Regardless of industry, the global business sector is being transformed around a common issue: environmental sustainability. Business leaders around the world are grappling with meaningful efforts to address climate issues relevant to their organizations. In this course, the chief environmental officer at Microsoft, Dr. Lucas Joppa, discusses some of the most pressing questions surrounding this critical topic. Dr. Joppa frames this course not around a set of rigid rules companies should follow, but through methods for individual companies to evaluate what strategies fit best and how to leverage existing strengths to make the biggest impact. By following just a few of the key principles and concepts Dr. Joppa lays out, companies can ensure that they are not only prepared for the business transformations that lie ahead, but are key architects of it, leading the way on a vital issue.
Course Type: Online learning
Le financement durable de la restauration des forêts et des paysages
Pour respecter les engagements nationaux des pays en matière de restauration des paysages dégradés, des investissements publics et privés adéquats sont nécessaires pour soutenir les différentes étapes du cycle de la RFP. Les sources de financement sont plus efficaces lorsqu’elles sont utilisées de manière coordonnée.
Ce cours a été conçu pour améliorer la sensibilisation et les capacités des praticiens et des décideurs politiques à analyser les besoins et les opportunités de financement de la RFP, afin qu’ils obtiennent des financements et les coordonnent de manière plus efficace pour les interventions de RFP.
Configuration requise
La version en ligne de ce cours fonctionne sur les dernières versions des principaux navigateurs, tels que Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox et Apple Safari.
La version téléchargeable ne fonctionne que sur les PC Windows et aucun logiciel supplémentaire n’est nécessaire.
Public cible
Ce cours est destiné à un éventail de parties prenantes intéressées par la restauration des forêts et des paysages, notamment aux praticiens et décideurs politiques provenant des institutions suivantes :
- Organisations et donateurs internationaux et régionaux
- Gouvernements nationaux
- Secteur privé
- Organisations non gouvernementales
- Instituts de recherches et universités
Vous en apprendrez plus sur les thèmes suivants
- Les coûts et avantages de la RFP et les besoins de financement liés
- Ce qui rend un paysage prêt à faire l’objet d’un investissement
- Les différents types d’investisseurs et leurs priorités
- Les obstacles à l’accès à l’investissement pour la RFP et à la création d’un environnement favorable
- Les mécanismes financiers et commerciaux pour le financement des interventions de RFP
- L’importance de coordonner différents types d’investissements et de mécanismes financiers pour soutenir la RFP
- L’importance de la communication et de la construction et du renforcement des alliances
Structure du cours
Le cours est organisé en 3 leçons d’environ 35 à 55 minutes chacune:
- Leçon 1 – Introduction au financement de la RFP
- Leçon 2 – Favoriser le financement de la RFP
- Leçon 3 – Les mécanismes de financement des investissements locaux dans la RFP
Nature-based Solutions for Disaster and Climate Resilience
Nature offers many solutions for reducing the impacts from disasters and climate impacts. This may include protecting forests on steep slopes, maintaining sand dunes along coastlines, wetlands to buffer excess rainwater. These so-called ‘Nature- based solutions’ (NbS) are an important piece in the puzzle to building the resilience of households and communities to an ever-increasing number of disaster events around the world.
For years, experience and evidence on NbS from around the world has been growing. But many people – from policy makers, through to engineers and businesses – don’t yet know how NbS can help them solve the challenges they’re facing from events like floods, heatwaves, or droughts. These events affect the lives of millions of people every year.
So, what are ‘Nature-based solutions’, or NbS? How can they help build resilience to disasters and climate change impacts? Why is NbS relevant? How can I apply NbS in my work and everyday life?
In this online course, UNEP and environmental experts from around the world will provide you with answers to those questions, reaching out to you and me, to planners, policy makers, engineers, businesses, and youth. This is an opportunity for you to join a community of learners and environmental advocates.
First touching upon the “why”, the course provides an introduction to nature-based solutions for disaster and climate resilience, the benefits and potential opportunities. Then, specific modules aimed at different target audiences will focus on the practical application of nature-based solutions, the “how”.
