TOP OF THE COP: Adaptation through Nature Based Solutions

TOP OF THE COP: Adaptation through Nature Based Solutions

Saturday 12th November

The world's smallholder farmers produce around a third of the world's food. But only 1.5% of global climate finance (USD 10 billion) is currently channelled into small-scale agriculture, and just 7% (USD 700 million) is going to value chain actors like smallholder farmers.

In Africa alone, the adoption of sustainable agriculture on 50% of African farmland, would equate to USD 17 billion in savings to farmers and companies each year, recent reports suggest. 

There is progress: 13 countries joined the Agriculture Breakthrough this week – co-led by Egypt and the UK – to work together to make climate-resilient, sustainable agriculture the most attractive and widely adopted option for farmers everywhere by 2030. 

A Q&A session with a group of young climate activists and High-Level Champion Nigel Topping on Friday brought into sharp focus why this matters. 12  year old Genia Mosby from Australia simply said: “ I don’t want to be a refugee”. 

Read on for more news coming out of Adaptation & Agriculture day.

Today’s key announcements

• The COP27 Presidency launches the Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST), to improve the quantity and quality of climate finance contributions to transform agriculture and food systems by 2030, supporting adaptation and maintaining a 1.5-degree pathway whilst supporting food and economic security. This multi-stakeholder cooperation programme will have concrete deliverables for enhancing country capacities to access climate finance and investment, increase knowledge, and provide policy support and dialogue.
• The Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate) has announced an increased investment of more than USD 8 billion, up from USD 4 billion at COP26 with the support of over 275 government and non-government partners.  AIM for Climate is a global initiative by the United Arab Emirates and the United States. The increased investment is comprised of over USD 7 billion from Government Partners with contributions from Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Denmark, the European Commission, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Lithuania, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United States, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vietnam, and over USD 1 billion investment from 30 Innovation Sprints. 
• The African Food Systems Transformation Initiative (AFSTI) and 70 African-owned agri-busineses announce an action plan for directing financial flows to food supply chains in Africa. It will draw finance, philanthropy, multilateral development banks, and private sources, targeting much overlooked agri-businesses and food processors who are pivotal to transforming the food outlook in Africa.
• The Rockefeller Foundation has announced USD 11 million in grants to ten organizations scaling indigenous and regenerative agriculture practice around the world, with Regen10 as a flagship initiative. Evidence makes clear the central role food systems can play in mitigating climate change. The funding will help scale the development, data analysis, financing, and education around regenerative agricultural practices, which can improve global food systems and mitigate the global food crisis.

GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION EVENTS SCHEDULE

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND WEBCAST, ACCESS HERE

Marrakech Partnership Land Use Action Event, Landscapes for Life: Showing Inclusive, just and resilient transformation of the LU Sector

Location: Action Room 1 (Ibis)

Time: 10am - 12pm

Marrakech Partnership Implementation Lab, Exponential Action: Scaling regenerative agriculture through plant-based implementation

Location: Action Room 2 (Lotus) 

Time: 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Marrakech Partnerhip Implementation Lab, Resilient and Adaptive Food Systems

Location: Action Room 2 (Lotus)

Time: 2:pm - 3:30pm

Implementing Climate Action in Entertainment & Culture - Inclusive and Equitable Pathways Towards a More Sustainable Sector

Location: Action Room 1 (Ibis)

Time: 14:00 - 15:30

EXPLORE COP27

Nature Zone Pavilion

The Nature Zone pavilion is a dedicated space within the COP27 Blue Zone to bring to life the momentum, action, and impact that surrounds Nature Positive – the global goal to immediately halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.

Stop by today to hear inspiring voices championing nature as a solution for equitable climate adaptation. You can also hear from local heroes who are successfully leading coastal adaptation work all over the world.

And don’t miss :

Exponential Race to Zero: Food and Nature 

Time: 15:30 - 18:00 

Livestream here 

Speakers: Michael Wolosin (Conservation International); Johan Falk (Exponential Roadmap Initiative), María Mendiluce (We Mean Business), Tessa Vincent (Race to Zero) and more. 

Children and Youth Pavilion  

Ensuring that the voice of Youth and Future Generations is heard loud and clear is one of the objectives of the COP27 Presidency. For the first time ever at a UNFCCC Conference, children and young people is having a dedicated space at COP27 alongside world leaders, ministers, prominent non-State actors and other delegates. 

