Events

Building resilience to climate change in mountain areas

From: 08.01.2014 to: 08.01.2014

This side event during the 7th session of the UN General Assembly Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals will focus on the global impact of climate change in mountain ecosystems.

Dr Iván J. Ramírez, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Eugene Lang College of the New School for Liberal Arts, will be the keynote speaker at the side event coorganized by the Mountain Partnership Secretariat (MPS), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) jointly with the permanent missions of Argentina, Italy, Kyrgyzstan and Peru to the UN.

Mountains provide freshwater to half of the world’s population and are home to half of all global biodiversity hotspots, but they are also among the regions most sensitive to climate change. Climate change is severely impacting mountain areas and posing threats to the livelihoods of mountain peoples. However, there is still very limited awareness, let alone concern, about the global impact caused by climate change in mountain ecosystems.

Many scientists believe that the changes occurring in mountain ecosystems may provide an early glimpse of what could come to pass in lowland environments, and that mountains thus act as early warning systems.

Photo: ©Flickr/Ostrosky