and regular assets or social and financial value.

Climate Resilience

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Climate change presents complicated and interconnected dangers to organisations, their providers, and to the representatives and networks along the stock chains. As the effects of environmental change are progressively looked at around the world, in any case, it has become certain that endeavours are important to increase versatile limits.

Resilience is characterised as the ability to overcome hardships rapidly. With regards to environmental change, it is the capacity of a framework or local area to bounce back after a shock like a natural calamity. Building this requires not just perceiving potential dangers like outrageous climate occasions, yet in addition understanding the fundamental weaknesses that might come as the after effects of the repercussions.

Climate Adaptation

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Climate adaptation is the method involved with adjusting to real or anticipated environmental change and its belongings. It is tied in with getting, arranging and making a move to secure individuals, the planet and its success. The Earth's normal temperature has increased drastically. This ascent is causing more regular and serious outrageous climate occasions, changing temperature and precipitation designs, ocean levels and ocean ice. The current way of warming raises the danger of unexpected and conceivably devastating changes over the course of the following many years. Without activity today, transformation will be costlier and harder for the following ages. Reacting to these difficulties will require logical forward leaps in different spaces going from innovations, arrangements and administrations for variation in regions. This should go inseparably with cultural change and enormous scope social change.

History

The Paris Agreement

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The Paris Agreement is the result of one of the COP meetings. Its prime objective is that the average temperature of the world should remain below 2 degrees Celsius by 2030. This was formed separately finding the need for other countries apart from the developed to take actions too. The limit of 2 degrees Celsius is kept though it isn't possible to achieve in spite of every country's target completion. This is done with the idea that some solid number is better controlled than nothing at all. This step was taken due to multiple reasons, such as-

a. If all the countries fulfil their agreements, the world average would be around 2.6-3.2 degrees Celsius of warming by 2030

b. If no policies are implemented at all, the world average would be 4.1-4.8 degrees Celsius by 2030

c. With current policies, the world average would be 3.1-3.7 degrees Celsius by 2030.

Each country is trying its level best to keep up the protocol in its own way. The USA has set a goal to reduce its climate pollution by 28% by 2030 with the base year being 2005. China has set a goal to reduce 65% of its carbon intensity by 2030, as compared to 2005. Eu has promised to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 as compared to that of 1990.

The Kyoto Protocol

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The Kyoto protocol is the result of the 1977 UNFCCC meeting in Japan. The document is one of the main milestones in the convention’s history. It came into effect in 2005 due to multiple complexities. This protocol recognises that the developed countries of the EU (43 of them) are the major cause of the existing greenhouse gas emission during that time. Therefore, it is legally binding only on the developed nations which are termed to be Annex-I countries. The following are the categories of nations under Kyoto Protocol and their working:

a. Annex-I countries- These are the countries which are obliged to the legal binding of the protocol as they are considered to be the major contributors for the emissions due to the industrialisation process. The US and Afghanistan are the only 2 countries which have not signed the protocol (the USA was a signatory initially but later withdrew in the second commitment period of 2013-2020). They are also called the economies in transition.

b. Annex-II countries- These are the countries (24 of them) which provide financial and technical support to the developing countries. They majorly were a part of the OECD

c. LDC (Least developing countries)

d. non-Annex countries - Those countries which have not signed the agreement are termed to be non-annex countries. India is one among them.

The main aim of the protocol was that the developed countries should reduce an average of 5.2% of GHGs (greenhouse gases) with 1990 as their base year. This implied that the target for the USA would vary to the target reduction of Canada as they would be having varied levels of emission in the year 1990.

Kyoto Mechanisms

Any of the following mechanisms could be used by the countries apart from the conventional methods of reforestation, reduction of carbon emissions etc.:-

a. Emission trading- To understand this concept, let's take a small example. Say, Canada had to reduce or limit its GHGs to 100 AAU (Assigned Amount Units) and the same was to be done by France. If Canada produces 125 GHGs in that year, it is said to have 25 negative or -25 credits. In case France produces only 70 GHGs, it is said to have 30 credits remaining. Therefore, Canada can actually buy some of the credits with any carbon equivalent. This process is called emission trading or carbon trading, the market is called carbon market and the credits are called carbon credits.

b. Project based mechanisms- The following are the two project-based mechanisms that can be implemented. (By projects we mean those projects which lead to the promotion of sustainable development which are authorised by respective executive boards and are hypothesised regarding their outcomes)

● Clean Developed Mechanism (CDM)- it is a system wherein an Annex-I country (say Canada) earns credits by establishing a project and running it in a non-Annex country (say India).

