India France Declaration on Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Technology & Innovation, S&T
2.
Launch of the Logo for the India-France Year of Innovation 2026
Technology & Innovation, S&T
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Letter of Intent between Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) France to establish the Indo-French Center for the Digital Sciences
Technology & Innovation, S&T
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Agreement for hosting 10 Indian Startups at the French Start-up incubator Station F
Technology & Innovation, S&T
5.
Declaration of Intent on establishment of partnership on Advanced Modular Reactors and Small Modular Reactors
Civil Nuclear Energy
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Renewal of MoU between Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), India and Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives of France (CAE), France concerning cooperation with Global Center for Nuclear Energy Partnership (GCNEP)
Civil Nuclear Energy
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Implementing Agreement between DAE of India and CEA of France concerning cooperation between GCNEP India and Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology (INSTN) France
Civil Nuclear Energy
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Join Declaration of Intent on Triangular Development Cooperation
Indo-Pacific/ Sustainable Development
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Joint Inauguration of India’s Consulate in Marseille
Culture/ People-to-People
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Declaration of Intent between The Ministry for the Ecological Transition, Biodiversity, Forests, Marine Affairs and Fisheries and The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the Field of Environment.
Jersey Met has confirmed the average annual temperature for 2024 was 12.94°C making it the seventh-warmest year on record.
The average annual temperature takes an average of all days throughout the year, including night-time minimum temperatures and daily maximum temperatures. Official temperatures have been recorded at the Maison St Louis Observatory since 1894.
Head of Meteorology for Jersey Met, Paul Aked, said: “The daily maximum temperatures for 2024 were on average 0.32°C higher than the long-term average, however the nighttime minimums were 0.81°C above the long-term average. It is in this detail, you can see the impacts warmer nights are having, contributing to the overall annual temperature being the seventh warmest on record.
“Along with temperature rise, for every degree our atmosphere warms, the atmosphere can hold 7% more moisture, adding to the wetter weather. As a result, we should be prepared for the potential to see more extreme weather events as our temperature rises.”
Minister for the Environment, Deputy Steve Luce, said: “I thank Jersey Met for providing us this crucial information, which comes just after an announcement by the World Meteorological Organisation last week that January 2025 was the hottest January ever recorded, globally.
“The trends we are witnessing have a huge impact on everyone. With increasing temperatures are associated impacts on biodiversity, food security, and sea levels – which as an island is greatly concerning. This year, I will continue to encourage Islanders to reduce their carbon footprint through the policies in our Carbon Neutral Roadmap. We must ensure Jersey remains on a pathway to net zero by 2050, in line with the internationally recognised targets of the Paris Agreement.”
As a result of the 2024 temperature, another dark red stripe will be added to the Jersey Climate Stripes at the Waterfront. Using colour, the stripes show how the Island’s climate is warming over time, and act as a visual climate change reminder. Once the new stripe has been added, there will be a total of 131 stripes – each representing a year from 1894 through to 2024.
Source: Nauru Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship Program
The chief executive of the Nauru Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship Program has echoed calls by Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Baron Waqa for private finance to play a greater role in supporting Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
Edward Clark said SG Waqa’s comments, made at the 2025 OECD Conference on Private Finance for Sustainable Development last week where he pointed out that “Capital flows have reached unprecedented levels, yet far too little is reaching SIDS”, should be a wake-up call for vulnerable nations.
In his address Mr Waqa said climate-conscious investors should be “willing to look beyond traditional financial metrics.”
Mr Clark said Pacific Islands and other vulnerable island nations should no longer view themselves as passive recipients of climate funding, but think differently in their approach to climate resilience.
“Climate vulnerable countries must be viewed as the new incubators for climate innovation.
“We have both a need and a right to be prosperous in the face of a global climate emergency, and there is an urgent need to ensure we disproportionately benefit from climate innovation.
He labelled Nauru’s new citizenship program and Niue’s Ocean Wide Trust as examples of “innovative, cost-effective solutions to address these challenges.
“Our citizenship program is a way of opening Nauru to the world and enabling citizenship in a nation actively working towards climate resilience.
“It’s for those who want to support Nauru’s sustainable development initiatives.”
Pointing to Nauru’s ambitious ‘Higher Ground Initiative’ that will see the relocation of 90 per cent of the country’s population to the ‘topside’ of the island, pioneering an entirely new community, Mr Clark said the nation was “the world’s smallest republic with the world’s biggest climate resilience vision.”
“This is a monumental task and one well beyond the normal financial capability of Nauru.”
Mr Clark, who has a background in compliance and financial crime investigation, said Nauru’s program adheres to Financial Action Task Force standards and undergoes the strictest and most thorough due diligence procedures.
“Only individuals of the highest calibre who can participate in shaping Nauru’s future will be accepted.”
This program is about joining a community dedicated to pioneering solutions for global challenges, and is an example of the bold and transformative action vulnerable nations must take to survive.”
The United States shares the pathologies of all dying empires with their mixture of buffoonery, rampant corruption, military fiascos, economic collapse and savage state repression.
ANALYSIS: By Chris Hedges
The billionaires, Christian fascists, grifters, psychopaths, imbeciles, narcissists and deviants who have seized control of Congress, the White House and the courts, are cannibalising the machinery of state. These self-inflicted wounds, characteristic of all late empires, will cripple and destroy the tentacles of power. And then, like a house of cards, the empire will collapse.
Blinded by hubris, unable to fathom the empire’s diminishing power, the mandarins in the Trump administration have retreated into a fantasy world where hard and unpleasant facts no longer intrude. They sputter incoherent absurdities while they usurp the Constitution and replace diplomacy, multilateralism and politics with threats and loyalty oaths.
Agencies and departments, created and funded by acts of Congress, are going up in smoke.
The rulers of all late empires, including the Roman emperors Caligula and Nero or Charles I, the last Habsburg ruler, are as incoherent as the Mad Hatter, uttering nonsensical remarks, posing unanswerable riddles and reciting word salads of inanities. They, like Donald Trump, are a reflection of the moral, intellectual and physical rot that plague a diseased society. Cartoon: Mr Fish/The Chris Hedges Report
They are removing government reports and data on climate change and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement,. They are pulling out of the World Health Organisation.
They are sanctioning officials who work at the International Criminal Court — which issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes in Gaza.
They suggested Canada become the 51st state. They have formed a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias.” They call for the annexation of Greenland and the seizure of the Panama Canal.
They propose the construction of luxury resorts on the coast of a depopulated Gaza under US control which, if it takes place, would bring down the Arab regimes propped up by the US.
Uttering nonsensical remarks The rulers of all late empires, including the Roman emperors Caligula and Nero or Charles I, the last Habsburg ruler, are as incoherent as the Mad Hatter, uttering nonsensical remarks, posing unanswerable riddles and reciting word salads of inanities. They, like Donald Trump, are a reflection of the moral, intellectual and physical rot that plague a diseased society.
These Christian fascists, who define the core ideology of the Trump administration, are unapologetic about their hatred for pluralistic, secular democracies. They seek, as they exhaustively detail in numerous “Christian” books and documents such as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, to deform the judiciary and legislative branches of government, along with the media and academia, into appendages to a “Christianised” state led by a divinely anointed leader.
They openly admire Nazi apologists such as Rousas John Rushdoony, a supporter of eugenics who argues that education and social welfare should be handed over to the churches and Biblical law must replace the secular legal code, and Nazi party theorists such as Carl Schmitt.
They are avowed racists, misogynists and homophobes. They embrace bizarre conspiracy theories from the white replacement theory to a shadowy monster they call “the woke.” Suffice it to say, they are not grounded in a reality based universe.
Christian fascists come out of a theocratic sect called Dominionism. This sect teaches that American Christians have been mandated to make America a Christian state and an agent of God. Political and intellectual opponents of this militant Biblicalism are condemned as agents of Satan.
“Under Christian dominion, America will no longer be a sinful and fallen nation but one in which the 10 Commandments form the basis of our legal system, creationism and ‘Christian values’ form the basis of our educational system, and the media and the government proclaim the Good News to one and all,” I noted in my book.
“Labour unions, civil-rights laws and public schools will be abolished. Women will be removed from the workforce to stay at home, and all those deemed insufficiently Christian will be denied citizenship. Aside from its proselytising mandate, the federal government will be reduced to the protection of property rights and ‘homeland’ security.”
Chris Hedges talks to Marc Lamont Hill on Up Front on why “democracy doesn’t exist in the United States” today. Video: Al Jazeera
Comforting to most Americans The Christian fascists and their billionaire funders, I noted, “speak in terms and phrases that are familiar and comforting to most Americans, but they no longer use words to mean what they meant in the past.”
They commit logocide, killing old definitions and replacing them with new ones. Words — including truth, wisdom, death, liberty, life and love — are deconstructed and assigned diametrically opposed meanings.Life and death, for example, mean life in Christ or death to Christ, a signal of belief of unbelief. Wisdom refers to the level of commitment and obedience to the doctrine.
Liberty is not about freedom, but the liberty that comes from following Jesus Christ and being liberated from the dictates of secularism. Love is twisted to mean an unquestioned obedience to those, such as Trump, who claim to speak and act for God.As the death spiral accelerates, phantom enemies, domestic and foreign, will be blamed for the demise, persecuted and slated for obliteration.
Once the wreckage is complete, ensuring the immiseration of the citizenry, a breakdown in public services and engendering an inchoate rage, only the blunt instrument of state violence will remain. A lot of people will suffer, especially as the climate crisis inflicts with greater and greater intensity its lethal retribution.
The near-collapse of our constitutional system of checks and balances took place long before the arrival of Trump. Trump’s return to power represents the death rattle of the Pax Americana. The day is not far off when, like the Roman Senate in 27 BC, Congress will take its last significant vote and surrender power to a dictator. The Democratic Party, whose strategy seems to be to do nothing and hope Trump implodes, have already acquiesced to the inevitable.
The question is not whether we go down, but how many millions of innocents we will take with us. Given the industrial violence our empire wields, it could be a lot, especially if those in charge decide to reach for the nukes.
Foreign aid is not benevolent. It is weaponised to maintain primacy over the United Nations and remove governments the empire deems hostile. Those nations in the UN and other multilateral organisations who vote the way the empire demands, who surrender their sovereignty to global corporations and the US military, receive assistance. Those who don’t do not.
Foreign aid builds infrastructure projects so corporations can operate global sweatshops and extract resources. It funds “democracy promotion” and “judicial reform” that thwart the aspirations of political leaders and governments that seek to remain independent from the grip of the empire.
USAID, for example, paid for a “political party reform project” that was designed “as a counterweight” to the “radical” Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo) and sought to prevent socialists like Evo Morales from being elected in Bolivia. It then funded organisations and initiatives, including training programmes so Bolivian youth could be taught the American business practices, once Morales assumed the presidency, to weaken his hold on power.
Kennard in his book, The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire, documents how US institutions such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, USAID and the Drug Enforcement Administration, work in tandem with the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency to subjugate and oppress the Global South.
Client states that receive aid must break unions, impose austerity measures, keep wages low and maintain puppet governments. The heavily funded aid programmes, designed to bring down Morales, eventually led the Bolivian president to throw USAID out of the country.
The lie peddled to the public is that this aid benefits both the needy overseas and us at home. But the inequality these programmes facilitate abroad replicates the inequality imposed domestically. The wealth extracted from the Global South is not equitably distributed. It ends up in the hands of the billionaire class, often stashed in overseas bank accounts to avoid taxation.
Our US tax dollars, meanwhile, disproportionately funds the military, which is the iron fist that sustains the system of exploitation. The 30 million Americans who were victims of mass layoffs and deindustrialisation lost their jobs to workers in sweatshops overseas. As Kennard notes, both home and abroad, it is a vast “transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich globally and domestically”.
Legitimises theft at home “The same people that devise the myths about what we do abroad have also built up a similar ideological system that legitimises theft at home; theft from the poorest, by the richest,” he writes. “The poor and working people of Harlem have more in common with the poor and working people of Haiti than they do with their elites, but this has to be obscured for the racket to work.”
Foreign aid maintains sweatshops or “special economic zones” in countries such as Haiti, where workers toil for pennies an hour and often in unsafe conditions for global corporations.
“One of the facets of special economic zones, and one of the incentives for corporations in the US, is that special economic zones have even less regulations than the national state on how you can treat labour and taxes and customs,” Kennard told me in an interview.
“You open these sweatshops in the special economic zones. You pay the workers a pittance. You get all the resources out without having to pay customs or tax. The state in Mexico or Haiti or wherever it is, where they’re offshoring this production, doesn’t benefit at all. That’s by design. The coffers of the state are always the ones that never get increased. It’s the corporations that benefit.”
These same US institutions and mechanisms of control, Kennard writes in his book, were employed to sabotage the electoral campaign of Jeremy Corbyn, a fierce critic of the US empire, for prime minister in Britain.
The US disbursed nearly $72 billion in foreign aid in fiscal year 2023. It funded clean water initiatives, HIV/Aids treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work. In 2024, it provided 42 percent of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations.
Humanitarian aid, often described as “soft power,” is designed to mask the theft of resources in the Global South by US corporations, the expansion of the footprint of the US military, the rigid control of foreign governments, the devastation caused by fossil fuel extraction, the systemic abuse of workers in global sweatshops and the poisoning of child labourers in places like the Congo, where they are used to mine lithium.
The demise of American power I doubt Musk and his army of young minions in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — which isn’t an official department within the federal government — have any idea about how the organisations they are destroying work, why they exist or what it will mean for the demise of American power.
The seizure of government personnel records and classified material, the effort to terminate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of government contracts — mostly those which relate to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), the offers of buyouts to “drain the swamp” including a buyout offer to the entire workforce of the Central Intelligence Agency — now temporarily blocked by a judge — the firing of 17 or 18 inspectors generals and federal prosecutors, the halting of government funding and grants, sees them cannibalise the leviathan they worship.
They plan to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and the US Postal Service, part of the internal machinery of the empire. The more dysfunctional the state becomes, the more it creates a business opportunity for predatory corporations and private equity firms. These billionaires will make a fortune “harvesting” the remains of the empire. But they are ultimately slaying the beast that created American wealth and power.
Once the dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, something the dismantling of the empire guarantees, the US will be unable to pay for its huge deficits by selling Treasury bonds. The American economy will fall into a devastating depression. This will trigger a breakdown of civil society, soaring prices, especially for imported products, stagnant wages and high unemployment rates.
The funding of at least 750 overseas military bases and our bloated military will become impossible to sustain. The empire will instantly contract. It will become a shadow of itself. Hypernationalism, fueled by an inchoate rage and widespread despair, will morph into a hate-filled American fascism.
Despite the aura of omnipotence empires often project, most are surprisingly fragile, lacking the inherent strength of even a modest nation-state. Indeed, a glance at their history should remind us that the greatest of them are susceptible to collapse from diverse causes, with fiscal pressures usually a prime factor. For the better part of two centuries, the security and prosperity of the homeland has been the main objective for most stable states, making foreign or imperial adventures an expendable option, usually allocated no more than 5 percent of the domestic budget. Without the financing that arises almost organically inside a sovereign nation, empires are famously predatory in their relentless hunt for plunder or profit — witness the Atlantic slave trade, Belgium’s rubber lust in the Congo, British India’s opium commerce, the Third Reich’s rape of Europe, or the Soviet exploitation of Eastern Europe.
