More than 98 percent of IUCN NGO members and 70 percent of state members voted in favour of a new climate change mitigation resolution. The resolution targets more specific goals and actions on biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods protection. Addressing Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the call emphasizes the need for recognizing the role that ecological networks and the system of Protected Areas can play in mitigation and adaptation. It also emphasizes the need to ensure that climate funds are invested in the systems to maintain their functions in climate change.

The resolution put forward a request to the IUCN Director General to promote the adoption of the target of reducing greenhouse gas emission by 50 percent to 58 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 at the 15th UNFCCC Convention of Parties in Copenhagen in 2009.

A multi-national, IUCN-member expert group discussed and revised the document before it went to the assembly. However, it is yet to have support from a number of countries that could have significant impact on the achievement of the set out target, such as Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Drafted and submitted by the IUCN Council, the resolution is built on previous IUCN resolutions on climate change, observed scientific evidence and global framework documents on climate change, such as the Bali Action Plan and the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Having been adopted by the governing body of the Union, this document will now provide a clear direction for the implementation of the IUCN global programme in the next four years to combat climate change.