What you’ll learn
- Learn how to apply Nature-based Solutions in enhancing resilience to disasters and climate change, whether you are a youth leader, practitioner, policy maker, engineer or business owner
- Learn about how human activities are interlinked with ecological systems and main tools and approaches for applying Nature-based Solutions to reducing disaster and climate risks
- Learn how policy makers are including nature as a solution in policy processes for reducing disaster and climate risks
- Learn how practitioners are applying nature-based solutions for reducing risks of natural hazards by investing in restoration and protection
- Learn about green infrastructure and designing with nature as a viable complement to grey engineered protection structures for reducing impacts of disaster events
- Learn what young people and teachers, policy makers, practitioners, businesses and engineers can do to get involved in our race against the climate emergency
Ecosystem Restoration
Do you want to become more skilled at preventing, halting, and reversing the degradation of ecosystems? Registration is open for a FREE Massive Open Online Course on Ecosystem Restoration offered by the United Nations Development Programme and the Convention on Biological Diversity.
This course compiles research from leading institutions engaged in ecosystem restoration to build awareness and skills on the process of restoring ecosystems. It is based on the Short-Term Action Plan on Ecosystem Restoration (STAPER) – a methodology adopted by countries under the CBD to support governments and others in the development and implementation of restoration strategies.
The course starts on 19 September 2022. It is open to the public and designed to support creation of blueprints for implementing ecosystem restoration. The course will be available in English, French, and Spanish.
What you’ll learn:
By the time you complete Part 1 of this course, you will be able to:
- Define ecosystem restoration and explain its importance
- Outline the types of ecosystems and ecosystem services
- Explain approaches to and principles of restoration
Resilient and Sustainable Food Systems for a Food Secure Future
Food insecurity is inherently linked to farming. Increasingly farmers and other food chain actors are dealing in many ways with multiple and simultaneous shocks and changes affecting food systems. While coping with increased insecurity, the agricultural sector also needs to face future challenges of feeding a growing and urbanising population with changing dietary demands and at the same time reduce the environmental impact of agricultural activities. This requires sustainable intensification (getting more from less), with reduced vulnerability to perturbations. With these increasing uncertainties and future challenges in prospect, there is the need for development of resilient and sustainable food systems that can cope with unexpected shocks and ensure a food secure future.
This course aims to offer a systems thinking and systems dynamics approach on agriculture as well as skills and tools to design innovative, resilient and sustainable food systems. It looks at how to balance between producing food, managing natural resources, dealing with uncertainty and providing an livelihood base for the rural population. It will move beyond the technical realm looking also at the role and involvement of public, private and civil stakeholders for inclusion of social, environmental, economic, and political aspects.
What will you learn?
In this course, your knowledge and skills will be strengthened. After this course, you will:
- Have a deeper understanding on how global development trends and challenges affect farming practices and policies at local and national levels
- Be able to use various tools and techniques to analyse food systems and to identify critical issues for change
- Be able to develop innovative and practical oriented interventions, strategies and policies for transition to resilient and sustainable food systems, which are socially, economically and ecologically balanced
- Understand the role of stakeholders and involve them in making food systems more resilient and sustainable
Who is this course for?
We invite technical staff, policymakers, scientists, private sector professionals and programme/project managers who want to build resilient and sustainable food system in their home countries, to enrol. Participants should be proficient in English, and have at least a BSc degree or an equivalent academic qualification and preferably several years of work experience in the agricultural domain.
Food and Nutrition Security in Urbanizing Landscapes
In the midst of changing landscapes and expanding urban spaces, there is an increasingly heavy burden placed on limited natural resources such as water and land. This competition for resources places rural areas, which are key for food production, under pressure – causing serious impacts to food and nutrition security
Over and undernutrition are on the rise in these landscapes with consumers stuck in food deserts and producers having difficulty finding profitable markets, leading to a rise in lifestyle related diseases, such as obesity and heart disease, as well as increased mortality and poor childhood development. City governments and urban planners can play a key role in addressing these issues by putting food on the urban agenda, yet many cities lack a food agenda.
In this course produced by the Global Landscapes Forum’s partner organisation Wageningen University & Research, you will learn to look beyond the boundaries of your personal expertise and geographic location. Taking on an integrated spatial and food systems perspective to open up possibilities, bringing about structural change, and acquainting you with a variety of tools to analyze food and nutrition issues and their relation to your rural-urban landscape, enabling you to mobilize key stakeholders in your rural-urban landscape.
FAO E-Learning Series to Address the Transparency Framework in GHG Inventories
Sustainable and reliable national GHG inventories are essential instruments for assessing efforts to address climate change and progress made towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. The FAO Transparency Team is developing a series of online courses that support countries in building a sustainable GHG inventory under Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF).