When revenues shrink or collapse, McCoy points out, “empires become brittle.”
“So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly wrong, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, just 27 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003 [when the US invaded Iraq],” he writes.
The array of tools used for global dominance — wholesale surveillance, the evisceration of civil liberties, including due process, torture, militarised police, the massive prison system, militarised drones and satellites — will be employed against a restive and enraged population.
The devouring of the carcass of the empire to feed the outsized greed and egos of these scavengers presages a new dark age.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Environment Agency publication captures latest research about natural flood management to help understand what works best where
Nature can play a major role in improving the nation’s resilience to flooding and coastal erosion, updated research from the Environment Agency underlines.
Informed by significant scientific research including more than 700 papers, the directory summarises the latest evidence for 17 natural flood management (NFM) measures relating to river and floodplain, woodland, run-off, and coast and estuary management.
NFM protects, restores and emulates the natural functions of rivers, floodplains, catchments and the coast to reduce flooding and coastal erosion. It takes many different forms and can be implemented in urban and rural areas, on rivers, and on estuaries and coasts.
The directory shows the wide variety in the benefits of the different measures.
Among the findings, catchment woodland is shown not only to help reduce flood risk but also to provide benefits for soil, biodiversity and water quality, alongside access to nature.
The review showed catchment woodland can reduce the height of flood water, with the greatest reductions during smaller events. One study in Cumbria suggested the flow of flood water was slowed by 14-50% in woodland compared to pasture.
The latest science also showcases the significant wider benefits of saltmarsh and mudflat restoration, including their ability to store large amounts of carbon, helping to mitigate climate change. They can also filter sediments and nutrients, improving water quality.
Managed realignment at Steart Marshes in Somerset created 250 hectares of saltmarsh. A recent study showed the marsh was storing 36.6 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year following restoration, a number which compares favourably with woodland.
For the first time, the updated directory includes emerging evidence for three new measures, highlighting the potential flood risk reduction and wider benefits of coastal reefs, submerged aquatic vegetation, and beavers. There is still more to learn about these measures, including understanding what the best depth for oysters to grow and develop while also effectively reducing wave energy is.
The new Working with Natural Processes directory demonstrates that the evidence for NFM has grown significantly, building confidence in the flood risk reduction and wider benefits.
The directory provides a new evidence baseline for NFM, helping to inform future investment decisions and support the selection of measures on the ground.
Julie Foley, Environment Agency Director of Flood Risk Strategy and National Adaptation, said:
With climate change increasing the threats of flooding and coastal erosion, we must work together with nature to boost resilience across the country.
That’s why the Environment Agency is mainstreaming the use of natural flood management alongside the use of traditional engineered defences.
Our £25 million Natural Flood Management Programme was shaped by the Working with Natural Processes Evidence Directory. Through this fund we are testing our approaches to future investment and the delivery of natural flood management.
New evidence also demonstrates the benefits of combining multiple NFM measures. The five-year Littlestock Brook trial on the River Evenlode in Oxfordshire tested several measures at the same time, including putting in woody dams, creating 230m of new water courses, and planting 14.4 hectares of new woodland. Results from the trial show reductions in the height of flood waters of up to 55.2% across all the storms analysed.
Research suggests the Evenlode project will help remove 8,199 tonnes net of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, attributed to creating the woodland and agroforestry.
The Salmons Brook NFM project in Enfield, north London, combined planting 200 hectares of woodland with reducing the width of the channel by 75% and installing 46 bunds in a rural catchment. Modelling found that, during a once-in-a-25-year storm, the combination could reduce flood flows by half and peak water levels by 10-30cm in the urban areas downstream, with the effectiveness expected to increase with the woodland’s maturity.
Kathryn Brown, The Wildlife Trusts Director of Climate Change and Evidence, said:
Getting the best evidence to support our collective efforts to build resilience is critically important.
I’m delighted to see the latest science on natural flood management coming together in one place through the Environment Agency’s Evidence Directory, with a focus on co-benefits – and to see new recognition of the role beavers can play in natural flood management.
This well-used directory has been pivotal in supporting NFM work across the country, including through The Wildlife Trusts.
Meeting on Thursday with non-governmental entities in Baku for the COP29 climate talks, UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted the crucial role that cities, regions, businesses and financial institutions must play in driving the worldwide effort towards reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century.
“We need a massive global effort to steer our world onto a path to safety; you are out in the front…helping consumers, investors and regulators understand what credible net-zero looks like,” said the Secretary-General.
As violent weather inflicts human tragedy and economic destruction worldwide and with efforts to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius slipping away, Mr. Guterres convened the high-level meeting of non-State actors to spotlight their actions and strategies since 2022, in line with key recommendations issued in a report he launched at COP27 in Shram-el-Sheikh.
‘The path to safety’
The report, Integrity Matters, set out 10 recommendations that serve as a “how-to” guide for credible, accountable net-zero pledges. They detail what non-State actors need to consider at each stage of their progress towards achieving net-zero ambitions and tackling the climate crisis.
Put simply, net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount that is removed from the atmosphere. Reaching this goal requires cooperation between businesses and financial institutions, and other entities working alongside governments.
UNFCCC/Kiara Worth
UN Secretary-General António Guterres pictured onscreen at the COP29 High-Level event: Implementation of the report “Integrity Matters” by the High-level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities (HLEG).
‘Fast-track, not backtrack’
On Thursday, the Secretary-General thanked the non-State actors for taking the lead in the global efforts towards the net-zero goal, but said: “Now, we need others to follow.”
He first urged all non-State actors to create robust, accountable transition plans by COP30 next year. The plans must be consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C, and chart a course to net zero by 2050, through milestones in 2025, 2030, 2035, and beyond.
“They must chart a course to fossil fuel phase-out – based in the science. They must disclose policies on lobbying and policy engagement. And they must commit to deep decarbonization across the entire value chain,” said Mr. Guterres
He also stressed that all such plans must not rely on dubious offsets, including for so-called Scope 3 emissions, or indirect emissions, such as those produced by purchased goods and services, business travel or waste disposal.
“Now is the time to fast-track, not backtrack; the time for ambition and transparency. Not greenwashing,” he stated.
Work together with governments
Mr. Guterres called for moving from voluntary pledges to mandatory rules. “The future of humanity is at stake. Action cannot be optional. Disclosing credible transition plans, that align with 1.5 degrees must be mandatory for corporates and financial institutions.”
The UN chief also urged businesses, financial institutions, cities, regions and more, to work with governments on their national climate action plans, or NDCs, due by COP30.
“Help governments ensure that they provide policy and regulatory certainty on a 1.5[C]-aligned future. We must make sure that governments facilitate the work of other actors in this regard, and not that they complicate the work of other actors in compliance with the 1.5[C] aligned future,” said the UN chief.
Later in the day, Mr. Guterres is expected to meet with a group of climate scientists and civil society actors, including young climate activists.
Want to know more? Check out our special events page, where you can find all our coverage of COP29, including stories and videos, explainers and our newsletter.
Leaders in technology and the environment at COP29 in Baku endorsed on Saturday a declaration pledging to use digital technologies to accelerate climate action while reducing the carbon and pollution footprints of tech manufacturing and tackling the growing problem of e-waste.
On the first-ever ‘Digitalisation Day’ for a UN climate conference, the COP29 Declaration on Green Digital Action received endorsements from more than 1,000 governments, companies, civil society organizations, international and regional organizations, and other stakeholders.
Pluses and minuses
According to the UN International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which organized today’s digital focused events at COP29, digital technologies can be key tools to accelerate achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as they play a key role for climate monitoring, early warning systems, and overall climate adaptation and mitigation.
Indeed, such technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data can play a central role in optimizing energy consumption of our digital world. For example, by harnessing AI algorithms, data centers can optimize energy efficiency, streamline operations, and reduce their carbon footprint, ITU says.
However, as the use of digital products and services grows, so does the amount of energy and water used, and e-waste produced.
Growing levels of digitization demand more energy, which raises greenhouse gas emissions. AI programmes need servers that run around the clock. These servers and the data centres that house them use a lot of electricity. In addition, even more energy is required to cool the data centers.
These and other issues were debated at a high-level COP29 roundtable on digitization for climate action.
Unlocking digital technology for climate action
The COP29 Declaration on Green Digital Action recognises the importance of digital technologies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The objectives in the declaration underscore how digital innovations can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide life-saving tools to inform and warn communities.
“This milestone moment for Green Digital Action at COP29 should propel us forward with the shared belief that we can and must reduce the environmental footprint of digital technologies while leveraging their undeniable potential to tackle the climate crisis,” said ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin.
“Let’s keep building our green digital momentum all the way to COP30, and with it, a more sustainable digital future for generations to come,” she said.
UNFCCC/Kamran Guliyev
On the first-ever Digitalisation Dayfor a UN climate conference, COP29 in Baku held a roundtable Green Digital Action. Pictured onscreen is ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin.
Want to know more? Check out our special events page, where you can find all our coverage of COP29, including stories and videos, explainers and our newsletter.
Rich nations pledged to contribute at least $300 billion annually to the global fight against climate change as UN climate talks came to a contentious end early Sunday morning in Baku. Developing nations who had sought over $1 trillion in assistance called the agreement “insulting” and argued it did not give them the vital resources they required to truly address the complexities of the climate crisis.
After two weeks of intense negotiations, delegates at COP29, formally the 29th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agreed to provide this funding annually, with an overall climate financing target to reach “at least $1.3 trillion by 2035”.
Soundcloud
Countries also agreed on the rules for a UN-backed global carbon market. This market will facilitate the trading of carbon credits, incentivizing countries to reduce emissions and invest in climate-friendly projects.
These were among the big-ticket issues decided upon as the summit, underway since 11 November in the enormous Baku Stadium in the Azerbaijan capital, ran into double overtime.
Other steps forward at COP29 included:
This summit had been dubbed the ‘climate finance COP’, and representatives from all countries were seeking to establish a new, higher climate finance goal.
The target, or new collective quantified goal (NCQG), will replace the existing $100 billion goal that is due to expire in 2025.
In the closing days at COP29, negotiating teams from the developed and developing worlds were deadlocked over a final deal, with reports that representatives for least developed countries and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOIS) had walked out of the talks.
But he continued, this agreement provides a base on which to build and added: It must be honoured in full and on time. Commitments must quickly become cash. All countries must come together to ensure the top-end of this new goal is met.”
For many vulnerable nations, it represents a glimmer of hope—but only if commitments translate into swift action. “Commitments must quickly become cash,” the Secretary-General stressed, urging all countries to work together to meet the upper end of the new financial goal.
Beyond finance, COP29 built on previous gains in emissions reduction targets, the acceleration of the energy transition, and a long-sought agreement on carbon markets. These achievements come despite an “uncertain and divided geopolitical landscape,” which threatened to derail negotiations.
The UN chief commended negotiators for finding common ground, noting, “You have shown that multilateralism – centred on the Paris Agreement – can find a path through the most difficult issues.”
‘An insurance policy for humanity’
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell described the new finance goal agreed at COP29 as “an insurance policy for humanity.”
“This deal will keep the clean energy boom growing and protect billions of lives. It will help all countries to share in the huge benefits of bold climate action: more jobs, stronger growth, cheaper and cleaner energy for all. But like any insurance policy – it only works – if the premiums are paid in full, and on time.”
He acknowledged that no country got everything they wanted, and that the world leaves Baku with a mountain of work to do. “So, this is no time for victory laps. We need to set our sights and redouble our efforts on the road to Belém,” in the eastern Amazonian region of Brazil, which is set to host COP30 next year.
‘Weak, insulting deal’
While some delegations applauded the deal, many from the developing world, including Bolivia and Nigeria, expressed their deep disappointment at what they argued was an “insultingly low” financing target and that the agreed text failed to significantly build on an agreement last year at COP28 in Dubai calling for nations to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
India’s representative strongly denounced the new goal, calling it a “paltry sum” and emphasizing, “We seek a much higher ambition from the developed countries [and the amount agreed] does not inspire trust that we will come out of this grave problem of climate change.”
A representative from a group of small island nations said: “After this COP29 ends, we cannot just sail off into the sunset. We are literally sinking,” and the conference outcome highlighted “what a very different boat our vulnerable countries are in, compared to the developed countries”.
UNFCCC/Kiara Worth
Civil society actors at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, advocate for climate financing initiatives.
Sierra Leone’s representative said African nations were disappointed in the outcome, which “signals a lack of goodwill by developed countries.” Indeed, the $300 billion deal was “less than a quarter of what science shows is needed and barely enough to forestall a climate catastrophe”.
Striking a different tone, a representative from the delegation of the European Union said the new climate finance goal would “simply will bring much, much more private money on the table, and that is what we need. And with these funds, we are confident we will reach the 1.3 trillion objective.”
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The latest round of UN climate negotiations, COP29, opened this past Monday in Baku, Azerbaijan, following a year that broke multiple extreme heat records and saw widespread climate-driven chaos – from wildfires to destructive floods and hurricanes – hit nearly every corner of the world. A major increase in financial commitments to assist vulnerable countries in mitigating and adapting to climate impacts is the main goal of this year’s conference, which has been dubbed the “climate finance COP.”
Can countries agree on a new climate finance target?
The UN’s main climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has issued increasingly dire warnings about the accelerating pace of global warming. To limit temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, substantial investments are needed in clean energy technologies, infrastructure, and adaptation measures.
Developing countries, particularly small island nations and least developed countries, are disproportionately vulnerable to climate impacts like sea level rise, extreme weather events, and droughts. They require significant financial support to build resilience, transition to low-carbon economies, and compensate for loss and damage.
Round-the-clock negotiations in Baku on the always thorny topic of money are reportedly moving slowly. Delegates from developing nations are calling for more and faster progress on new funding for loss and damage and accelerated clean energy goals.
Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which convenes the annual COP meetings, had a message for G20 leaders early on Saturday before they hopped on their planes for Rio de Janeiro:
“Climate finance progress outside of [the UNFCCC process] is equally crucial, and the G20’s role is mission-critical…the global climate crisis should beorder of business Number One, in Rio next week. The [G20] Summit must send crystal clear global signals. That more grant and concessional finance will be available; that further reform of multilateral development banks is a top priority, and G20 governments – as their shareholders and taskmasters – will keep pushing for more reforms.”
Finally, the UN climate chief said that “in turbulent times and a fracturing world, G20 leaders must signal loud and clear that international cooperation is still the best and only chance humanity has to survive global heating. There is no other way.”
Earlier in the week, Mr. Stiell gave a stark assessment of the stakes: Worsening climate change and the socioeconomic damage it inflicts mean “billions of people simply cannot afford for their government to leave COP29 without a global climate finance goal.”
“So, for leaders here and back in capitals – make it clear that you expect a strong set of outcomes. Tell your negotiators – skip the posturing – and move directly to finding common ground,” he said.
