United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
www.unhcr.org
HQ: Geneva, Switzerland
Number of staff: 1,040
Number of locations: 336 in 126 countries
Key figures*
Total emissions: 2,593 tonnes CO2 equivalent
Emissions per staff member: 2.5 tonnes CO2 equivalent
Emissions from air travel: 2,281 tonnes CO2 equivalent
Air travel as a proportion of total emissions: 88%
Air travel per staff member: 2.2 tonnes CO2
Building-related emissions: 20 kg CO2 equivalent per square metre
*Data from 2009
High Commissioner's Message
“UNHCR has a clear mandate to protect and assist refugees and stateless persons. Some substantial percentage of the people who will be displaced will be escaping conflict or persecution brought on by civil strife caused in turn by climate change. Those who flee their country because the country no longer exists may well become stateless and therefore become charges of UNHCR. In all of these situations UNHCR has the mandate and responsibility to assume the responsibility to protect.
"We will need to consider whether or not additional international legal frameworks are necessary to tackle the issues or whether existing mechanisms coupled with intense and careful coordination will suffice.”
António Guterres
Mission
The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or resettle in a third country. It also has a mandate to help stateless people.
Experience so far
UNHCR has helped to slow deforestation in Ethiopia by supplying ‘CleanCook’ stoves and ethanol to refugee families in Ethiopia. The stoves help reduce the fuel wood each family needs to collect by nearly four tonnes a year. The ethanol is produced from a by-product of the local sugar industry, whose disposal previously caused water pollution. The main difficulty is the rising price and limited availability of ethanol.
Since 2007, UNHCR has planted approximately 10 million trees worldwide in areas of human displacement. This has helped hold back desertification and deforestation, and absorb carbon emissions. A main challenge has been to ensure a high survival rate of planted trees in the face of limited precipitation. In a number of field operations in Africa and Asia, UNHCR has introduced energy-efficient stoves, solar cookers/lights and other renewable-energy technology to reduce carbon emissions. The high unit price of this equipment has been an obstacle.
Reduction efforts
On top of the efforts described in the existing website:
- “Genève Lac Nations” cooling system will start functioning for Geneva office at the beginning of 2011.
- Recycle system set up at Lebanon office. The collected recycle materials are sold and help purchase wheelchairs and other equipments for the people in need.
- Vegetarian meals and fair trade certified coffee are proposed at the cafeteria.
- Bike to Work campaign promoted in Geneva office.
- Introduction of Multi-Functional Devices (MFDs) that can print, photocopy and scan through one integrated device, to prevent waste of energy by the use of several different devices.
- Garden area set up at the balcony to absorb heat and CO2.
Offsetting
This decision has to be taken at the highest level together with Member States.
Next steps
The plan is to extend the climate-footprint data-collection exercise and the Green Office Programme to the field offices next year (this year, this exercise has been limited to the headquarters in Geneva and the Global Service Centre in Budapest). Efforts to reduce emissions will continue as far as possible. Plans are in place within Geneva to install a district cooling system using water from Lake Geneva which will reduce the requirements for cooling via the vapour compression and ice bank system, yielding a considerable reduction in carbon emissions.