Designed to amplify children and youth voices within global climate policymaking, the COP27 Children and Youth Pavilion is entirely led by young people and has been co-created and run by influential child and youth networks. 

A full programme of events is here.

On Friday, High-Level Champions Nigel Topping and Mahmoud Mohieldin met with young climate activists from around the world: Francisco Vera (Colombia), Genia Mosby (Australia), Sofia Mejia (Dominican Republic), Yerazik Hoveyan (Armenia), Melissa Obeng-Kyereh (Ghana, Ismail Aboelmagd (Egypt), Revan Ahmed (Libya).

The Resilience Hub: Showcasing Resilience Solutions Everyday

The Resilience Hub is once again acting as the home of the Race to Resilience. Click here for the full agenda. The Hub is accessible in-person in Area C and virtually here.

No More Fairy Tales: stories to save our planet

Before we can build the resilient zero carbon economy that we have promised future generations, we must first imagine it. 

Stay inspired by reading today’s story drawn from an anthology of  short stories written by a variety of authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson, Paolo Bacigalupi and others. These stories present positive visions of what a sustainable society might look like and how we might get there.

Each story links to a webpage where readers can see how they can help to make the story a reality. Compiled by the Green Stories Project, in association with Herculean Climate Solutions.

ICYMI

ISO Net Zero GUidelines Launched

The ISO Net Zero Guidelines launched on 11 November provides a common reference for collective efforts, offering a global basis for harmonizing, understanding, and planning for net zero for actors at the state, regional, city and organizational level. 

The Breakthrough Agenda: a master plan to accelerate decarbonization of five major sectors

Priority actions, part of the Breakthrough Agenda, were announced on Friday as part of an international effort to make clean technologies and sustainable solutions the most affordable, accessible and attractive option in each emitting sector globally before the end of this decade.

Almost half of the pharma and biotech sector has joined the Race to Zero. Here’s why it must go further

A new report released at COP27 this week showed 46% of the sector by revenue has committed to the Race to Zero, up from 31% at this time last year. The industry is also beginning to move in the right direction on carbon intensity, with some of the largest companies demonstrating leadership in emissions reduction.

Launch of the Breakthrough Agenda hub

Find out in our landing page why the Breakthrough Agenda matters so much. Achieving Breakthroughs in these five critical sectors could: 

• Support the creation of more than 20 million jobs by 2030.
• Increase world GDP by 4% greater in 2030 than it would otherwise have been.
• Save two million lives worldwide every year, by halving premature deaths associated with air pollution by 2050 compared to 2020.

Carbon Removals 2030 Breakthrough: Scaling a diverse, responsible carbon dioxide removal ecosystem that benefits communities to reach net zero by 2050

Find out why we need to increase our global carbon dioxide removal capacity from several million today to the multi gigatonne scale by 2030.

Pharmaceutical 2030 Breakthrough: Transforming the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology Sector

Did you know that pharmaceutical labs use up to 10x more energy and 4x more water than office spaces? There is also an estimated 12 billion pounds of plastic waste produced each year from laboratories around the world, which represents 2% of global plastic waste. Find out why labs are the heart of Pharma & Med Tech’s 2030 Breakthrough

Global cement sector 2030 Breakthrough: Towards a net zero hard to abate sector

The global cement sector accounts for around 7% of global CO2 emissions. The industry has made progress during the last two decades to lower carbon intensity – but there is a recognition that these efforts need to be significantly accelerated. 

WHO ARE THE HIGH-LEVEL CHAMPIONS?

The UN Climate Change High-Level Champions enhance and strengthen the engagement of non-Party stakeholders in collaborating with Parties, to deliver the goals of the Paris Agreement. To connect the work of governments with the many voluntary and collaborative actions taken by cities, regions, businesses, investors and civil society, at COP 21, countries decided to appoint two High Level Champions. 

The current Champions are Mr. Nigel Topping and Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin. Working with the Marrakech Partnership, they build on the legacy of their predecessors to engage with non-Party stakeholders and activate the ‘ambition loop’ with national governments. Their work is fundamentally designed to encourage a collaborative shift across all of society towards a decarbonized economy so that we can all thrive in a healthy, resilient and net-zero world.

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