So far, three courses have been developed, and made available to all interested climate experts, especially those tasked with the preparation of national GHG inventories. The first course “Preparing a greenhouse gas inventory under the Enhanced Transparency Framework” provides an overview of reporting requirements under ETF together with basic steps for the preparation of GHG inventory. The other two courses provide practical guidance to estimate emissions and removals from the agriculture and land use sectors. Two more courses are under development, focusing on estimating ‘uncertainty in
emissions/removals in agriculture, forestry and land use’ and ‘GHG emissions from livestock at tier 2’.
By covering fundamental concepts and providing step-by-step exercises, these courses allow users to understand the ETF process and apply the knowledge acquired in the given simulations, as they proceed with learning. This is a collaborative effort between FAO and UNFCCC that aims to strengthen institutional and technical capacities of national entities in the transition towards the ETF. For other related tools and updated resources, visit the FAO’s tools and resources page for ETF.
Go to courses:
1. Preparing a greenhouse gas inventory under the Enhanced Transparency Framework
2. The national greenhouse gas inventory for agriculture
3. The national greenhouse gas inventory for land use
Nature-Based Metropolitan Solutions
How can ecosystems contribute to quality of life and a more livable, healthier and more resilient urban environment?
Have you ever considered all the different benefits the ecosystem could potentially deliver to you and your surroundings? Unsustainable urbanization has resulted in the loss of biodiversity, the destruction of habitats and has therefore limited the ability of ecosystems to deliver the advantages they could confer.
This course establishes the priorities and highlights the direct values of including principles based on natural processes in urban planning and design. Take a sewage system or a public space for example. By integrating nature-based solutions they can deliver the exact same performance while also being beneficial for the environment, society and economy.
Increased connectivity between existing, modified and new ecosystems and restoring and rehabilitating them within cities through nature-based solutions provides greater resilience and the capacity to adapt more swiftly to cope with the effects of climate change and other global shifts.
This course will teach you about the design, construction, implementation and monitoring of nature-based solutions for urban ecosystems and the ecological coherence of sustainable cities. Constructing smart cities and metropolitan regions with nature-based ecosystems will secure a fair distribution of benefits from the renewed urban ecology.
Instructors, with advanced expertise in Urban Ecology, Environmental Engineering, Urban Planning and Design, will equip designers and planners with the skills they need for the sustainable management of the built environment. The course will also benefit stakeholders from both private and public sectors who want to explore the multiple benefits of restored ecosystems in cities and metropolitan regions. They will gain the knowledge and skills required to make better informed and integrated decisions on city development and urban regeneration schemes.
Agricultural Water Management: Water, Society and Technology Interactions
Worldwide, a variety of processes puts more pressure on water resources every day. Global climate change causes temperatures to rise and precipitation patterns to change. A growing degree of urbanization causes people to move from the countryside to the cities. This results in increased competition over water resources, like rivers and groundwater, between
cities and their surrounding areas. Furthermore, population growth and rising global welfare create an increased demand for food.
The growing demand for food must be obtained using existing agricultural land, since we are already dealing with scarcity of new farmland. Yet, the potential of increased production in the existing rain-fed agricultural areas is low.
Sustainable water management; various perspectives to consider:
The combination of the processes described above create an urgent need for improved agricultural water management, with agriculture being the dominant water user worldwide. In our search for sustainable solutions the management and governance regarding irrigation and drainage should take a number of water related aspects into account. These include:
• The different perspectives of involved uses and users
• Spatial levels, from farm, to scheme, to river basin
• Effects on both upstream and downstream water users
Putting theory into practice
In this MOOC, we will focus on the role agricultural water management plays in this global context of sustainable water and food supplies. The online course consists of several learning modules, combined with a case study.
We start by taking a deep dive into practical and technical aspects, from crop characteristics and irrigation water requirements to actual field practices. Subsequently, we explore the institutional perspective, from models of rural development to water management demands. The case study videos and interviews from Morocco create the opportunity for you to directly apply your newly acquired knowledge in a real-life situation.
Who is this course for?
This MOOC is for anyone with basic knowledge of social and biophysical sciences, ready to contribute to improving agricultural water management from where they are. Are you ready? Enrol today!
Tropical Forest Landscapes: Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use
Tropical forest landscape conservation and restoration offers an opportunity to address pressing environmental and social challenges. Effective conservation and restoration initiatives support multiple objectives, including ecosystem functioning, climate change mitigation and adaptation, food security and economic growth.
In this year-long program, you will learn to design, implement and monitor effective conservation and restoration initiatives. Initiatives can be projects, policies, business plans and programs at any scale.
This program builds upon the expertise of Yale’s Forestry and Environmental Studies faculty and ELTI’s extensive training experience and network throughout the tropics. You will gain knowledge, practice skills and apply concepts to your own work and context.