In his opening remarks on Tuesday to the World Leaders Climate Action Summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that 2024 has been “a masterclass in climate destruction.” He emphasized the critical role of climate finance in addressing the crisis: “The world must pay up, or humanity will pay the price…climate finance is not charity, it’s an investment. Climate action is not optional, it’s an imperative.”
Mr. Stiell later echoed this sentiment: “Let’s dispense with the idea that climate finance is charity. An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every single nation, including the largest and wealthiest.”
Beyond the $100 billion pledge
In 2009 at the 15th Conference of UNFCCC Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen, developed countries committed to mobilizing $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020. While this target was finally met in 2022, it has been criticized as insufficient and delayed.
At COP29, negotiators are aiming to set a new, more ambitious target for climate finance. Developing countries are pushing for a significantly higher figure, potentially in the trillions of dollars per year. However, discussions on the exact amount and the modalities for delivering the funds remain contentious.
An early breakthrough on carbon
A significant breakthrough on the opening day at COP29 was the adoption of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, paving the way for a UN-backed global carbon market. This market will facilitate the trading of carbon credits, incentivizing countries to reduce emissions and invest in climate-friendly projects.
James Grabert, head of the Mitigation Division at UN Climate Change, the shorthand by which the UNFCCC secretariat is known, said that this historic agreement will provide countries with a “valuable tool” to meet their climate targets and drive sustainable development.
With COP29 coming on the heels of presidential polls in the United States, impact of a new US Administration on global climate action has been on the minds of many in the corridors of Baku Centre.
At a press conference, President Hilda Heine of the Marshall Islands and Ireland’s Environment Minister Eamon Ryan stressed that despite worries about a US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the combat against climate change is a global effort that requires global cooperation towards a better economy for all. The two leaders also cited the ongoing progress by states and cities as reasons for hope.
UNFCCC/Kiara Worth
Around the clock negotiations are underway at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, on a new global climate finance deal.
A just transition, not a ‘stampede of greed’
Before heading to the G20 summit in Brazil, Mr. Guterres held several climate-related meetings, including one on critical minerals essential for renewable energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles.
These minerals, such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements, are crucial for the transition away from fossil fuels, with demand expected to triple by 2030.
Many of these minerals are found in Africa, which could benefit financially. However, there’s concern about a “resource curse,” where countries where these resources are located don’t benefit.
Mr. Guterres emphasized managing demand without triggering a “stampede of greed” that exploits and crushes the poor but instead ensures local communities benefit.
Dario Liguti from the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) also highlighted the need for “sustainable exploitation of these minerals”, especially in emerging markets, to protect the environment and support local communities. In April, the UN chief formed a High-Level Panel to ensure countries and communities with these resources benefit the most.
Young people around the world are increasingly demanding climate action and climate justice. They are calling on governments and businesses to take bold steps to reduce emissions, protect vulnerable communities, and create a sustainable future for all.
After meeting with youth representatives and climate advocates at COP29, the Secretary-General posted on social media that he understood their frustrations: “You have every right to be angry. I am angry too…because we are on the verge of the climate abyss, and I don’t see enough urgency or political will to address the emergency.”
Basmallah Rawash, a Climate Activist with Care About Climate, said, “We are not the ones that are supposed to carry the burden of mitigation. We are not the ones who have caused this, but we are the ones that will carry the burden of the biggest struggle at the moment.”
The decisions made in Baku will have far-reaching consequences for generations to come. It is imperative that negotiators reach an ambitious agreement that delivers the finance needed to build a resilient and low-carbon future for all.
Stay tuned to UN News! Our team in Baku will be following the action through the end of next week.
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As negotiations over how to tackle climate change head into their fifth day in Baku, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed solidarity with young climate advocates at COP29, who told him they are frustrated by the lack of political action on the crisis.
“You have every right to be angry. I am angry too,” the UN chief posted on social media on Thursday following his meeting with youth representatives and young environmental activists. “I am angry because we are on the verge of the climate abyss, and I don’t see enough urgency or political will to address the emergency.”
While the opening days of this year’s COP have featured the expected speeches, report launches and expert interventions, today’s youth roundtable was something different.
Organized by the Youth Advisory Group and YOUNGO – the official youth community of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – the discussion was a candid departure from the usual formalities of the UN Secretary-General’s usual schedule.
Opting out of traditional speeches, young eco-activists from across the globe chose to present their visions on tackling climate change, engage in frank discussions about challenges they encounter, and even to solicit advice from the UN chief on how to take significant steps towards preventing a climate catastrophe.
An everyday reality
The participants spoke of their dreams and fears, proposing concrete steps to make the world more sustainable and secure for future generations. For many, climate issues are not abstract concepts but everyday realities they are determined to face head on.
“We discussed the role of youth in sustainable development and the fight against climate change. The fact that Mr. Guterres listens to young people’s opinions and values their ideas is very important to me,” said Aysel Azizova, a young environmental activist from Azerbaijan, who told UN News afterward that her meeting with the Secretary-General “was very productive and inspiring”.
“This dialogue helped me and my colleagues better understand the causes of climate change and potential solutions. He gave us practical advice,” Ms. Azizova said.
She said that during the discussion, she had suggested measures to stimulate investment in green technologies and tackle resource limitations, especially for developing countries. “Mr. Guterres kindly addressed my question and explained all the details,” she added.
Youth are central to climate action
Lamin Jawo, an 18-year-old child rights activist from the Gambia, shared his reflections with UN News: “I took two important points from his speech, one was about youth involvement. The voices of young people, especially marginalized groups like children and people with disabilities, are essential in climate action.”
The perspective of young people should be integral to climate initiatives, he said, and added: “The second point concerns climate finance. The Secretary-General mentioned that funding is available, so I want to say that it should be accessible to all nations, especially the most vulnerable to climate change.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres meets with young climate and environmental activists at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Urban resilience, indigenous knowledge
Architect and urban planner HY William Chan, who is also the youngest-ever Lord Mayoral City Councilor from Sydney, Australia, also spoke with UN News, highlighting the role of cities on the front lines of climate change.
“The UN Secretary-General’s remarks resonated with me, particularly since Australia has a deep Indigenous history that emphasizes a harmonious relationship with the environment,” he said.
“The Secretary-General also emphasized the need for global reform, which our generation has long called for,” Mr. Chan added. “Current governance systems are failing us, especially the vulnerable communities and developing nations on the front lines of the climate emergency. He reinforced the need for a more equitable approach to development and financing – one that ensures resources and policies are accessible and responsive to the most affected communities, including small island states, particularly in my backyard, the Pacific.”
According to Mr. Chan, young people should be decision-makers, not just participants in the process. He emphasized that the Mr. Guterres’ words serve as a powerful reminder of the collective moral responsibility to pursue systemic change for the sake of future generations.
UN Video | ‘You Can Count On Me’ UN Secretary-General Tells Youth Climate Activists at COP29
‘I count on you, you can count on me’
In a follow-up message to young people, the UN chief urged: “I ask you to be even more determined and imaginative in keeping up the pressure for climate action. We need a strong youth movement – now more than ever.”
The UN Secretary-General reaffirmed his commitment to supporting young climate advocates, calling the climate crisis “the most important battle of our time” and insisting, “we must win.”
“I count on you, and you can count on me,” he concluded.
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The Albanese government has secured bipartisan support for a major new regime covering political donations and spending, after making significant concessions.
The government agreed to increase the proposed threshold above which donations must be disclosed from $1000 to $5000. The present disclosure threshold is $16,900.
In addition, it has boosted the cap on individual donations to a candidate or party from the earlier proposed $20,000 to $50,000.
The deal was sealed on Wednesday when Special Minister of State Don Farrell had separate meetings on the final package with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition leader Peter Dutton.
The legislation had been expected to pass late last year but negotiations between the government and opposition stalled at the final moment.
The government concessions were to accommodate not just the Coalition but also to respond to a degree to criticism from crossbenchers and some stakeholders outside parliament.
The government needed to get opposition backing to ensure the legislation’s passage before parliament rises this week. If the PM called an April election this would be the last parliamentary sitting.
Also, it wanted to pass the measures with the support of the alternative government so the new regime would not be undone in the future.
The reforms are the most comprehensive changes to the electoral system in four decades. The government says they will stop big money coming to dominate politics. But they have been under attack from teal MPs and other critics, including Simon Holmes à Court from Climate 200, which has funded community independents. The critics say they favour the major parties and disadvantage new and small players.
The new regime will not come into operation until the next parliamentary term and so does not affect this election.
The changes include disclosure of donations in real time or near-real time, and a series of caps on spending, The cap on each candidate in an electorate would be $800,000, while a party’s national spending would also be capped. At the moment there are no spending caps.
The legislation increases public funding for elections from under $3.50 per vote to about $5.
Farrell has not proceeded with a separate measure on truth in advertising, saying there was not enough support for it.
The Greens described the deal as “a fix”. “Labor and the Coalition are agreeing on rigging the system to lock out their competitors.”
Independent Zoe Daniel, a teal, said the legislation “entrenches the dominance of the major parties and locks out independents and new competitors”.
She said it imposed “strict campaign spending caps on Independents while
allowing major parties to exploit loopholes to pour millions into key
electorates.
“Under the new rules, all an independent’s campaign materials – posters, ads, or billboards – would count towards the cap, while major party branding on billboards, leaflets and ads would not. This deliberate imbalance ensures that Labor and the Coalition maintain a financial stranglehold over elections,” Daniel said.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
“What do I want the river to carry away? The deforestation,” Sandra Donado says, her voice competing with the sudden storm lashing her canoe as it floats down the Guaviare River in Colombia’s Amazon biome region.
This waterway, a silent witness to the turmoil of the municipality of Mapiripán, has seen it all – the wildlife trafficking, the coca harvests that fuelled conflict, the human bodies left behind amid a heinous massacre and the relentless erosion of the rainforest it once nourished.
Now, Sandra hopes it will carry away the pain of the past and usher in an era of healing for her community and for its land.
Mapiripán has long been trapped in a cycle of conflict and environmental degradation exacerbated by climate change. Many years ago, it was known for its illegal wildlife fur trade; later, it became a coca-growing region, attracting armed groups that turned the lush rainforest into a battleground.
Promise of prosperity
A young Sandra, facing extreme poverty and violence, arrived in Mapiripán in the early 2000s, drawn by a promise of prosperity. “There was an economic boom,” she recalls, “but it came from illicit crops – there was no other way to live.”
But the area’s prosperity was short-lived. Eventually, the conflict escalated, and the coca trade collapsed, leaving the community in ruins. “We lived with both prosperity and conflict,” Sandra says, her voice trembling as she recounts harrowing experiences of hiding from armed groups.
By 2009, most of the people in the rural communities in the region were forced to leave.
Many, including Sandra, returned after the signing of the Colombia Peace Agreement in 2016 which ended a decades-long rebel insurgency.
But the land, scarred by conflict and unsustainable cultivation, now struggled to produce. With a lack of infrastructure and limited market access, farmers like Marco Antonio Lopez turned to cattle ranching for survival.
Deforestation boom
This meant clearing more forests. “We would deforest 15 or 20 hectares with our own hands for our cattle,” he admits, “not to destroy biodiversity, but to find a way to survive.”
They also watched helplessly as newcomers took over abandoned areas and deforested even larger swaths of land. “They didn’t care about deforesting 700 to 1,000 hectares,” Sandra says with disgust. “They would just cut right through the centre of the mountain.”
The consequences were becoming all too clear: “That’s when we started to feel the heat, to notice the change in the climate,” she adds.
A silvopastoral system in the Amazon integrates trees and shrubs into livestock pastures. This increases carbon storage in trees and soil, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from livestock and fertilizer and boosting resilience to climate change.
Sandra and Marco now long for a future where they can improve their lives while protecting the forests, a desire shared across the country.
In fact, Colombia has made significant progress in curbing deforestation. The nation demonstrated that, between 2015 and 2016, deforestation rates in its Amazon Biome dropped substantially, preventing almost seven million tons of CO2 emissions.
This success helped the nation secure a $28.2 million Results-based Payment (RBP) from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in 2020 to implement the Colombia REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) project, known in the country as Vision Amazonia.
Led by theUN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Vision Amazonia promotes conservation and sustainable land management in rapid deforestation areas like Mapiripán.
A silvopastoral system in the Amazon integrates trees and shrubs into livestock pastures. This increases carbon storage in trees and soil, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from livestock and fertilizer and boosting resilience to climate change.
‘We, the community’
In coordination with the Colombian government and local communities, the FAO project which runs until the end of 2026, protects the Amazon biome through forest monitoring and sustainable management practices, benefitting smallholders, farmer associations and local authorities alike.
“We, the community, are already aware of the problem caused by climate change. Now when we go out into the field to do work, the sun is so strong that we cannot resist the heat anymore. We have truly begun to develop an awareness of the need for preservation of these beautiful ecosystems that we have in the territory,” says Marco.
“If the forest thrives and we thrive, the animals thrive,” Sandra adds.
Deforestation releases carbon into the atmosphere, which fuels climate change and further harms forests.
“With this project,” explains Sandra Vanegas, FAO local markets coordinator, “we are ensuring forest conservation while families generate resources through associative projects.
“We are promoting agroforestry gardens where they can produce for their own consumption and conserve seeds and endemic plants.”
Indeed, Marco and Sandra’s communities have now gained a deep understanding of agroforestry, a sustainable land use practice that combines agriculture and forestry. Through educational visits, they’ve witnessed firsthand how to revitalize their soils with organic fertilizer and grow their own food.
Marco recounts a gradual awakening regarding their livestock. “We didn’t know at the time,” he admits, “that we didn’t need a huge extension of pastures for our cows to have good nourishment.”
The initiative, he says, opened their eyes through a series of training sessions. Now they have started to implement silvopastoral systems by planting trees on their family farms.
“They gave us a broader perspective, helping us realize the damage and consequences of continued deforestation. That’s when we, as leaders, took a stronger stance to protect the forest.”
This newfound awareness led them to form the AGROCIARE association to pursue sustainable projects. For instance, they have been actively working to plant and commercialize the cacay tree, a native Amazonian species known for its nutritious fruit.
With training in legal and organizational skills, they’ve strengthened their association’s capacity to advocate for environmental protection and better livelihoods.
“Our vision is to ensure that the treasure of our environment and rainforest is protected by those of us who live here,” Marco declares.
By working with the rural communities, the programme is finding climate solutions that are effective, equitable and offer a different future for the Amazon.
Agrifood systems solutions are climate, biodiversity and land solutions
This story is part of a three-part series from FAO on climate, biodiversity and land solutions in Colombia. These stories take you from the arid landscapes of La Guajira, where the SCALA programme is supporting climate resilience and food security, to the Pacific coast, where a Global Environmental Facility-supported project is working to conserve rich biodiversity while also contributing to the pursuit of peace.
As COP29 climate talks in Baku enter their final week, the UN climate chief told negotiators on Monday to “cut the theatrics,” get down to business and hammer out a new finance deal to compensate countries for climate-driven damages and pay for a clean-energy transition.
“We can’t lose sight of the forest because we’re tussling over individual trees,” said Simon Stiell, urging delegates to wrap up “less contentious issues” as early as possible this week, so there is enough time for the major political decisions.
