• Some mitigation actions may yield extensive benefits in areas outside of climate change: for example, they may reduce health problems; increase employment; reduce negative environmental impacts (like air pollution); protect and enhance forests, soils and watersheds; reduce those subsidies and taxes which enhance greenhouse gas emissions; and induce technological change and diffusion, contributing to wider goals of sustainable development.

• Of the 19 countries around the world currently classified as water-stressed, more are in Africa than in any other region - and this number is likely to increase, independent of climate change, as a result of increases in demand resulting from population growth, degradation of watersheds caused by land-use change and siltation of river basins.

• Specifically, the network of selected biosphere reserves is observing cryospheric indicators, such as snow cover, glaciers, permafrost and solifluction (where freezing and thawing of the ground results in soil-surface slippage); high-mountain, freshwater ecosystems and watershed hydrology; and terrestrial ecosystems, especially mountain plant life and certain soil-dwelling animals.