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by the end of 2009, undertake efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

as far as possible, and to analyse the cost implications and explore the

budgetary modalities of purchasing carbon offsets to ultimately achieve

climate neutrality.

Over the comingmonths and years, the EMGwill be supporting these efforts

in close cooperation with the UNEP’s Paris-based Division of Technology,

Industry and Economics, which leads a facility called the Sustainable Unit-

ed Nations (SUN). Together they will provide assistance to the UN agencies

to calculate their GHG emissions according to the highest environmental

standards, develop individual agency’s plans for reducing their footprint,

adopt a common approach for purchasing offsets, and also advance other

aspects related to greening the UN, such sustainable procurement.

by 2025 and to halve per capita transport emissions by 2040 by using electric

cars and biofuels. Iceland aims to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions

– which come mainly from transport and industry – by 75 per cent before

2050. Carbon sequestration in vegetation is an important factor in Iceland’s

climate strategy. It has suffered the worst soil erosion of any European coun-

try since its settlement 1 100 years ago, with deforestation leaving the fragile

volcanic soil at the mercy of wind and water erosion. Costa Rica is aiming for

climate neutrality by 2021, to be achieved by taxes and incentives to protect

forests and encourage carbon storage and sequestration.

The four cities signed up to CN Net are Arendal in Norway, Vancouver on

the west coast of Canada, Växjö in southern Sweden and Rizhao in northern

China. Ninety-nine per cent of urban households in Rizhao, Shandong prov-

ince, have solar water heaters. The amount of energy used for each unit of

economic output has fallen by almost a third on 2000 levels and CO

emis-

sions by almost half.

The latest wave of participants extends the initiative’s reach to small and me-

dium enterprises, as well as international, non-governmental and research or-

ganizations.