The German government is compensating for the climate footprint of all its official travel by acquiring UN-certified carbon offsets and has launched a tender process – open until August 16, 2017 – to purchase more than 235,000 credits to offset last year’s emissions from business travel.

The transport sector is said to be responsible for approximately 23% of total energy-related CO2 global emissions, and the German government wants to do its bit to tackle the problem by making use of credits obtained from projects that are certified according to UN rules under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

This is part of the government’s “Avoid-Reduce-Offset” strategy for business travel, which includes reducing or avoiding emissions caused by travel and offsetting those which cannot be avoided by investing in emission reductions elsewhere.

Federal Minister for Environment, Barbara Hendricks, said: “Avoiding emissions should always be first choice. But the Federal Government offsets what is unavoidable by investing in high-quality climate change mitigation projects. We will also be doing this for the Climate Change Conference in November 2017 in Bonn, keeping emissions and pollution as low as possible and offsetting unavoidable emissions.”

The volume of emissions is calculated based on the official travel data of all federal government and administration employees. This includes car and air travel by staff at 110 federal authorities.

The International Energy Agency predicts that emissions related to transport could increase globally by up to 50% by 2035 and double by 2050.

Curbing emissions from passenger transport and freight, therefore, needs to be a priority for governments, regions, cities, and business in order to keep the global average temperature rise to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as set out in the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

Avoiding, Reducing and Offsetting – Stepping Stones Towards Climate Neutrality

Like Germany, an increasing number of governments, companies, organisations, and citizens are taking action to reduce their carbon footprint and to contribute to global efforts to tackle climate change. But much more needs to be done at all levels of society.

Achieving climate neutrality – reducing emissions to reach the ultimate balance between emissions and the absorptive capacity of the planet – is the long-term objective, and to achieve it we must measure what we emit and reduce those emissions as much as possible. Even with our best efforts to reduce, daily activities and business operations will result in unavoidable emissions.

This is why offsetting, only after measuring and reducing, is key for climate neutrality. The UNFCCC secretariat’s Climate Neutral Now initiative helps everyone to measure, reduce and offset the greenhouse gas emissions caused by our daily activities, including transport.

Clean Development Mechanism

The UN’s Clean Development Mechanism allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction credits (CERs). These credits (each equivalent to one tonne of CO2) can be traded and sold, and cancelled to reduce climate footprints while promoting sustainable development and emission reductions.

Last year, Germany offset emissions through projects that range from power generation from crop residues to clean household cooking systems. Apart from benefits to the climate, these projects, UN officials say, bring co-benefits such as job creation, access to energy and health protection thanks to reduction in indoor air pollution from cooking.

August 9 is International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples and an occasion to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the landmark United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). According to the UN, indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. And they are in a unique position to make powerful contributions to strong climate action.

Numbering about 370 million people worldwide, about five percent of the world’s population, indigenous peoples care for nearly 22 percent of the Earth’s surface. Living in areas as diverse as the Amazon and the Arctic, they help protect an estimated 80 percent of the planet’s remaining biodiversity.

The Paris Climate Change Agreement recognises the role of indigenous peoples and local communities in building a world that is resilient in the face of climate impacts. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa says she relies on the voice and knowledge of indigenous peoples “to understand how to build a platform that best serves the needs of the indigenous community” and which helps “to build bridges between indigenous communities and other groups acting on climate change.”

Indigenous Peoples on the Front Lines of Climate Change

By virtue of their unique and comprehensive traditional knowledge systems, indigenous peoples are at the forefront of understanding what climate change means for societies, ecosystems, and cultures, and how their resilience may be enhanced. Thus, providing indigenous peoples with a larger role in global climate action is crucial.

Traditional indigenous knowledge of the environment and weather patterns is passed down through many generations, and is crucial for monitoring and mitigating climate change impacts.

Examples abound of the resilience and adaptiveness of indigenous peoples using traditional knowledge to protect and enhance the natural environment and humans’ place within it. These practices are being refined and adapted to suit indigenous peoples’ needs in the face of climate change.

For instance, indigenous knowledge is being used in the Solomon Islands to enhance existing approaches to disaster risk reduction by contributing to the development of early warning systems and coping strategies.

In Nepal, a pilot project is using indigenous methods of seed storage as a basis for increasing resilience and improving the livelihoods of indigenous communities in the area, equipping farmers with the tools and knowledge to reduce loss and deterioration of seeds and increase local food security.

UNFCCC Designing Platform for Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples

In order to make this knowledge more accessible, and in order  to increase the role of indigenous peoples and local communities in global climate action and support the inclusion of their knowledge systems in scaling up adaptation and resilience, the United Nations Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat is setting up a new platform for local communities and indigenous peoples.

Established by the Paris Agreement, the platform will serve as a pivotal arena for advancing the engagement of indigenous peoples in the UNFCCC process.

The platform will seek to empower indigenous peoples, enhance the role of their knowledge systems, practices and innovations in global climate action, and help to uphold their right to the conservation and protection of the environment and land guaranteed in the UNDRIP.

The Adaptation Knowledge Portal under the Nairobi work programme aready offers a wealth of resources on the use of indigenous traditional knowledge to promote climate adaptation and resilience.