COP29 opened in the Azerbaijan capital this past Monday with the main goal of reaching agreement on scaling up finance to address the worsening impacts of global warming.
Despite an early breakthrough on standards that will pave the way for a UN-governed carbon market, the talks on climate finance have been slow and contentions, with delegations digging in their heels rather than looking for common ground.
Time for business, not brinkmanship
“Bluffing, brinksmanship, and pre-mediated playbooks” are burning up precious time and running down the goodwill needed for an ambitious package, emphasized Mr. Stiell, who is the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which convenes the annual COP meetings.
The stakes are too high for “an outbreak of ‘you-first-ism’…where groups of parties dig in and refuse to move on one issue, until others move elsewhere,” he said and the only way to get the job done is “if Parties are prepared to step forward in parallel, bringing us closer to common ground.”
Mr. Stiell’s plea comes after UN Secretary-General António Guterresalso voiced concern over the state of negotiations at COP29, noting that countries must agree to an ambitious climate finance goal that meets the scale of the challenge faced by developing countries.
Speaking to reporters in Rio on Sunday ahead of the G20 summit, the UN chief said that “now is the time for leadership by example from the world’s largest economies and emitters. Failure is not an option.”
Beyond the negotiations, other meetings and high-level events at COP29 touched on a range of topics – from the climate-health nexus to human development and education.
UN News/Nargiz Shekinskaya
Catarina from Brazil (left) and Francisco from Columbia (right) call for a UN children’s COP during a UNICEF press conference on youth-led climate action, held at COP29 in Baku
‘No decisions about us without us!’
Children and young people also made their voices heard at several lively and well attended events, as they called for protection from the effects of climate change; measures to prevent further destruction of the planet; and stepped-up efforts to preserve nature.
They urged decision-makers at COP29 to give them a seat at the climate negotiating table and to urgently consider organizing a separate UN climate conference specifically for children.
According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), climate change impacts the well-being of nearly 1 billion children – half of the world’s child population. Air pollution, infectious diseases, environmental degradation, and extreme weather events compromise children’s health, hinder their education, and deprive them of the nutrition they need to grow and thrive.
During heatwaves, young children are at risk of dehydration because their bodies cannot regulate temperature effectively. Floods and droughts impoverish families, leaving children to bear the consequences.
“Floods force school closures in Liberia, and children miss school,” said Juanita Tamba of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, the world’s largest volunteer movement for the empowerment of girls and young women.
“And during the dry season, we have to travel long distances to fetch water, and girls often face violence while trying to get water,” she told UN News.
UNICEF estimates that climate-related disasters cause approximately 40 million children to miss school each year, and the number is rising.
Zunaira, from Pakistan, one of the youngest participants in Baku, is attending COP29 with the support of UNICEF.
She told UN News: “When there are floods in my country, resources become limited, and there are not enough for everyone. Children, especially girls, are the most affected.”
Speaking at a UNICEF press conference on youth-led climate action, Rasul, a youth from Azerbaijan highlighted the dire condition of the Caspian Sea. “Due to rising temperatures and prolonged heatwaves, the water level in this amazing body of water is falling,” he said.
Baku is situated on the coast of the Caspian, the biggest inland body of water in the world. Rasul observed that the effects on Azerbaijan’s people are becoming more noticeable as the shoreline recedes, particularly the rising temperatures: “Both summer and winter in Azerbaijan are getting warmer.”
‘The future needs a voice!’
Catarina, a 16-year-old environmental activist from Salvador, Brazil, a city on the Atlantic Ocean, also shared her experiences.
A passionate surfer since childhood, she noted: “When I was nine years old, I actually felt the ocean warming. I was constantly in the water and… I realized something was wrong when [it] was much hotter than normal in areas I frequented. Then I noticed coral reefs covered in white spots – coral bleaching was something I had never seen before.”
Despite her young age, Catarina is an experienced climate activist. When she was just 12 years old, she joined other children in filing a complaint with the Geneva-based UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to protest government inaction on the climate crisis.
“It was the first time children brought a global complaint through a UN mechanism. We denounced five countries, and as a result, the UN officially recognized that children’s rights are affected by the lack of climate action,” Catarina said.
In an emotional speech, she emphasized: “Children have things to say, and we know how to say them. We need the space… not at COP30. We need a COP for children right now!”
According to Catarina, she was fairly certain that it might be too late to make significant change by the time she started her job or rose to a position of influence.
“Effective actions must happen now. That’s why children need to be included in the decision-making process. If we are the future, then this future needs to have a voice,” she concluded.
UNICEF Executive Director Katherine Russell has echoed Catarina’s sentiments, saying earlier this month: “At COP29 and through Nationally Determined Contributions, governments must prioritize children’s rights,”
“Children need to be included in the solutions, and global leaders must make health care, education, water, and sanitation systems more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Now is the time to act.”
Under the Paris Agreement, countries are required to submit updated national climate action plans, or NDC’s, next year at COP30.
In that context, UNICEF has warned that less than half of the current plans are child- or youth-sensitive, and only three percent were developed through participatory processes involving children.
Against this background, 16-year-old Payton Esau from Canada brought a manifesto to the climate conference, signed by 800 of her peers.
“We demand that governments communicate in a language young people can understand so we know what measures are being taken to combat climate change. Governments must act without delay to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius,” Payton told UN News.
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A new draft finance deal delivered to harried negotiators in Baku on Friday – the final scheduled day for the UN climate talks that have been under way for the past two weeks – proposes rich countries commit $250 billion a year to help vulnerable nations cope with our warming planet and to accelerate the global switch to renewable energy.
The new draft outcome text, which will surely push this round of talks into the weekend, called for the overall climate financing goal to reach “at least $1.3 trillion by 2035”, but left out specifics – grants, loans, or from the private sector – on how these funds will be raised.
Delegations in Baku are expected to keep negotiating on several key issues:
Specifics about the role of developed countries in providing this new finance.
A global goal on a just transition.
Clear way forward on both adaptation and mitigation.
The conference plenary is expected to reconvene on Saturday to work towards a final agreement.
‘A slap in the face’
Civil society climate and environment advocates were quick to react to this latest draft.
Some expressed their anger and disappointment at the draft by taping pieces of paper on their faces or foreheads with “Pay up!” written on them.
Kelly Stone from ActionAid International Foundation explained to UN News, “I am wearing this because we are calling on Global North countries to pay up for climate finance and the debt they owe to the Global South.”
Namrata Chowdhary from the 350.org, an international environmental organization, stated: “I can say it is disappointing [at] the very least.”
“It is a slap. It is an insult. It is shocking that we are at this state now. The rich countries are basically gambling with the lives of people in the developing nations and small islands,” she said.
Lidy Nacpil from Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development also expressed her disappointment. She also pointed out that “climate finance should not come in the form of loans because this will add to the debt burden”.
“One of the issues that is preventing the Global South from undertaking urgent climate actions and also from providing our people with the essential services we need is the debt burden,” she told UN News.
Jacobo Ocharan of Climate Action Network International said: “We urge all developing countries to have the courage in the negotiations to keep pushing, because this deal is terrible. We keep pushing on the idea that no deal is better than a bad deal.”
UNFCCC/Kiara Worth
Negotiating teams at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, pictured here during a break in the talks, are working to reach agreement on a new climate financing deal.
What’s at stake
COP29, formally the 29th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has been dubbed, the ‘climate finance COP’ because parties are expected to establish a new global climate finance target.
This target, or new collective quantified goal (NCQG), is seen as one of the summit’s main deliverables. It will replace the existing $100 billion goal that is due to expire in 2025.
Climate experts have pegged the new annual funding goal at between $1 trillion and $1.3 trillion, which would assist vulnerable nations to deal with loss and damage from climate change and to adapt to that change, including building out their own clean-energy systems.
Last week, in a move to support a new funding target, the World Bank Group and other multilateral development banks announced a significant boost in climate finance for low- and middle- income countries. This would reach $120 billion a year by 2030 with another $65 billion mobilised from the private sector, and a natural projection that would increase these values for 2035.
A significant breakthrough on the opening day at COP29 was the adoption of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, paving the way for a UN-backed global carbon market. This market will facilitate the trading of carbon credits, incentivizing countries to reduce emissions and invest in climate-friendly projects.
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The UN environment agency chief warned the COP29 climate summit in Baku on Friday that methane emissions must come down – “and come down fast” –to have any chance of controlling global warming.
That message comes after a new UN report revealed that, over the past two years, a sophisticated system that detects significant methane leaks has sent 1,200 notifications to governments and businesses, but only one per cent of those notifications have been answered.
Soundcloud
“We now have a proven system to identify major leaks so they can be quickly stopped – often with simple repairs. We are quite literally talking about screwing bolts tighter in some cases,” Inger Anderson said, launching the report, which highlights plume alerts from the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS).
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) chief’s alert was just one of the many key events taking place today at COP29. The latest annual UN climate summit has been underway in the Azerbaijan capital city since Monday and heads into the weekend with experts and government negotiators set for tough talks over climate finance and emission reductions. The goal is reaching an agreement by the time the meeting wraps up at the end of next week.
What is methane?
According to UNEP, human-caused methane emissions are responsible for roughly one-third of the planet’s current warming. Reducing these emissions is the fastest, most cost-effective way to slow global warming in the near-term and is essential to averting critical climate damage.
Three industries account for the majority of human-caused methane: agriculture, waste and fossil fuels. Coal mining contributes 12 per cent of emissions in the fossil fuel industry, while the extraction, processing, and distribution of oil and gas account for 23 per cent.
About 20 per cent of methane emissions in the waste sector come from wastewater and landfills. Finally, about 32 per cent of emissions in the agricultural sector come from grazing livestock and manure, while a further eight per cent come from rice farming.
Right now, there is roughly 2.5 times the amount of methane in the atmosphere than there was during pre-industrial times and emissions have been rising in recent years, according to the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
How can we slash methane?
While methane is considered an ‘aggressive greenhouse gas’ it is actually easier to reduce than carbon dioxide, or CO2, the better-known heat-trapping gas, because methane has a shorter lifespan in the atmosphere.
The UNEP-led International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) and the hi-tech MARS system use artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite data to detect gas releases and to help industry and countries identify and deal with large methane emissions.
“Governments and oil and gas companies must stop paying lip-service to this challenge when answers are staring them in the face,” stated Ms. Anderson, UNEP Executive Director.
Instead, they should recognize the significant opportunity presented “and start responding to alerts by plugging leaks that are spewing climate-warming methane into the atmosphere. The tools are ready, the targets are set – now it is time to act,” she said.
While more remains to be done, the report does highlight examples of nations and companies responding – proving the value of data-driven solutions such as MARS. In 2024, the IMEO facility verified action to reduce emissions from major leaks in Azerbaijan and the United States.
In Algeria and Nigeria, MARS notifications and engagement led to direct action from the governments and oil and gas companies to address large methane leaks. For example, UNEP says that in the Nigeria case, the six-month leak emitted methane equivalent to 400,000 cars being driven for a year and was able to be fixed in under two weeks by simply replacing faulty equipment.
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The high-level diplomatic push for climate action shifted southward on Tuesday as G20 leaders meeting in Rio sent a clear signal to negotiating teams at stalled UN climate talks in Baku on the need to rapidly and substantially ‘scale up climate finance from billions to trillions from all sources.’
While the statement from the world’s leading economies – and biggest emitters – stopped short of explicit reference of ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels’, to which all nations agreed last year at COP28 in Dubai, the G20 leaders did ‘welcome the balanced, ambitious outcome’ of those talks.
The G20 communiqué comes as the clock ticks down on COP29, which is set to wrap up this Friday in the Azerbaijan capital, Baku. The complex negotiations on new and significantly scaled-up funding for loss and damage and accelerated clean energy goals are moving slowly, as some countries dig into their positions while waiting for others to pull back from their own.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell who earlier warned against brinkmanship and what he called ‘you-first-ism’, said today that G20 leaders sent a clear message to their negotiators at COP29: “A successful new finance goal… is in every country’s clear interests.”
“Leaders of the world’s largest economies have also committed to driving forward financial reforms to put strong climate action within all countries’ reach,” said Mr. Stiell, who is the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which convenes that annual COP meetings.
He added: “This is an essential signal in a world plagued by debt crises and spiraling climate impacts, which are wrecking lives, disrupting supply chains, and fueling inflation in every economy.”
‘Failure is not an option’
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who is in Rio to participate in discussions on sustainable development the combat against poverty and hunger, as well as climate change, noted during a session earlier this morning that Brazil is set to host COP30 next year in the eastern Amazon region.
“Failure [in Baku] is not an option. It might compromise the ambition in the preparation of the new national climate action plans, with potential devastating impacts as irreversible tipping points are getting closer. The preservation of the Amazon is a case in point,” he said.
Missing the opportunity to reach agreement on a new climate finance deal in Baku “would inevitably also make the success of COP30 in Brazil much more difficult,” the Secretary-General said, and added: “I appeal to the sense of responsibility of all the countries around this table to help ensure that COP29 will be a success.”
Some climate and environment activists in Baku said they were cautiously optimistic about the communique, while others gave it a mixed verdict, saying the statement was vague on climate finance and failed to explicitly mention the need to transition away from fossil fuels.
Harjeet Singh, a climate activist who is the Global Engagement Director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, shared his views with UN News: “Developed nations remain unmoved, failing to quantify the trillions needed or to ensure these funds are provided as grants – essential for achieving climate justice.”
He added: “Their rehashed rhetoric offers no solace for the fraught COP29 negotiations, where we continue to see a deadlock on climate finance.”
Agrifood solutions
Alongside the negotiations, dozens of meetings and events are underway COP29, with the bulk of today’s activities focused on agriculture, food security and water. Delegations from around world shared experiences on sustainable food production practices and addressed agriculture-related challenges.
Just in time for COP29, new analysis from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has found that nearly all countries identify agrifood systems as a priority for climate change adaptation (94 per cent) and mitigation (91 per cent) in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
According to the FAO, this highlights the tremendous potential of agrifood systems as climate solutions, especially as countries prepare to submit their third round of NDCs in 2025.
“Agrifood systems are key to achieving food security and hold the solutions to multiple challenges: climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, and water scarcity,” FAO Assistant Director-General Viorel Gutu said, as climate change is a significant driver of food insecurity in a world where around 730 million people still live in hunger.
He noted, “Unfortunately, current financing and investment are not sufficient to affect the transformation we need.” He added that, over the past two decades, funding for agrifood systems has declined from 37 per cent to 23 per cent of all climate-related development finance.
While agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, if done right, the industry can also help overcome the climate crisis.
Also spotlighting the importance of agriculture – for climate action and broader sustainable development efforts – was Jemimah Njuki, Chief of Economic Empowerment and Head of the Economics Division at UN Women
In an interview with UN News, she called on governments to provide special support to women-led farms.
“Without women, we will not be able to feed the world,” Ms. Njuki stressed. At the same time, she lamented that women are less likely than men to own the land they cultivate, and it is more difficult for them to secure loans to develop their businesses.