● Joint Initiative (JI)- it is a mechanism wherein the Annex-I country (say Canada) gains credits by establishing a project in another Annex-I country (say Germany). The credits earned in both the project-based mechanisms can be used in emission trading.

Current Scenario

Climate Change and Developing Countries

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Climate change is not yet highlighted adequately inside the financial strategy plans of agricultural and developing nations. However, it is true that the most unfavourable impacts of this change will be in less developed nations, where the population is least likely to adjust properly. A few collaborations as of now exist between climate policies and the sustainable advancement plan in non-industrial nations, like energy productivity, environmentally friendly power, transport and feasible land-use strategies. In spite of restricted consideration from strategists to date, the policies for climate change could have huge advantages for the nearby climate. In any case there could be huge compromises related with more profound degrees of alleviation in certain nations, for instance where non-industrial nations are reliant upon coal and might be required to change to cleaner yet more costly energises to restrict discharges. The distributional effects of such arrangements are a significant determinant of their attainability and should be considered direct. It follows that future concurrences on moderation and transformation under the show should perceive the assorted circumstances of non-industrial nations regarding their degree of monetary turn of events, their weakness to environmental change and their capacity to adjust or, on the other hand, alleviate. Acknowledgment of how environmental change is probably going to impact other advancement needs might be an initial step toward building practical procedures and a coordinated, institutional limit in agricultural nations to react to environmental change.

Coronavirus Pandemic and its Impact on Climate

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The Covid waste has turned into another type of contamination as single-utilise personal protective equipment (PPE) floods the ocean.COVID-19 suddenly affects the climate, shortening reusing and expanding the utilisation of plastic around the world. Already, approximately 8 million tons of plastics enters the sea consistently, adding to the 150 million tons previously coursing in the seas. Waterlogged covers, gloves, hand sanitizer bottles and other things are now being found on the seabed and appear on sea shores, joining the everyday garbage in the sea ecosystems. Single-utilised plastic waste isn't the main effect COVID-19 is having on the environment. Despite the reduction in the usage of fossil fuel by-products as lockdowns have implied less individuals voyaging, there are concerns the pandemic will jumper government's consideration away from green issues. In some US urban communities, reusing programs have been stopped, while portions of the pandemic hit Italy and Spain additionally set a limit on recycling. The quarantine economy has driven more individuals web based, bringing about more noteworthy bundling waste from conveyances. Clinical waste has rocketed. Import and fare limitations, just as decreases in the accessibility of freight transportation, imply that a lot of food has likewise gone unused.

Discussing Infrastructure

Infrastructure organisations will be influenced by the physical effects of climate fluctuation and change, yet will likewise assume a fundamental part in building flexibility to those impacts. For instance, OECD demonstrating the likelihood of a significant flood in Paris found that 30% to 55% of the immediate flood harms would be endured by the area, while 35% to 85% of misfortunes were brought about by disturbance to the transportation and power supply and not by the actual flood. Guaranteeing that the foundation is environmentally tough will assist with decreasing direct disasters and lessen the expenses of disturbance. New infrastructure resources ought to be focused on, arranged, planned, constructed and worked to represent the environmental changes that might happen over their lifetimes. Existing foundations should be overseen in regards to environmental change. In conclusion, extra framework, for example, ocean dividers, will be required to be built to address the actual effects of the change. This extra foundation can incorporate conventional framework, like hard safeguards, other designed arrangements, just as a normal foundation, for example, wetlands and other nature-based arrangements. The environmental versatility of individual foundation resources ought to be seen with regards to the framework all in all. Considering environmental impacts for personal resources, for example, a scaffold or a railroad line, is essential however, not adequate to guarantee that the framework capacities dependably in spite of an evolving environment. Thus, endeavours to guarantee flexibility at the task level ought to be implanted inside an essential way to deal with framework network arranging those records for the direct and aberrant impacts of environmental change and environment inconstancy.