Climate change, biodiversity, and desertification

* Three international treaties showcased at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil -- a conference popularly known as the "Rio Earth Summit." The Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) have been known ever since as the Rio Conventions.

* Parties to the biodiversity treaty undertake to conserve species, transfer technology, and share in a fair way the benefits arising from the commercial use of genetic resources.

* Parties to the desertification agreement carry out national, sub-regional, and regional action programmes and seek to address causes of land degradation ranging from international trade patterns to unsustainable land management.

* The three Rio Conventions are related. Climate change affects biodiversity and desertification. The more intense and far-reaching climate change is, the greater will be the loss of plant and animal species and the more dryland and semi-arid terrain around the world will lose vegetation and deteriorate.

* A Joint Liaison Group, or JLG, was established in 2001 to boost collaboration between the secretariats of the three Conventions. Through the Group, information is shared, activities are coordinated, and measures are identified that can simultaneously attack all three problems -- a benefit known in international jargon as "synergy."