It is not only women who are affected but also other vulnerable groups, such as Indigenous peoples.
Andrea Echiverri of the Global Forest Coalition, an international nongovernmental organization advocating for social and gender justice for rural communities, said that she believes current agricultural practices are destructive to the environment.
“Take livestock, for example, which requires more and more pasture, meaning forests continue to be cut down, and Indigenous peoples are being expelled from their lands,” Ms. Echiverri said.
Governments, she emphasized, do not pay enough attention to the sustainability of livestock farming, although this industry accounts for about 16 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions and 15 per cent of all fossil fuels consumed.
UN News
View of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku from the Caspian Sea
Action on Water
Elsewhere in the giant Baku Stadium complex where COP29 has been running since last Monday, water-related challenges were in the spotlight at a panel discussion where experts and participants stressed that floods, droughts, shrinking water sources, and rising water levels threaten the well-being of populations, provoke forced displacement, and undermine food security.
For example, in countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, glaciers are shrinking rapidly, threatening long-term water supplies.
“The climate knows no borders, and water knows no borders,” emphasized Sonja Koppel, Secretary of the UN Water Convention. “At the same time, water can be both the cause of conflict and the key to its resolution.”
Speaking to UN News, she noted that 153 countries share water bodies with other nations, but only 28 per cent of them have agreements with their neighbors to cooperate most of their shared water resources. One successful example is the Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which have overcome differences and established cross-border cooperation on the Chu Talas River.
Ms. Koppel called on countries to use water resources to establish peace with their neighbors and effectively manage shared natural resources.
Formally the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes, the treaty is a unique international legal instrument and intergovernmental platform which aims to ensure the sustainable use of transboundary water resources by facilitating cooperation. Initially negotiated as a regional instrument, it has been opened for accession to all UN Member States in 2016.
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As intense round-the-clock COP29 climate talks enter their final stretch in Baku, delegates on Wednesday are eagerly awaiting updates on the progress of negotiations regarding a new climate finance target. Meanwhile, high-level discussions also continued, with a focus on key issues such as urbanization, transport, and tourism.
The source of the hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of funds that developing nations say will be needed to adapt to a fast-changing climate – governments, multilateral banks, or the private sector – has become a major subject of contention during the last eight days.
The good, the bad about cities
Meanwhile, away from the COP29 negotiations, the urgent need to cut emissions, adapt to a changing climate, lessen the effects of the crisis, and shield people from catastrophic weather events are among the themes in the many speeches given by government officials, heads of UN organizations, climate experts and leaders of civil society.
Home to half the world’s population, with some 2.4 billion more expected to move to urban areas within the next 20 years, cities contribute significantly to global emissions while also being disproportionately impacted the effects of climate change.
In its latest World Cities report, UN-Habitat, the UN agency dealing with human settlements and sustainable urban development, says billions of people currently living in cities could experience an additional temperature rise of at least 0.5 degrees Celsius by 2040.
At the same time, measures to offset the impact of climate change on urban populations still do not match the scale and intensity of the challenges faced by cities.
Addressing a ministerial meeting at COP29 today, Anaclaudia Rossbach, the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, warned that rapid and unplanned urban development pose threats to biodiversity, the environment, and food security.
This also leads to social fragmentation and financial deterioration. While the construction sector accounts for 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, the UN-Habitat chief said 96 homes need to be built every day to meet the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
As such adequate funding and cooperation at all levels are necessary to address these twin challenges.
“There is only one road to pursue, one track, one we walk collectively where social, urban, and climate needs are addressed harmoniously over solid economic ground,” Ms. Rossbach stressed.
She added: “Yes, we do need more finance flowing to cities. We need to plan and prioritize. Land is scarce and needs to fulfill its social and ecological functions. Social and housing needs are vast.”
“We take care of people; people take care of the planet. And we should leave no one behind,” she concluded.
UNFCCC/Kiara Worth
Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, addresses a Ministerial meeting on urbanization and climate change, at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Emissions rising
In a separate session today, speakers noted an ongoing issue that could seriously hamper many efforts to address climate-driven impacts in cities, and elsewhere.
According to the latest report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), global emissions increased by 1.3 per cent in 2023 – when they should have decreased.
“To limit warming to 1.5°C, updated National Contributions – climate commitments that each country makes – should enable a 42 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 57 per cent by 2035,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.
She highlighted that 52 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions come from just 25 megacities, including, among others, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Moscow, and New York City.
“This means the actions you take in setting standards for energy efficiency, determining energy sources, managing waste and methane emissions, improving public transport, encouraging electric mobility, and promoting pedestrian-friendly cities can make a massive impact,” she told mayors from around the world gathered at the event.
Tourism and climate change
For the first time ever the issue of tourism is being discussed at a COP, formally the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in the context of its impact on climate.
In 2023, the tourism sector recovered from the doldrums of the COVID-19 pandemic, as international arrivals rebounded to almost 90 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. That year, the sector contributed three per cent to the global gross domestic product (GDP), amounting to $3.3 trillion, and employed one in every ten people worldwide.
In an interview with UNifeed, Ms. Andersen reiterated her call on stakeholders at COP29 to make sure tourism industry lessens its carbon footprint.
“We need to understand that the tourism sector is impacted by climate change. And so, it is both a victim of and a contributor to climate change. That is why having this first tourism focus at a COP is very important.”
Renewable energy transition
Meanwhile, Selwyn Hart, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Climate Action, reminded attendees at COP29 that humanity already has the knowledge and tools needed to effectively combat climate change.
“A revolution in the transition to renewable energy is already underway. It cannot be stopped,” he said.
“However, the question remains whether the speed of this transition will prevent its worst consequences. And secondly, whether it will be fair enough to reduce inequality within and between countries.”
UNFCCC/Kiara Worth
Negotiating teams at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, pictured here during a break in the talks, are working to reach agreement on a new climate financing deal.
Will a breakthrough at COP29 be possible?
The results of the negotiations in Baku will provide answers to some of these questions.
The focus of the Baku talks is on agreeing a new climate finance goal that will provide countries – especially the most vulnerable – with the means to take stronger climate action. At stake are trillions of dollars that developing countries need to mitigate the effects of climate change and adapt to rapidly changing conditions.
According to UNEP, Cedric Schuster, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), stated yesterday that the “top-level priority is minimum allocation floors for small island developing States of $39 billion a year, and $220 billion a year for least developed countries, both in grant-equivalent terms. Any [outcome] texts that do not include these aspects will not be acceptable for these groups.”
Sierra Leone’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Jiwoh Abdulai, emphasized the concern many developing countries share, namely, the form this money should take.
“Don’t use the word ‘donor,’” he said on Tuesday. “That implies charity. There is a climate debt that needs to be paid. We are talking about lives and livelihoods. Our people are paying with their lives.”
Discussions also touched on the very definition of a ‘developing country.’ Some negotiators have argued that countries like China or certain Gulf states no longer fall into this category, given the growth of their economies since the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992.
Cecilia Kinuthia-Njenga, Director of the Division of Intergovernmental Support and Collective Progress of the UNFCCC, noted that every delegation comes to COP29 with its aspirations and hopes.
“In multilateralism, the results are sometimes different from what any one country imagines. This underscores the importance of flexibility, cooperation, and the willingness to adapt to changing circumstances and international relations,” she said.
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ADB logo Asian Development Bank North American Representative Office 30 Years of Partnership
Samuel Tumiwa, NARO Representative:
[Music] The North American Representative Office was established 30 years ago, in 1995. Our main job is to maintain a strong relationship with the US government and the Canadian government. One of the things that’s become more and more important is that we also share with the people here in the US and Canada what we do in the developing countries in Asia and the Pacific.
Alain Borghijs, NARO Deputy Representative:
It’s crucial that we work closely with our government partners because they guide us on their development policy priorities. I should also mention our close collaboration with other financial institutions based here in DC: the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and International Monetary Fund. Our corporate-level work here complements the on-the-ground collaboration that we have in the developing countries.
Scott Morris, Vice-President (East and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific):
If I look at the US in particular, they have been a key architect of the broader MDB Evolution agenda, which is enabling us as an institution to up our game and provide more resources to these countries. When I look to Canada, I see critical intellectual leadership, particularly in providing us a course to follow on a gender-based strategy.
Roberta Casali, Vice-President (Finance and Risk Management):
Thought leadership and important policy dialogues in the US and Canada have strengthened our innovative finance and balance sheet optimization solutions.
Yingming Yang, Vice-President (South, Central and West Asia):
Both the US and Canada have worked to support telecommunication activities and small businesses. US and Canadian technology and innovation have been essential to our work in Asia and the Pacific.
Xinning Jia, Director General of Strategy, Policy, and Partnerships:
The United States is a founding member of ADB and the co-largest shareholder, promoting excellence in ADB’s strategy and policy direction. Canada is a founding member of ADB, always promoting gender equality. Canada is supporting ADB’s climate finance through the Canadian Climate Fund for the private sector in Asia.
Suzanne Gaboury, Director General of Private Sector Operations:
Both the US and Canada are great supporters of the private sector, which is really important for us. As a consequence, we have many Canadian clients and many US clients that come to visit us in the Philippines. It’s also really important that we come here to North America to visit them in their home countries. Last year, for every dollar that we invested, we mobilized another $2.7. I think that’s remarkable because we need to mobilize capital into the private markets and help capital market development. Part of our job is to be a financial intermediary in these markets.
Steve Goldfinch, Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist:
NARO provides an important link across ADB’s developing member countries in Asia and the Pacific and the governments of the US and Canada. Partners and organizations such as the World Bank and think tanks based here in DC make DC not only a center of development finance but also of development thinking. From the MDBs headquartered here to the think tanks and policy centers, NARO’s role is really that of a convener, broker, and connector. This is critical in serving ADB’s member countries.
When I think about the theme of partnerships in line with the 30th anniversary, I see that as not just financial partnerships but also knowledge collaboration. We can do more in terms of coming together and convening power, bringing networks together, whether it be academia, civil society, government, private sector, or diaspora communities. I think there’s a lot that we can do in terms of the theme of partnerships, but again, really trying to drive progress on our shared goals within the region. The last 30 years have seen incredible innovation with partnerships between Canada, the US, and the ADB, and we’re really looking forward to seeing what the future holds.
UN refugee agency, UNHCR, on Thursday launchedthe Refugees for Climate Action initiative in a bid to mobilise the world’s forcibly displaced to join the fight against global warming.
Actor and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Theo James kicked the campaign off at the COP29 Climate Conference in Baku, alongside a group of eight displaced people with first-hand knowledge of how the climate crisis is impacting families.
The actor has been lending his voice to UNHCR’s urgent call to address the impact of record rising temperatures on displaced communities.
Passionate about climate activism, the refugees taking part in the initiative will be advocating for climate justice and demanding a voice in policy discussions.
The Refugees for Climate Action group was initially convened in 2023 by UNHCR to create a space where refugees and displaced communities on the frontlines of climate change could share their unique experiences and knowledge.
Theo James calls for more action
Following a recent visit to Mauritania, Mr. James said he was committed to supporting their efforts. His own grandfather was a refugee who fled Europe for the safety of Syria during World War Two: “I’ve seen the profound injustice of the climate crisis on refugees, and the urgency is real,” he said.
“Yet, I’ve also seen the resilience of those affected – refugees are finding solutions, and they must be heard”, he added, calling on leaders to put the displaced at the centre of the conversation.
Refugee climate activists
The network brings together refugees and displaced people from countries including Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, Bangladesh and Brazil, each with lived experiences of displacement interlinked with conflict and climate change, and who are already driving climate action initiatives in their communities.
“We refugees are on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” said Najeeba Wazefadost, a member of the group and founder of the Asia Pacific Network for Refugees (APNOR) who empowers Afghan women through solar energy to support their businesses.
“For us, climate change is not an abstract threat. It is a daily fight for survival, stability and dignity. We urge leaders to listen to our stories and to take decisive action that includes us, supports our resilience and empowers refugee-led solutions”, added Ms. Wazefadost, who fled Afghanistan in 2000.
Najeeba Wazefadost, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Asia Pacific Network of Refugees.
Impacts or war and climate emergency
Other members of the group include Mohammed Anowar, a Rohingya refugee based in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, who trains fellow refugees on flood resilience; Eman Al-Hamali, an internally displaced woman from Yemen, who leads a solar microgrid project providing affordable energy to vulnerable households in her community; and Ermano Prévoir, from Haiti, now living in Brazil, who is an agronomist looking at sustainable farming techniques to improve food security.
“As refugees and displaced people, we have intimately witnessed the profound impacts of war on our lives and communities – and now a global climate emergency,” said Opira Bosco Okot, a refugee climate activist living in Uganda, who uses communication technologies to advocate for refugee access to climate policy discussions.
In its first ever climate report released on Tuesday, UNHCR said three out of four forcibly displaced people worldwide – 90 million out of 120 million – lived in countries exposed to high to extreme climate change impacts.
UNHCR commitment
The initiative embodies UNHCR’s commitment to place displaced communities at the centre of climate action. The group will serve as a consultative body on climate issues, contribute to key global and local climate events, and work to ensure that the voices and perspectives of refugees and displaced people are integrated into UNHCR’s work and international climate discussions.
UNHCR provides members of the group with opportunities for training and capacity building, helping them sharpen their advocacy skills and expand their influence in key climate events such as COP29.
China is a doer in climate response and is committed to fulfilling its pledged goals on carbon peak and carbon neutrality in its own way and at its own speed, foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Tuesday.
Guo made the remarks at a daily news briefing in response to the question of when China will submit its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) since countries need to submit their NDCs by February 2025 according to the requirements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
China is now working to set the new NDCs in accordance with the Paris Agreement and the requirements of the first global stocktake, and will inform the UNFCCC secretariat of China’s 2035 NDCs this year in due course based on national circumstances, capability and stage of development, the spokesperson said.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR is deeply alarmed by the ongoing situation in Mozambique, where post-election unrest has forced thousands to flee their homes, including to seek safety in neighbouring countries.
The violence comes after the top court in Mozambique confirmed on 23 December that the ruling Frelimo party won the disputed presidential election held in October, sparking protests.
The southern African country is also still recovering from the devastating effects of Cyclone Chido, which hit just weeks ago.
The current situation is hampering vital humanitarian efforts for communities who lost everything in the storm, while challenging the response to assist them.
Fleeing to Malawi and Eswatini
UNHCR and the Government of Malawi have identified around 2,000 people who crossed the border during the past week, while another 1,000 entered Eswatini.
Among the new arrivals are refugees and asylum seekers of various nationalities who have been living in Mozambique, and the agency is raising concerns over the escalating displacement and its impact on t affected populations.
Chansa Kapaya, UNHCR’s Regional Director for Southern Africa, said refugees and civilians are both facing immense risks, losing their livelihoods and relying on humanitarian assistance.
“While we are grateful for the generosity of Malawi and Eswatini, immediate support is crucial to tackle the worsening crisis and prevent further suffering,” she said.
Overcrowded shelters, insufficient food
People who fled to Malawi reported that they escaped attacks and looting in their villages. Many walked long distances and crossed the Shire River on foot or by small boats. Among them are pregnant women, elderly persons and children who have had little to eat.
