Resource corner, SEEA News and Notes: Issue 26

Every year, the annual session of the UN Statistical Commission  provides an opportunity for the UN UNCEEA to share its progress and plans for the future with the highest body of the global statistical system. This year, the 55^th Session of the UNSC will take place in New York, from 27 February to 1 March 2024.

In 2023, UNEP, in close collaboration with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), revised the

The objective of the DGI is to encourage economies to provide data to assist policymakers in addressing the most relevant policy needs and filling critical data gaps.  The DGI-3 focus in filing the data gaps in addressing climate change, financial innovation, and inclusive growth.

A side event on “Integrating Natural Capital Accounting and Climate Change” was organized by the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) during the UN Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai on Sunday, 3 December 2023.

In conjunction with the second African Natural Capital Accounting Policy Forum, the UN Statisticas Division (UNSD) organized a Regional Training Workshop on an Accounting Approach to Climate Change Policy on 4-5 September in Nairobi, Kenya.   Climate change is one of the most pressing policy issues for many African countries given its wide-ranging impacts on well-being.

On 18 September 2023, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disc

In April 2023, the UN Statistics Division and UN Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific, with support of the Government of Japan, held a regional training workshop in Chiba on using the SEEA in support of climate chagne policy.

The 8^th Joint OECD/UNECE Seminar on the Implementation of SEEA was held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, from 13-15 March 2023. English-Russian interpretation was provided.

The European Space Agency (ESA), the Environmental-Economic Accounts section of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and the Earth Observation for Ecosystem Accounts initiative of the

As part of the NCAVES project, in parallel to the development of national level ecosystem accounts, a detailed and comprehensive set of ecosystem extent, condition and ecosystem services accounts have been piloted in India at the subnational level for the State of Karnataka.

This high-level side event brought together the statistical and biodiversity communities  to discuss the role of national statistical offices on biodiversity monitoring.

Early next year, the 53^rd UN Statistical Commission will take place from 1-4 March 2022. The Commission provides an opportunity for the UNCEEA to inform the wider statistical community of the progress it has made over the past year and what lies ahead.

The use of GDP has been criticized since its inception given its shortcomings when it comes to the environment. While the creation of "green GDP" failed to take off in the 1990s, the international community has made a new start in integrating the environment into GDP.

On 10 September 2021, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released the “Our Common Agenda” report, which looks ahead to the next 25 years and represents the Secretary-General’s vision on the future of global cooperation and multilateralism. 

The latest updates in the development of SEEA accounts in Africa and Asia: High-level launch of the project in Malaysia, land accounting in the Phillipines and a technical workshop with ARIES in Senegal.

The high-level webinar on the SEEA EA for countries in Latin America took place on Thursday, 4 February 2021. The Webinar was co-organized by the UN-ECLAC Statistics Division and the UN Statistics Division (UNSD) and was attended by over 117 participants, including 5 heads of NSOs, from 16 countries in Latin America. 

Held over three days, the NCAVES India Forum 2021 was the culmination of the impressive work undertaken in India following the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting as part of the three-year E.U.-funded NCAVES project.

Pretoria, South Africa, 2 December 2020 - Today South Africa launches its first ecosystem accounts at national level, under the publication, Land and Terrestrial Ecosystem Accounts, 1990 to 2014.

The global consultation on the complete draft of the System Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) has been launched and is ongoing until the end of November 2020. 

NSO India published its third annual report on environmental-economic accounts, on 30^th September, 2020 formally titled “EnviStats India 2020 Vol. II - Environment Accounts”.

The global material footprint is growing rapidly, outpacing population and economic growth.  Material footprint entails the volume of biomass, metals, non-metallic minerals and fossil fuels that we extract. Materials fuel our economies and underpin human development and well-being. The global extraction of these materials has more than tripled since 1970 and continues to grow at an accelerated rate.

A new pilot study of ecosystem accounting in South Africa maps, measures and values a suite of ecosystem services for the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Australia, an international leader in the development of ecosystem accounting, has strong domestic support  for the SEEA EEA Revision process.  Australian scientists and other members of its academic community participate actively  in the technical working groups that have been developed to inform the revised standards.