UN
Global Climate Action
28
February
2022 | |
High Level Climate Champions
Newsletter | |
A Warm Welcome to the COP27 UN Climate
Change High-Level
Champion! | |
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin,
the new UN Climate Change High-Level Champion
for Egypt, and look forward to building on the
groundswell of climate action seen at
COP26.
Dr. Mohieldin is an economist with more
than 30 years of experience in international
finance and development. He is an Executive
Director at the International Monetary Fund and
has been the United Nations Special Envoy on
Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development
Agenda since February 2020.
The role of the High-Level Champion was
created in 2015 at COP21 in Paris to help
realise the ambitions of governments to lower
carbon emissions and build resilience to climate
change. The Champions specifically bridge the
work of governments with the many voluntary and
collaborative actions taken by cities, regions,
businesses, investors and civil
society. | |
Resilience in an Era of Climate
Change | |
The
research, from the world’s top climate
scientists, finds that the world faces
“unavoidable multiple climate hazards” over the
next two decades, with global warming to 1.5°C.
The weather extremes we are already experiencing
are exposing millions of people to acute food
and water insecurity, especially in Africa,
Asia, Latin America and on small islands in the
Arctic.
Cities
are at particular risk, holding more than half
the world’s population, it finds. Public health,
lives and livelihoods, as well as homes, energy
and transport systems and other critical
infrastructure are increasingly affected by
heatwaves, storms, drought, flooding, rising sea
levels and other impacts.
These
findings make clear the imperative to build
systemic resilience to the consequences that are
now unavoidable, parallel with and in connection
to, rapid emission reductions. With a small,
narrowing and challenging window in which to
build resilience, it also makes clear the need
to make November’s COP27 summit in Egypt a
moment that drives climate justice for the
countries and communities most at-risk, in
Africa and around the world.
The
bottom line is that, unless emissions are cut
faster than governments currently plan to,
climate-driven damages will worsen rapidly and
parts of the planet will become increasingly
uninhabitable. The UN Climate Change High-Level
Champions’ flagship campaigns – Race to
Resilience
and Race to
Zero
– are vehicles for tackling these twin
objectives, mobilizing businesses, investors,
cities and regions to set and implement robust
targets for action in the 2020s.
| |
The Business of
Resilience | |
Climate
action has traditionally focused on reducing
emissions. Resilience and adaptation only draw
about 20% of climate finance, while 80% goes to
mitigation, according to the UN.
That focus on
mitigation may have made sense when the climate
crisis was still a far-away threat. But as
today’s IPCC report shows, the crisis is already
unfolding. In 2022, we have already seen
deadly
floods in Southeast Africa, the worst
drought in 1,200 years in the western US, and
a power
grid failure
caused by record heat in Argentina. Shocks like
these ripple across the economy, triggering food
and supply chain shortages, infrastructure
destruction, death, public health emergencies
and the loss of homes and livelihoods.
That’s why
resilience is everyone’s business. Whether
you’re a business, investor, city, region or
government, your strategies and investments for
reaching net zero emissions before 2050 must be
rooted in the principle of resilience.
Agriculture can become regenerative to improve
water retention, soil health and biodiversity.
Homes and cities can be fortified against floods
and extreme temperatures. And mangroves and
forests can be regenerated to protect against
rising sea levels, rain and heat.
The Race to
Resilience partners are working to scale up
investment and innovation in this kind of work
within the 2020s.
Among them,
Scale
for Resilience, aims to provide 3
million smallholder farmers with access to
nature-based solutions, and the conditions to
finance them. It uses digital communications
tools to assess and report a smallholder’s needs
in relation to climate change, and finance the
right nature-based solutions.
BFA
Global, a
consulting firm, has created a multi-agency
taskforce with a digital finance framework that
enables vulnerable communities to anticipate,
adapt and build resilience to the physical
impacts of climate change.
DARAJA,
meanwhile, is innovating the use of data,
telecommunications and local media to improve
weather and information services, including
early warning systems for extreme weather for
urban areas. Its proven model has created
inclusive
city-community forecasting and early warning
services, providing information directly to
users in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania. It’s also being piloted in Kingston,
Jamaica.
| |
Reminder: Call for
inputs for the first global
stocktake
Deadline end of
February |
The
global
stocktake
of the Paris Agreement is a process designed to
assess the world’s collective progress towards
achieving the purpose of the agreement and its
long-term goals every five years. As part of the
first global stocktake, the chairs of the
UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Bodies opened a
call
last
September for Parties and non-Party stakeholders
to submit their inputs before the end
of February 2022.
Further details on how to do so can be
found
here.
| | | |
- The Champions and Expert
Peer Review Group are delighted to have
confirmed the people who will be contributing to
this year’s criteria
consultation for the Race to Zero. These experts,
scientists, academics and practitioners will
help us drive further convergence around best
practices for climate action.
- Wildfires are becoming
more intense and more frequent, and are set to
continue growing worldwide as a result of
climate change and land-use change, according to
the UN
Environment Programme. Extreme fires are
devastating to people, biodiversity and
ecosystems and exacerbating climate change by
releasing greenhouse gas emissions.
- The world is spending at
least US$1.8 trillion a year, or 2% of GDP, on
subsidies that are driving the destruction of
nature and species extinction, according to
research from The B
Team and Business for Nature. The fossil fuel,
agriculture and water industries receive more
than 80% of all environmentally harmful
subsidies per year, it found.
- Wind energy can help
governments accelerate a green economic recovery
and form a bedrock for sustainable economic
growth, according to the Global
Wind Energy Council. The benefits of wind
energy extend beyond clean power to sustainable
job creation, public health cost savings, water
consumption savings and capital injection in
local value chains.
- The World
Council of Churches and other international
faith organizations are pressing the financial
sector to adopt moral standards to address
climate change that would steer assets away from
fossil fuels.
- European cities need to
make significant improvements in order to
achieve zero-emission mobility by 2030,
according to a Clean
Cities Campaign analysis of 36 cities.
It found that local decarbonization measures
make a big difference, and that better data and
monitoring is needed.
- IRENA, in partnership
with the African Development Bank, has published a report highlighting the
opportunities and challenges facing Africa in
the renewable energy transition and the pathway
to a renewables-based energy system.
- The UN High-Level
Climate Champions team is hiring! Check out
these roles, and help us keep up
the momentum in the run-up to COP27.
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