UNHCR has provided tents, blankets and hygiene kits to assist the most vulnerable, but noted that significant humanitarian assistance gaps remain.
Shelters are overcrowded, sanitation facilities are inadequate, and access to food and clean water is insufficient, the agency said. Furthermore, over 1,000 people are sharing a single latrine at some sites, significantly increasing the risk of disease.
Additional resources essential
In Eswatini, many of the new arrivals report losing their shops and businesses due to the violence.
The Malindza refugee reception centre, originally designed for 250 people, is now housing over 1,000. UNHCR is collaborating with local authorities and partners to provide assistance, but said additional resources are urgently needed to sustain the response and prepare for more newcomers.
The agency warned that the situation in both Malawi and Eswatini is becoming critical, with the rising number of refugees and asylum-seekers straining already overstretched resources.
While underlining its commitment to work with local authorities and partners, UNHCR urged the international community to provide support to host countries and affected populations.
There can be “no life without healthy land as we cannot survive,” according to an Olympic athlete who has been attending a global meeting being held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, focused on halting desertification and land loss and promoting the restoration and sustainable use of land.
Asmaa Niang, who is from Morocco, spoke to UN News at the UN Convention to Control Desertification (UNCCD) meeting known as COP16 and explained why as an athlete she has the “responsibility to give back and inspire others to protect the land.”
As a five-time African judo champion and Olympic athlete in Rio de Janeiro (2016) and Tokyo (2020) she knows a lot about resilience and how to defeat adversaries, experience she has used to fight desertification in Morocco and across the world.
“Judo is a sport based on the philosophy of leading a positive life, it is also a sport of resilience,” she said. “So, I have a responsibility to give back to society by using this experience to inform people about desertification issues and inspire them to action.”
MINUSMA/Marco Dormino
Mali, in the Sahel, is facing desertification challenges
Globally, UNCCD says that “the future of our land in on the line,” as 100 million hectares (the size of Egypt) of healthy and productive land is degraded each year.
Droughts are hitting harder and more often and three out of four people in the world are projected to face water scarcity by 2050.
That loss of land is affecting people across the world and specifically nomad peoples in Morocco and other countries that Asmaa Niang has visited.
“Nomadic groups are a symbol of freedom,” she said, because of their peripatetic lifestyle. “In Morocco, Kenya and Mongolia, I have seen how desertification and drought has driven them to extreme vulnerability and changed their way of life,” adding that “their freedom is linked to our freedom, as we are all dependent on the land for our survival.”
UNCCD has been working with athletes since the Paris Olympic Games as part of its Sport4Land campaign, leveraging their celebrity and influence to advocate for communities affected by desertification and land loss, but also to highlight the local and global solutions to restore land and use it in a more sustainable way.
“Healthy land provides nearly 95 per cent of the food we eat. It gives us shelter, provides livelihoods and protects us from escalating droughts, floods and forest fires,” said UNCCD.
The policy makers, experts, the private and civil society sectors as well as youth and sportspeople who are coming together in Riyadh are focusing on a number of goals including accelerating the restoration of degraded land by 2030 and beyond.
“Restoring our land is about more than improving the environment,” according to UNCCD, “it’s about creating better quality of life, ensuring food security, and driving sustainable growth.”
Turkana County in the north of Kenya regularly faces drought conditions.
As droughts, floods and forest fires become more regular and intense across the world, population growth and unsustainable production and consumption patterns are fueling demand for natural resources.
By 2050, 10 billion people will share the planet and depend on healthy land for their livelihoods.
“I see people are engaged at this meeting,” said Judo Olympian Asmaa Niang, “and if everyone makes even just small changes, for example, changing their consumption patterns, eradicating plastic, then we can treat the earth in a kinder way and build greater resilience.”
Some one billion people globally under the age of 25 live in regions where they depend on the land and natural resources for jobs and livelihoods, according to the UN, but their future is increasingly under threat due to desertification and land degradation.
Across the world young and old are responding to this threat by adopting new approaches to working on the land that may not only prevent more degradation but may also provide new livelihood opportunities.
The issue of desertification, drought and land restoration are being discussed at a global meeting of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which continues in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, until 13 December.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson
Communities in southern Madagascar are planting sisal to protect the land from erosion and degradation.
Drawing a line in the sand in Madagascar
In the south of the island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa, productive land has been lost at an alarming pace to sand driven inland across farmland by powerful seasonal winds.
The communities that live here are amongst the most vulnerable in Madagascar and as the sandy soils they farm become ever more degraded, they can no longer cultivate their land and their livelihoods are threatened.
But now, with the support of the UN, communities have been growing sisal plants, which are resistant to severe conditions and well adapted to a more arid environment.
When cultivated in grids, they can help to secure the topsoil and prevent further erosion. This means fewer sandstorms and more opportunities to work the land.
“Before on the land where we are standing there was nothing here, just sand. So, we could not grow our crops. But now, we have planted sisal which has been good for the village,” said Lydia Monique Anjarasoa.
Listen toThe Lid is Onpodcast fromUN Newsto find out more about how communities are holding back the winds of change.
Thadiq National Park manager Abdullah Ibrahim Alissa surveys saplings at a tree nursery in a desert area of central Saudi Arabia.
Regreening the desert in Saudi Arabia
In Saudi Arabia, Abdullah Ibrahim Alissa described how the arid land he grew up on to the north of the country’s capital, Riyadh, deteriorated and suffered the effects of desertification.
The land falls within the rocky Thadiq National Park, known for its sweeping valleys. As its current manager, Mr. Alissa took on a project to rehabilitate the 660-square-kilometre-park. This has involved planting 250,000 trees and one million shrubs as well as the construction of terraced dams to catch the area’s sparse rainwater.
“Through afforestation projects, protection and care, the area has completely changed,” said Mr. Alissa.
Restoring Thadiq National Park is part of Saudi Arabia’s wider plan to re-green huge swathes of desert at home and abroad. The push is designed to tackle drought, desertification and land degradation, which are threatening countries across West Asia and North Africa.
Three quarters of the arable land in the region is already degraded, and 60 per cent of the population is already experiencing water scarcity, a number set to increase by 2050.
Saudi Arabia has partnered with UNCCD to launch the G20 global land initiative, which aims to cut land degradation by 50 per cent by 2040.
WFP/Pamela Gentile
In Niger, 1.8 million people are benefitting from World Food Programme (WFP) integrated resilience initiatives..
Harvesting hope in Niger
Climate change, land degradation, soaring price and conflict have made the already challenging lives of farmers in the Sahel region of Africa even more precarious, but communities have come together, with the support of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) integrated resilience programme, to cultivate a better life.
Foureyratou Saidou, a single mother of four and recent widow from the Tilaberi area of Niger, is one of around three million people in the region who have benefitted from the initiative, which promotes land rehabilitation, livelihood diversification, school meals, nutrition interventions and improved agricultural production and market access.
“In this garden, we now grow and harvest onions, tomatoes, lettuce and other vegetables that we eat and that we can sell in the local market,” she said. “Before, we didn’t have much to live for. Now we do, and we don’t want to leave.”
With better access to markets, Ms. Saidou is able to sell the food she does not consume at home and provide for her children.
WFP/Souleymane Ag Anara
An aerial view of WFP-supported community gardens in Niger’s Tillaberi region, which are part of a broader, multi-partner Sahel resilience initiative.
Brazil’s first-ever Minister of Indigenous Peoples and an initiative promoting sustainable agriculture in Egypt are among the six recipients of the 2024 Champions of the Earth award, announced by the UN EnvironmentProgramme(UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya, on Tuesday.
The laureates were honoured for their outstanding leadership, brave actions and sustainable solutions to tackle land degradation, drought and desertification.
Protecting people and the planet
The Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour and recognizes trailblazers from the public and private sectors, civil society and academia who are at the forefront of efforts to protect both people and the planet.
It has been presented annually since 2005, with122 laureates to date.
This year, nominations focused on finding champions who are restoring degraded land, increasing drought resilience and preventing desertification.
Honouring ‘extraordinary individuals’
UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen noted that almost 40 per cent of the world’s land is already degraded. At the same time, desertification is on the rise and devastating droughts are becoming more regular.
“The good news is that solutions already exist today, and around the world, extraordinary individuals and organizations are demonstrating that it is possible to defend and heal our planet,” she said.
“The efforts of the 2024 Champions of the Earth stand tall as a reminder that the fight to protect our land, our rivers and our oceans is a fight we can win. With the right policies, scientific breakthroughs, system reforms, activism, as well as the vital leadership and wisdom of Indigenous Peoples, we can restore our ecosystems.”
Meet the Champions
Sonia Guajajara, Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples, was honoured in the Policy Leadership category.
Ms. Guajajara has been advocating for Indigenous rights for more than two decades. She became Brazil’s first Minister of Indigenous Peoples and the country’s first female Indigenous minister in 2023. Under her leadership, 10 territories have been recognized as Indigenous land to ward off deforestation, illegal logging, and drug traffickers.
Amy Bowers Cordalis, an Indigenous rights advocate, received the award in the Inspiration and Action category
Ms. Cordalis is using her legal expertise and passion for restoration to secure a better future for the Yurok tribe and the Klamath River in the United States. UNEP said her work to restore the river ecosystem and encourage the adoption of sustainable fishing practices demonstrate how bold environmental action can bring significant positive change, while upholding Indigenous Peoples’ rights and livelihoods.
Gabriel Paun, a Romanian environmental defender, was honoured in the Inspiration and Action category.
Mr. Paun is the founder of Agent Green, a non-governmental organization (NGO) which has been helping save thousands of hectares of precious biodiversity in the Carpathians since 2009 by exposing the destruction and illegal logging of Europe’s last old growth forest.
He has received death threats and been physically attacked for his work in documenting deforestation in an area that is vital for the ecosystem and supports unique biodiversity such as endangered lynx and wolves.
Chinese scientist Lu Qi was honoured in the Science and Innovation category. He has worked in science and policy sectors for three decades, helping China reverse degradation and shrink its deserts
As Chief Scientist of the Chinese Academy of Forestry and founding President of the Institute of Great Green Wall, Mr. Lu has played a key role in implementing the world’s largest afforestation project, establishing expert research networks and partnerships, and boosting multilateral cooperation to stem desertification, land degradation and drought.
Madhav Gadgil, an Indian ecologist was named as the laureate in the Lifetime Achievement category. He has spent decades protecting people and the planet through research and community engagement.
“From landmark environmental impact assessments of state and national policies to grassroots environmental engagement, Gadgil’s work has greatly influenced public opinion and official policies on the protection of natural resources.
“He is renowned for his seminal work in the ecologically fragile Western Ghats region of India, which is a unique global biodiversity hotspot,” said UNEP.
The SEKEM initiative in Egypt was honoured in the Entrepreneurial Vision category for helping farmers transition to more sustainable agriculture.
Its promotion of biodynamic agriculture plus afforestation and reforestation work has been transforming large swathes of desert into thriving agricultural business, advancing sustainable development across the country.
A woman carries a baby and a water container as she walks across arid land in Niger.
Restoring the world’s ecosystems
Roughly 3.2 billion people worldwide are currently threatened by desertification, according to UNEP. Additionally, by 2050, more than three-quarters of the world’s population is expected to be affected by droughts.
Led by UNEP and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and supported by partners, it aims to prevent, halt, and reverse the loss and degradation of ecosystems worldwide to revive billions of hectares of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
The announcement of the 2024 Champions of the Earth on 10 December coincides with Human Rights Day and the Resilience Day at the 16th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Farmers in Saudi Arabia are being encouraged to adopt new irrigation techniques as water and land resources are put under increasing pressure.
Mohamed Alnwairan stands in front of a verdant citrus tree which four months hence will bear his first harvest of limes.
A former businessman turned farmer, he has been cultivating land in Al Ahsa, in the eastern deserts of Saudi Arabia, for the last 15 years. Now, due to climate change and dwindling supplies of water, he is adopting new technology as well as a new crop.
“We are very proud of our limes in this part of Saudi Arabia. You can feel the citrus oil on your hands when you touch them,” he told UN News. “They remind us of our childhood, and now I have the chance to grow them commercially.”
Mr. Alnwairan looks across his small farm which is located in an oasis near the city of Hofuf. It is approximately a thousand square metres, and the sandy soil is dotted with some 120 two-metre-high trees that have been growing for almost four years.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson
A farm worker tends to a lime tree irrigated through smart technology.
Smart irrigation
“On my left are trees which have been irrigated using innovative techniques and to the right are the ones I have been hand watering using traditional methods,” he said. “The irrigated trees are thriving more.”
The difference in colour, shape and sturdiness is noticeable, and their robust health is largely due to the way they have been watered.
Mr. Alnwairan’s farm is piloting what is known as smart irrigation, a resource-efficient approach to growing crops, which is being promoted in this region by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
He uses an app on his smartphone to monitor the soil and track and deliver the water his lime trees need to flourish. When it rains, sensors register the damp conditions and pause scheduled water provisions. If the trees are not getting enough water, the app can instruct a greater water flow, if necessary, all remotely.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson
Mahmoud Abdelnabby is an irrigation extension expert with FAO.
Water stress
Water used to be plentiful in the oasis farmland, but reduced rainfall due to climate change and the cultivation of water-thirsty rice, a local specialty, has driven the water table lower making water more problematic and pricier to access.
Mr. Alnwairan had to stop farming rice on another nearby plot when the water in his well fell to 300 metres below ground.
Mahmoud Abdelnabby, an irrigation expert with FAO, said that “smart irrigation can reduce water consumption by 70 per cent and is more sustainable for the environment.”
Farmers don’t currently have to pay for water, but automation provides other savings as fewer farm workers are needed to water the trees, a time consuming and onerous job during the intense heat of the Saudi growing season.
The technology whilst advanced is readily available on the local market and although financial investment is required, “it pays off in higher yields and a lower wage bill,” according to FAO’s Mr. Abdelnabby.
FAO/Mohammed Saud Alhumaid
Mohamed Alnwairan (centre) explains how his farm has benefited from smart irrigation techniques.
Land lost
As the climate continues to change across the desert lands of Saudi Arabia and drought conditions increase in frequency, farmers are also fighting desertification and the loss of productive land.
Jaffar Almubarak, who works for the Saudi Irrigation Organization, an FAO partner, said, “smart irrigation is part of an integrated response to climate change, which includes soil management and the choice of crops,” adding that “such an approach can maximise the use of water, but also help to rehabilitate land and work against desertification.”
In December 2024, global leaders from governments, international organizations, the private sector and civil society came together in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, under the auspices of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to discuss solutions to drought, land loss and land restoration.
Globally, up to 40 per cent of the world’s land is degraded, which has dire consequences for the climate, biodiversity and people’s livelihoods.
Like farmers across the world, Mr. Alnwairan exercises his long experience and expertise to increase his crop yields, driven by necessity and opportunity.
“I’m considering adopting smart irrigation across my farm to focus on mainly the cultivation of lime, for which I have a ready market,” he said.
If other farmers follow his lead, water supplies will go further in these arid lands while cultivation will help to slow down desertification.
