Natural Resources Defense Council

Internationalfrom china to india to the americas, nrdc's international work leverages our scientific, economic, and policy expertise to advance key environmental and climate programs with far-reaching impacts across the world. Our highlights from this past fiscal year are as follows: in preparation for and in the leadup to the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc) conference of parties (cop) 27 in sharm el-sheikh, egypt, nrdc spearheaded a ceo-level group to advocate with relevant u.s. government agencies on phasing out fossil fuels and international climate finance. At these series of meetings, nrdc encouraged the united states to support the creation of a loss and damage fund under the unfccc that would help countries that are bearing the toughest impacts of climate change and contributed the least amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. These conversations helped speed the creation of the fund and the establishment of a transitional committee to make recommendations on operationalizing the funding for consideration and adoption by cop28. Nrdc also shared knowledge on climate-friendly cooling and heat resilience in india, as well as biodiversity and climate change in china. In a monumental win that holds huge implications for the world's climate, the u.s. senate voted 69 to 27 to give its consent to ratify the kigali amendment to the montreal protocol, the treaty to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (hfcs). Hfcs are man-made chemicals commonly used in air conditioners, refrigerators, and insulating foam, and are potent greenhouse gasses that have hundreds of times the heat-trapping capability of carbon dioxide. With this ratification, the u.s. Became the 138th country including china, india, and most of the world's major economies to join this international treaty to phase down hfc production and emissions. This development is also significant in that the u.s., china, and india are the three largest producers and consumers of hfcs. Nrdc worked with stakeholders in several of these countries to share information on the benefits and paths to achieve the hfcs phasedown. In another critical advancement for marine life, the united nations formally adopted language for a historic treaty to advance ocean biodiversity conservation worldwide. This follows more than a decade of involvement in negotiations over the treaty, which establishes how countries will collaborate to strengthen the conservation and management of marine biodiversity in the high seas, which covers nearly two-thirds of the world's oceans, and one half of the surface of the planet. The language and the treaty bring modern standards of conservation to the high seas and will help marine wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (ein: 13-2654926) billions of people for whom healthy oceans are vital to sustaining their livelihoods, cultural heritage, and health.one noteworthy accomplishment is the formal establishment of nrdc india private limited, an affiliated entity that nrdc will contract with in order to work in a country that is highly vulnerable to climate effects and is also the third largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. Nrdc, which has engaged nrdc india to provide additional services that are not available in house, will continue to work with a wide range of partners to help india continue to put clean energy solutions in place and adapt to climate impacts, especially extreme heat. Nrdc has convened experts and stakeholders to discuss solutions to reduce hazards posed by extreme heat and improve access to cooling in the country for knowledge sharing and to advance action on a national heat mitigation framework. Nrdc also informed decision-making by policymakers to increase cool roofing, such as the launch of a comprehensive state-wide cool roofs policy in the state of telengana. The first of its kind in india and globally, this policy protects 35 million residents from the dangers of extreme heat, and provides a framework for strengthening heat resilience across india. Similarly, the indian city of jodhpur launched its first-ever heat action plan to strengthen local preparedness and resilience to intensifying extreme heat hazards. The release of this plan, which nrdc developed in consultation with mahila housing trust, marks an important step forward for the city and the state of rajasthan, one of india's 23 heat-prone states. The jodhpur plan was developed based on local data and community input, and enables the city to better organize local heat actions that protect public health and make measurable reductions in mortality after implementation.in other international accomplishments, nrdc's efforts in china continued, focusing on producing reports and analyses and sharing information to help inform how coal-dependent provinces move to cleaner forms of energy as well as sequestering carbon in forests. One other advancement of note includes nrdc's advocacy at conference of parties 15 in montreal, where we pushed for stronger language to protect the "30 by 30" biodiversity target for the kunming-montreal global biodiversity framework. Along with leadership from countries such as panama and nigeria, our persistence and pressure ultimately helped ensure that countries agreed to protect 30 percent of terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas by 2030, which formed a strong foundation to continue advocating for higher-quality protections in the future.

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