June 17 marks the UN-sponsored "World Day to Combat Desertification," an event designed to highlight the serious threats to dryland ecosystems posed by desertification.

The theme of this year's celebration, which is conducted annually by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, is "Desertification and Climate Change - One Global Challenge." As the title suggests, organizers hope to highlight "the significant benefits of an integrated approach to tackling these two major environmental challenges."

This week in Heiligendamm, Germany, leaders from the United States agreed to "seriously consider" a plan to cut global carbon emissions to half of their 1990 levels by 2050. The announcement was made at the annual G8 Summit , which is composed of eight of the world's richest and most polluting countries (US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, Russian). While failing to set mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the agreement could lay the groundwork for a unified world response to climate change. Even this modest step, however, did not come without tough political wrangling. This week's announcement marks the first time that the US has agreed to the goal of developing a new global accord on climate change by 2009 to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol.

This Wednesday in New York, leaders from some of the world's largest cities announced a new program to increase the energy efficiency of city-owned buildings in order to reduce urban CO2 emissions. The agreement was made public at the C40 Climate Summit, which brought city and business leaders together to discuss the urgent problem of climate change.

The innovative building "greening" program presented at the gathering was spearheaded by the Clinton Global Initiative, and will provide $1 billion to finance installation of green building technologies in municipal infrastructure.

On May 4, 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released Volume 3 of its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). This volume, entitled "Mitigation of Climate Change," builds upon the information and analysis presented in the AR4's first two volumes. Having found evidence of global warming and its potential dangers in these earlier reports, the IPCC has now turned its attention towards addressing the problem.

Read more about the IPCC's earlier findings by accessing EarthTrends' News posts on Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the AR4.