Panama is exposed to a variety of hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, epidemics, wildfires, landslides, and urban riverine and coastal floods. Climate-related hazards are increasing in severity due to climate change and are particularly affecting poor and vulnerable populations. In response to these increasing threats, Panama has steadily shifted its focus from a centralized disaster response approach toward more comprehensive and inclusive disaster risk management by integrating disaster risk reduction in its development and planning policies.[1] In support of these national policies, one of the areas of change in the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2021-2025 for Panama is related to climate change, integrated environmental management and disaster risk reduction.
The creation of the Cabinet for Integrated Disaster Risk Management/Gabinete de Gestión Integral de Riesgos a Desastres (GIRD) was an important milestone for the integration of climate and disaster risks into national cross-sectoral development strategies/plans in Panama. The President of the Republic of Panama chairs the GIRD, which reflects the importance that integrated disaster risk management is attributed in the country. United Nations organizations in Panama, including UNDRR, UNDP, and the World Bank, provide strategic support to the GIRD, which brings together 14 government ministries, and invited partners. The Technical Secretariat of the GIRD aims to improve the capacity to reduce the loss of life and infrastructure through prevention, risk reduction and preparedness for hazard events, is chaired by the Government Ministry / Ministerio de Gobierno and consists of 3 working groups: Risk Knowledge, Risk Reduction, and Response Management.
The approval of the National Policy for Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management (PNGIRD) 2022-2030 and the National Strategic Plan for Disaster Risk Management (PENGIRD) 2022-2030 in October 2022 showed tangible progress in the development and implementation of national disaster risk reduction strategies and plans. In 2023, the National Operational Emergency and Disaster Response Plan 2022-2030 was approved, as well as the Post-Disaster Recovery Framework 2022-2030. A stress test of infrastructure resilience was undertaken to define strategic actions to strengthen resilience principles in governance of infrastructure systems and their critical functions. Support by the United Nations organizations has been provided for reconstruction and recovery measures that include elements of disaster preparedness and “build back better”. Through the adoption of policies and the implementation of disaster preparedness initiatives in education centres, Panama is taking steps to ensure that resilience is at the forefront of post-disaster recovery efforts.
Since the first meeting of the GIRD in February 2022, the UN has successfully provided policy, institutional and programmatic advice to the GIRD, emphasizing the importance of early warning systems in mitigating the impacts of climate-related disasters. In the area of preparedness and anticipatory action, the establishment of the GIRD and the subsequent adoption of the National Strategic Plan for Disaster Risk Management (PENGIRD), as well as initiatives such as the pilot training programme for educators in Herrera and Panamá Oeste show that there is a commitment to improving prevention at the local level.
Multi-hazard risk analysis has been incorporated into the planning processes for humanitarian aid, development and peacebuilding. The establishment of the GIRD and the development of comprehensive disaster risk management strategies and plans reflect a commitment to mainstreaming risk analysis across governance sectors and ensure that planning efforts take into account the vulnerabilities and challenges posed by climate-related disasters. The GIRD includes the National Secretary of Persons with Disabilities, the National Women’s Institute, as well as the Secretary of Childhood, Youth and Family, and undertakes efforts to boost inclusive disaster risk reduction measures. For example, the GIRD regional multi-hazard exercise in Panama City, included a Gender Observatory, which was supported by UN organizations.
Through joint efforts, and by working closely with government partners, such as the Ministry of Education (MEDUCA) and Ministry of Social Development (MIDES), the United Nations system has promoted progress in Disaster Risk Reduction. Effective communication and the inclusion of different points of view, especially adapting to the needs and priorities of local communities, were crucial for the recent approval of the National Policy and Strategic Plan for Disaster Risk Management. The United Nations Resident Coordinator plays a crucial role in working together towards a safer and more resilient future by fostering relationships and ensuring that everyone’s views are taken into account.
The support provided by United Nations organizations has led to significant changes in the short term, particularly in the implementation of comprehensive disaster risk reduction strategies and measures through the GIRD. These changes immediately improve preparedness and response mechanisms and promote resilience to climate-related disasters. In the long term, these efforts help to mitigate the impact of hazard events, such as increasingly unpredictable and extreme climate-related events. By integrating risk-based approaches into national development frameworks, the foundation is laid for sustainable disaster risk reduction practices, reducing climate-related disasters and their socio-economic impacts.
UN organizations in Panama are committed to continuing to support disaster risk reduction[2] and have made this a priority for 2024, with a focus on 1) promoting greater inter-agency cooperation, streamlining joint efforts to maximize resources, expertise and knowledge sharing; 2) continuing to align initiatives with national priorities and leveraging partnerships with civil society, local authorities, communities and the private sector; 3) investing in innovative technologies such as early warning systems and risk mapping tools that can strengthen preparedness and response capabilities; 4) prioritizing capacity building and knowledge transfer to vulnerable regions to ensure sustainable resilience; 5) emphasizing inter-agency work promoting a more coherent and coordinated approach, which ultimately increases the effectiveness of global efforts to address climate-related challenges.
[2] In line with the 2021-2025 UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework’s Result 3: ‘By 2025, Panama is resilient and has implemented public policies for climate change adaptation and mitigation, land degradation neutrality, biodiversity protection, integrated environmental management, and reduction of disaster and health crisis risks, with a territorial, intercultural, human rights, gender, and lifecycle approach.’
Moldova is highly vulnerable to landslides, droughts, extreme temperature and severe weather events and floods, exacerbated by climate change, with droughts posing the greatest risk to communities and the economy. Water scarcity and forest fires are increasingly posing a threat to natural ecosystems, agriculture, and human settlements. Economic losses due to climate-induced disasters have caused economic losses of an estimated US$ 4 million per year, with scenarios indicating that the country could progressively trend towards a more arid environment, with the possibility of intensified droughts and fires.[1] Moldova was affected by 16 major earthquakes within the past 200 years. The area of its capital Chisinau is particular vulnerable to seismic risks due to its location and the structural vulnerability of its older buildings.[2]
Chisinau municipality has been part of UNDRR’s Making Cities Resilient 2030initiative aimed at enhancing local resilience through advocacy, knowledge sharing, and city-to-city learning networks since 2021 and is committed to increasing its resilience and readiness for forthcoming challenges, encompassing disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Building on several multi-stakeholder workshops,[3] Chisinau municipality, in February 2023, initiated the development of a Resilience Strategy for the period of 2024-2030, including an action plan for 2024-2027. Over the course of the remainder of the year, local authorities, in collaboration with UNDRR, organized an interactive and participatory process involving diverse stakeholders, including central authorities, civil society, citizens, the private sector, and representatives of international development partners such as the International Organization for Migration, the World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. These discussions and workshops helped to better understand the needs and of the local community, and to identify priority areas for resilience building: (1) strengthening governance, (2) enhancing critical infrastructure, and (3) fostering societal resilience. Chisinau is offering assistance and policy guidance to other cities and towns, both domestically and internationally. For example, within the framework of Making Cities Resilient 2030, Chisinau has already shared its experiences in resilience-building efforts with cities in Ukraine and Kazakhstan and has engaged in knowledge exchange with Portuguese municipalities.[4] The resilience building activities of Chisinau municipality align not only align with local and national priorities, but also with regional ones as strengthening disaster risk governance is prioritized in the National Implementation Plan of the European Union-Moldova Association Agreement. Since 2023, Moldova has access to the UN-supported INFORM Risk Index, a comprehensive assessment of subnational risk that facilitates the implementation of data-driven strategies for risk reduction, guiding decisions on prevention, preparedness, and response measures effectively.
Given that early warning 24 hours before an event can reduce the ensuing damage by 30 per cent[5], multi-hazard early warning systems are crucial to reducing losses from hazard events. Such early warnings need to be broadcast through a public alert system that effectively transmits and reaches people with these warnings regarding imminent emergencies and disasters. The United Nations Country team is supporting the establishment by 2027 of an Early Warning System tailored to the requirements of the Moldova Inspectorate for Emergency Situations. For example, ITU undertook a feasibility study on the deployment and implementation of a Cell Broadcast Service solution for sending alert messages in Moldova in 2023.
In 2023, Moldova implemented legislative reforms and policies to address climate change, with substantial support from UNCT. The adoption of the National Climate Change Adaptation Programme along with its Action Plan signifies a strategic commitment towards sustainable environmental governance, particularly in agriculture, forestry, health, energy, water and transport. Climate resilience was prioritized in the newly adopted National Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development and the Migration and Asylum Programme.
UN organizations in Moldova bolstered governance capacity by producing a guidance document on addressing human mobility challenges in the context of climate change, as well as a comprehensive analysis of disaster risk reduction in the agriculture sector, and a study on the role of migration role in climate adaptation in Moldova. Policy makers, statistical data producers, national experts, technical staff from public institutions, and academia representatives in Moldova have enhanced their knowledge and skills for sustainable resource management, energy efficiency, and climate resilience within the agriculture sector through diverse capacity-building activities supported by FAO, IFAD, IOM, UNDP, UNDRR, UNECE, UNESCO, ITU and UNIDO.
UN expertise in disaster risk reduction and resilience building supported public and private institutions in enhancing energy efficiency and sustainable natural resource management, which resulted in photovoltaic panels of 600 kW capacity installed in five district hospitals. Six Farmer Field Schools promoting climate-smart agriculture enabled more than 700 farmers to apply their skills in sustainable agriculture practices across 5,700 ha of land, resulting in improved soil health and increased productivity. Moldovan farmers now have access to a Community of Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices platform, promoting the adoption of climate-smart technologies and supporting local producers in implementing conservation agriculture.
Thirty localities improved their public services and social infrastructure and have become more resilient to climate change. Inclusive disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation measures were advanced. Almost 27,000 persons (including 51% women, and 22% youth) benefited from land restoration efforts across 118 hectares inMoldova, including shelter[6] belts, grassland, and vegetation cover for agricultural purposes, and 30% women participation in bodies promoting land degradation neutrality was ensured. With support of UN organizations, 32 communities developed shelter belt management plans and five community-based action plans for climate change adaptation, promising increased resilience against extreme weather, improved environmental sustainability, enhanced agricultural productivity, and community engagement. The inclusive development of these plans engaged local public authorities, land users, and landowners.
[2] The last assessment of residential building conditions in was conducted in 2005, revealing that approximately 83% of the 25,000 examined buildings exhibited significant wear and tear. From: UNDRR (2024) Chisinau Municipality leads resilience efforts in Moldova
Data on disaster losses and damages is an essential basis for preparedness, effective response, recovery and reconstruction, the quantification and economic valuation of losses and damages, for understanding root causes and shifts in exposure and vulnerability, and to assess the risk of cascading events and impacts across multiple hazards.
Not all countries, however, collect and use disaster data systematically and there are major disparities across countries regarding methods, coverage and system governance, creating barriers to effective risk management.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) are jointly addressing this gap and developing an enhanced disaster tracking system for hazardous events and related losses and damages aimed at national users interested in upgrading and institutionalizing national disaster tracking systems.
The report and life repository of case studies below explore current data applications and ways that stronger data collection and management could support better decision-making and informed action.
Application areas for disaster losses and damages data
1. Understanding risks
While still a comparatively young science, hazard modelling has accelerated dramatically in recent years, in terms of the number of models developed, research budgets and expertise, granularity, quality and coverage. Impact information, vulnerability models and integrated assessments have not followed. As a result, the different drivers of vulnerability and, therefore, of underlying risk, remain hidden in plain sight.
Disaster losses and damages data can make such drivers and hidden vulnerabilities visible. In addition, where solid foundations of exposure, vulnerability and capacity baseline data exist, they provide critical information on the cost of loss, i.e. the ratio of loss compared to total exposure. Disaster data must be collected consistently and over time for them to provide evidence of trends and inform longer-term planning. The importance of baseline information on exposure and vulnerability for risk modelling cannot be underestimated. While high quality is desirable, even modest improvements in increasing coverage, consistency and frequency of updating can go a long way. Combined with disaster losses and damages data information on pre-existing vulnerabilities becomes a powerful contribution to risk modelling and analysis.
Case study: Understanding multidimensional vulnerability in Sri Lanka: combining disaster losses and damages data with national survey data
In Sri Lanka, data collected as part of national citizen surveys provide a clear picture of the multiple dimensions of vulnerability and could directly inform hotspot, vulnerability and risk analysis (UNDP, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative [OPHI] and Government of Sri Lanka, 2023 (c)). Analysed through the lens of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MDVI) (UNDP, 2023 (a)), data from the surveys clearly highlight pre-existing vulnerabilities
Combined with long-term records on the impact of disasters from their Desinventar-based national disaster losses and damages database, a disaggregated analysis makes apparent differences on vulnerability dimensions and their drivers providing useful insights for more in depth risk analysis.
Recommendations to enhance the usability of disaster losses and damages data for risk analysis and modeling
Disaster losses and damages data can provide a “real time” window on ongoing risk accumulation identifying new risk patterns and trends that should feedback into recalibrated risk information. Disaster data can illustrate changing patterns and trends that can be interpreted through qualitative analysis of the underlying risk drivers to explain the changes. Historical disaster data cannot replace risk analysis but can provide additional or substitute information to improve risk modelling for both short-term forecasting and longer-term climate impact assessments. Historic data is particularly useful for capturing frequently occurring, localized and small-scale events, such as local landslides or flash floods – often called extensive disaster events – where global risk models have limitations.
Risk assessments are only useful if they are communicated in a manner that is meaningful to decision makers. While historical losses alone are not a good guide to the future, presenting data on actual (realized) losses and damages alongside more complex risk analysis can help in communicating risk effectively. Data on disaster losses and damage can contribute to improved modelling of existing as well as emerging or newly accelerating risks. To improve its usability, it is recommended to:
Strengthen disaggregated data collection and analysis both in terms of hazard type, geography, and sectoral impacts, as well as in regard to data sex, age, disability status, income levels, and other dimensions of differentiated exposure and vulnerability.
Enable georeferenced impact data collection to support the development of more accurate and replicable risk models.
2. Preparedness, early warning and early action
Hazardous event and disaster losses and damages data is critical in the design, development and monitoring of early warning systems and early action. By informing key components of multi hazard early warning systems (MHEWS) – as proposed in 1997 and later adopted by WMO, the United Nations and national governments – these systems and related anticipatory and early action can become impact-based.
Case study: Impact-based forecasting for anticipatory action to typhoons in the Philippines
To reduce the humanitarian impact of TC, both the Philippines Red Cross and United Nations OCHA Philippines have designed an agency-specific protocol, respectively in 2019 and 2021, which can be used to trigger early actions and release funding based on an impact-based forecasting model. Building on the Netherlands Red Cross 510 model, early actions (such as distributing house-strengthening kits) are pre-identified and triggered when the impact-based forecasting model indicates a pre-defined danger level is exceeded (with a lead time of 120 to 72 hours before landfall). The machine learning model consists of a classification and regression component and is trained on over 60 historical events.
Recommendations to enhance the usability of disaster losses and damages data for preparedness, early warning and early action
Record losses and damages recorded along with the associated characteristics of the hazardous event (physical phenomena) to be able to link impacts to vulnerability, exposure and specific hazard intensity, characteristics and cascading events.
Enhance spatial resolution of damage records to enable training of machine learning models that could enhance resolution of predictions and allow impact-based forecasting model to achieve a higher performance.
Collect sector, geographic and population groups disaggregated impact information to be able to understand common disruptions to livelihood systems and services associated with recurrent hazards and to device and monitor effectiveness of early/ anticipatory actions.
3. Disaster risk reduction financing
Disaster losses and damages data are the backbone of any financing strategy and plan for preparedness, response, recovery or risk reduction. Without knowing what has been lost in the past and what is at stake in the present and future, the case for investment in risk management and even for contingency planning remains weak (UNDRR, 2013). National ministries of finance, regional financing institutions and multilateral development banks, as well as private-sector finance and insurance companies, all require data to underpin budgets, financing plans and funding proposals for priority sectors or systems
Strategies for disaster risk reduction financing can look very different, depending on scale, risk context and financing sources. However, as states are insurers of last resort in disasters, it is increasingly important that they have ownership of the data that informs disaster financing strategies and lead the development of financing instruments, including insurance (Radu, 2022).
Insurance mechanisms
Methods from the insurance sector have been replicated across the public sector, from modelling approaches to estimations of disaster losses. A critical gap that both the private and public sectors face in developing financing strategies for disaster risk management, however, is the question of indirect and downstream costs, for example in the form of business disruption, cascading costs from power outages or disruption in water supply, etc.
Case study: Using disaster data to calibrate parametric insurance in Manizales, Colombia.
In Manizales, Colombia a disaster database registered a total of 1,149 local landslides, between March 2003 and August 2021. These events were classified according to the severity of their impacts on a D-Index using a scale from 1 – 10. A parameter called C5Max, was then established for a critical level of rainfall over 5 days, captured in selected meteorological stations, that could trigger landslides. The level of critical rainfall could then be associated with the severity of landslide impact. This enabled the prediction of expected landslide impacts once a given rainfall threshold was surpassed. In Manizales this was used for the development and calibration of a parametric insurance scheme to cover emergency response. However, the same approach could also be used in impact-based early warning.
DRR Financing strategies
Whereas the insurance industry usually employs fully developed risk estimation methods, including actuarial data from past disaster impact assessments, many public-sector institutions lack the resources and experience to undertake analysis based on systematic assessments of past events (UNDRR, 2023 (b)).
As a result, many national disaster risk reduction financing strategies and risk management budgets rely on a weak evidence base and only a few use disaster loss data collected in the past as a critical input into their assessments (Radu, 2022; UNDRR, 2015; Climate Adapt, n.d.). Instead, estimates of financing needs often use financing commitments or humanitarian spending in previous disasters, rather than records of actual losses.
Case study: Sri Lanka – disaster losses and damages data to identify financing needs in the agriculture sector
In Sri Lanka, analysis of historical disaster losses in the infrastructure sector helped identify risk and potential financing gaps in the irrigation sector (see Figure 13a). The calculation of these historical costs provides the basis for modelled estimates of costs associated with damage from future disasters and the potential financing gap the Government of Sri Lanka may face (see Figure 13b).
Recommendations to enhance applicability of disaster losses and damages data for disaster risk reduction financing
Improve the collection of sector-specific asset and service system (e.g. water distribution or electricity generation) disaggregated and georeferenced data to enhance the understanding on how specific parameters of hazardous events (e.g. water level, flow speeds, stagnation time) cause damage and dysfunction to different structures to better enable sector-specific catastrophic insurance products
Ensure losses and damages data is recorded in a way that private vs public sector effects are accounted separately, understanding which losses are incurred by individuals, households and private sector versus those borne by public sector will be particularly helpful when devising risk reduction financing strategies for productive and infrastructure sectors.
Disaggregated historical damage data solid baseline data on sector exposure, i.e. inventories of assets and production processes beyond the basic exposure data on buildings and people would enhance the evidence base to develop catastrophic insurance products.
4. Risk-informed planningand development
Disaster losses and damages data that is of good quality, geographical and temporal coverage, and consistency of metrics and indicators, can inform and enhance local assessments for sector-specific preparedness, response and recovery planning and beyond, risk-informed development and sector planning. Particularly relevant sectors in this regard are health and education, urban planning (including building and zoning regulations), agriculture and natural resources management, and basic infrastructure and services (transport, energy, waste, and drinking water).
High-quality disaster losses and damages data with good geographical and temporal coverage and consistent metrics and indicators, can inform and enhance local assessments for sector-specific preparedness, response and recovery planning, as well as risk-informed development and sector planning.
Case study: Planning resilient roads in Cambodia
The Government of Cambodia has recognized that the transportation sector, vital for the country’s economic development, is regularly and severely affected by disaster impacts. Road damage and destruction from disasters is systematically collected and recorded and stored in the Cambodia Disaster Loss and Damage Information System (CamDi), national database managed by the National Committee on Disaster Management (NCDM). Baseline data is collected with details on all roads and related infrastructure and recorded together with disaster loss data, allowing for lost cost assessments, seasonal analysis, and analysis by region or specific location and by road or infrastructure type.
Recommendations to enhance the usability of disaster losses and damages for risk-informed development
Sector and geographic disaggregated data recording and management would further enable the application of disaster losses and damages data for risk-informed policies, plans, budgets and actions
Consistent and institutionalized tracking of losses and damages with engagement of whole-of-government entities and following agreed definitions, metrics and standard would enable creating relevant time series of historic impact data required for enhancing relevance and applicability of data for risk-informed planning.
Application of disaster losses and damages data for risk-informed planning at multiple levels should be complemented by monitoring and evaluation frameworks and mechanisms that utilize same data elements to measure progress against targets and milestones.
5. Reporting, benchmarking and progress monitoring
Monitoring progress on resilience building
Progress on climate change adaptation and action on losses and damages can be efficiently monitored, among other things, by maintaining consistent and granular impact records. Reducing losses and damage from hazardous events over time is the ultimate measurement of progress and the Sendai Framework specifies several indicators that all require disaster losses and damages quantification. Similarly, reporting against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires disaster-related data, as 25 targets relate directly to disaster risk and to reducing the negative impacts of disasters). The ongoing development of indicators to monitor the Global Goal on Adaptation targets contained in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Framework for Global Climate Resilience will also benefit from the enhanced disaster tracking system, enabling monitoring of the reduction in losses and increase in resilience across several sectors (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], 2023 (a)). Other national frameworks and processes, such as for Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans or Biennial Transparency Reports, can also draw on the enhanced tracking system to strengthen coherence in reporting (UNFCCC, n.d. (a); UNEP, n.d.; UNFCCC, n.d. (b)).
Recommendations to enhance usability of disaster losses and damages data for monitoring, reporting and benchmarking progress.
Utilize globally agreed definitions and standards, such as the hazard classification and information profiles to organize database and tracking systems to further enable cross-cutting and regional benchmarking.
The Arab region is at a critical juncture, facing an increasingly complex and interconnected risk landscape. Climate change, urbanization, and socio-economic disparities are exacerbating these challenges, requiring urgent and cohesive action. The need for an integrated approach to disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA), and sustainable development has never been greater. Achieving this requires strong regional collaboration because the challenges we face do not respect borders.
The 2024 Regional Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (RAR) in the Arab Region sheds light on the complex interactions between different risks that have been made worse by systemic instability, conflict, and climate change. It also underscores the necessity for innovative strategies that address the multifaceted risks affecting our communities. Leading innovations that leverage technology and accelerate resilience-building are highlighted as key opportunities to enhance the region’s collective adaptive capacity.
Significant progress has been made in implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, despite the evolving challenges. Countries in the region have strengthened governance mechanisms, developed early warning systems, and promoted investment in DRR. The report highlights the importance of understanding systemic risk drivers—such as drought and resource scarcity—and the critical need to enhance institutional capacity to address these risks effectively.
This report serves as a vital resource for governments, policymakers, practitioners, and stakeholders committed to DRR and sustainable development. It calls for collaborative efforts to transform our understanding of risk into actionable strategies that prioritize community well-being and environmental sustainability. With strategic investments in early warning systems, risk-informed development, and climate adaptation, the Arab region has the potential to build a future where resilience and sustainability go hand in hand.
Regional Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction in the Arab Region 2024
The Arab region is at a critical juncture, facing an increasingly complex and interconnected risk landscape. Climate change, urbanization, and socio-economic disparities are exacerbating these challenges, requiring urgent and cohesive action. The need for an integrated approach to disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA), and sustainable development has never been greater. Achieving this requires strong regional collaboration because the challenges we face do not respect borders.
The 2024 Regional Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (RAR) in the Arab Region sheds light on the complex interactions between different risks that have been made worse by systemic instability, conflict, and climate change. It also underscores the necessity for innovative strategies that address the multifaceted risks affecting our communities. Leading innovations that leverage technology and accelerate resilience-building are highlighted as key opportunities to enhance the region’s collective adaptive capacity.
This report was officially launched at the 6th Arab Regional Platform for DRR, themed ‘Building Resilient Arab Communities: From Understanding to Action.’ Hosted by the State of Kuwait and organized by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, in partnership with the League of Arab States.
“This report serves as a vital resource for governments, policymakers, practitioners, and stakeholders committed to DRR and sustainable development. It calls for collaborative efforts to transform our understanding of risk into actionable strategies that prioritize community well-being and environmental sustainability. With strategic investments in early warning systems, risk-informed development, and climate adaptation, the Arab region has the potential to build a future where resilience and sustainability go hand in hand.” — KamalKishore, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, and Head of UNDRR
Key findings
Risk landscape in the Arab states
The Arab region is facing escalating climate-related risks, with temperature increases accelerating at +0.5 °C/decade, exacerbating water scarcity, heat-related deaths, crop failures and extreme flooding. The principal risk drivers of the region are related to natural resources and institutional domains. Improved governance and rule of law are critical to mitigating these impacts and addressing the region’s interconnected risk landscape.
Progress in Disaster Risk Reduction at the mid of the Sendai Framework implementation
The Arab region has made progress in DRR since adopting the Sendai Framework in 2015, but efforts must be stepped up to address gaps in risk governance, preparedness and investment. To accelerate progress, the region needs to strengthen institutional frameworks, invest in DRR and promote climate resilience, gender-responsive DRR and inclusive governance.
The impact of changing climate on systemic risk drivers: Drought as a Systemic Risk Driver
The Arab region is highly vulnerable to drought, exacerbated by climate change, population growth and unsustainable water management practices. Droughts are projected to increase in frequency and intensity, threatening food security, social stability and economic development, highlighting the need for urgent action and proactive measures to build resilience. To address this challenge, governments and stakeholders must adopt data-driven decision-making, invest in innovative technologies, and promote collaborative water management practices.
The impact of changing climate on systemic risk drivers: Weak Capacity for Governance of Systemic Risk
The Arab region’s capacity to govern systemic risks is weakened by fragile institutions, corruption and lack of trust in governments, exacerbating the impacts of climate change and disasters. Strengthening governance, transparency and accountability is critical to building resilience and effectively managing risks, and can be achieved through a holistic and integrated approach to climate change and DRR policies.
Climate Change-Disaster-Human Mobility Nexus
Climate change is exacerbating displacement and human mobility concerns across the Arab region, where fragile contexts and conflict intersect with disasters and environmental degradation. A climate security perspective is crucial to understanding these intertwined risks, and regional efforts must prioritize immediate disaster response, long-term resilience and sustainable development. Effective policies and strategies must address the root causes of vulnerability and prioritize the safety, dignity, and rights of affected populations.
Gender Inequality and Women’s Empowerment: Addressing the Gap
Somalia’s women face disproportionate impacts from climate change, conflict and migration, exacerbating existing gender inequalities. To address these challenges, it is critical to adopt a transformative and intersectional approach, integrating women’s priorities into policy and programming, and promoting women’s leadership, capacity building and access to resources, to build resilient and inclusive communities.
Emerging Health Challenges and Related Systemic Risks
Climate change poses an urgent public health emergency, threatening human health and wellbeing globally and in the Arab region in particular. To mitigate these impacts, collaborative efforts are necessary, including strengthening healthcare infrastructure, establishing early warning systems, and promoting climate-resilient health systems. International cooperation and targeted actions are crucial to addressing the health impacts of climate change.
Rural – Agricultural Risk with Rising Water Scarcity and Food Insecurity
The Arab region’s agrifood systems face multiple, interconnected risks, including droughts, floods, sand and dust storms, transboundary plant and animal pests and diseases, conflicts, and economic shocks, which threaten food security and undermine development efforts. To address these challenges, an integrated multi-risk management approach is necessary, incorporating risk-informed planning, DRR and CCA. This requires coordinated efforts from policymakers, researchers and practitioners to enhance the resilience of farmers and agriculture-dependent communities.
Implementation Considerations: People Centred Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems
Effective disaster management requires people-centred multi-hazard early warning systems (PCMHEWS) that prioritize community needs and engagement. The Arab region is vulnerable to climate-related hazards, and PCMHEWS can help reduce disaster risks. Leveraging digital technologies, community participation and inclusive communication channels is crucial for the success of PCMHEWS, ensuring timely and accurate warnings reach vulnerable populations.
Implementation Considerations: Comprehensive risk management to tackle systemic risks
Effective management of systemic risks requires comprehensive risk management (CRM) approaches that integrate DRR and CCA. The Arab region can foster policy coherence by enhancing strategic, conceptual, institutional, operational and financial coherence, ultimately driving sustainable development and inclusive growth.
Implementation Considerations: Financing and de-risking investment
Despite its natural advantages as a commerce hub, the region struggles to attract foreign investment. The League of Arab Nations (LAS) MA’AN Initiative towards DErisking investment offers a promising solution, promoting sustainable development and investment through regional cooperation. By addressing common challenges and promoting knowledge sharing, this initiative can help drive growth, job creation and energy transformation in the region.
Conclusion and way forward
The focus of this RAR is on DRR in the context of climate change impact on systemic risks in the Arab region.
The Arab region may be on the brink of catastrophe, beset by a perfect storm of risks that imperil its very foundations, jeopardizing stability, development and the future of its people.
The principal drivers of risk in the Arab region are related to natural resources and institutions. Climate change increases the risk in both these areas, especially through rising water scarcity and a demanding need for institutions that can effectively tackle climate impacts.
These drivers are not isolated, but highly interwoven, thus increasing, cascading and compounding risks, which may lead to systemic failures in the Arab region.
Effective governance, characterized by transparency, accountability and inclusivity, is paramount in addressing these challenges and enhancing resilience across the Arab region.
Many cities and other areas in the Middle East might become uninhabitable before the century’s end.
The findings emphasize the need for innovative solutions and the adoption of multi-hazard, multi-sectoral approaches to resilience-building. This includes investing in risk-informed planning, enhancing data collection and analysis and harnessing cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence to drive predictive analytics, optimize decision-making and foster proactive resilience.
The path forward requires a collective commitment to addressing the root causes of vulnerability in the Arab region and fostering resilience in the face of uncertainty.
The recommendations of this report serve as a roadmap for policymakers and stakeholders to navigate the complexities of the region’s risk landscape.
