The writer is an
economist, anchor,
analyst and the
President of All
Pakistan Private
Schools’ Federation
president@Pakistan
privateschools.com
The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is being held in Egypt, seeks renewed solidarity between countries to deliver on the landmark Paris Agreement, for people and the plan. The Global Goal of Adaptation was one of the significant outcomes of COP26. The aim of COP27 is to make urgent progress and urge all Parties to show the necessary political will to capture and assess the Global progress in increasing resilience and assisting the most vulnerable communities. The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – COP27 – builds on the outcomes of COP26 to deliver action on an array of issues critical to tackling the climate emergency – from urgently reducing greenhouse gas emissions, building resilience, and adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change, to delivering on the commitments to finance climate action in developing countries. Faced with a growing energy crisis, record greenhouse gas concentrations, and increasing extreme weather events, COP27 seeks renewed solidarity between countries, to deliver on the landmark Paris Agreement, for people and the planet. Science has established beyond doubt that the window for climate action is closing rapidly. This a golden opportunity for all stakeholders to rise to the occasion and tackle effectively the global challenge of climate change facilitated by Egypt on the African continent. Egypt assumed the Presidency of COP 27 with a clear recognition of the gravity of the global climate challenge and an appreciation of the value of multilateral, collective, and concerted action as the only means to address this truly global threat.
The progress on climate change is constrained by policies that limit developing countries’ access to concessional funding, create disparities in the cost of capital, and restrict access to goods required to reach net zero. The world has found it easy to make capital move. Don’t know how an inanimate object can have priority over a breathing person.
COP 27 has set the priorities to accelerate climate action and compliance with the agreements reached in previous meetings, that all countries, especially those in a position to lead by example, are urged to take more ambitious and immediate measures to reduce emissions and limit global warming to well below 2°C, without abandoning the 1.5°C targets. To ensure that countries have the political will and move forward with the necessary actions to improve resilience to climate change by helping the most vulnerable communities in the face of increasingly frequent climate events. In terms of the financing to make significant progress flows necessary to achieve emission reduction targets in developing countries. Specifically, advance in the effective arrival of the 100,000 million annual dollars already agreed upon in previous meetings. As the UN negotiations are consensus-based, reaching an agreement will require inclusive and active participation from all stakeholders. There could be new agreements or announcements in the five areas related to global warming: Protection of natural resources; Water security in the event of increasingly frequent floods or prolonged droughts as it is estimated that in a scenario of global warming of 2 °C up to 3 billion people could have problems related to water scarcity; Food security in the face of climatic disasters, as 821 million people go hungry on our planet.; Land productivity has decreased by 21% because of climate change. COP will focus on how to scale the solutions required to meet growing food demand in a climate-resilient way. The objective of this side-event is to present and discuss the methodology to develop the Circularity Gap Report for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which will establish a baseline on circular economy for the LAC region and will bring an understanding of the key sectors, materials, and kinds of strategies that should be prioritized to achieve a circular economy. It is critical to mobilize funding to achieve the goal of a gigaton of emissions reductions from forests by 2025. Members of the Green Gigaton Challenge will address the importance of adopting a mid-term milestone towards the Glasgow Pledge; provide an overview of the gap towards achieving the gigaton milestone, and propose changes in policies and incentives to achieve that milestone.
This COP27 side event aims to demonstrate how countries have integrated, enhanced, or are implementing peatland-related climate commitments, particularly those contained in NDCs, sharing multi-stakeholder and innovative collaborative management approaches and inspiring countries to consider or further enhance climate action in peatland landscapes. Case examples from different regions will be presented, highlighting good practices and lessons learned. The ways to engage with the private sector early in the elaboration and implementation of national adaptation processes, and to crowd in private sector finance for their implementation using innovation and blended finance approaches. Climate change comes at a cost and adaptation planning is a solution that makes economic sense for private-sector operations. The session will bring out key messages on best practices to mainstream private sector engagement in National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and concrete examples of financial solutions to attract and de-risk private sector investments. The WASP Science-for-Adaptation Policy Brief on the Global Goal of Adaptation is an important issue in the series published by seven UN agencies that form the World Adaptation Science Programme (WASP). This issue discusses the Global Goal on Adaptation and its adequacy of adaptive response commensurate with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement and a collective effort is required to operationalize the Global Goal on Adaptation, noting that there are no agreed frameworks, methods, indicators, or metrics to assess progress towards the Global Goal on Adaptation. The leaders from the public and private sectors will discuss opportunities to accelerate progress towards net zero in both hard-to-abate industries and emerging economies. The COP 27, is a unique opportunity to launch the Green Jobs for Youth Pact and enhance collaboration between governments, youth, employers’ and workers’ organizations, and educators working together to promote a just transition by strengthening capacities and skills, for youth, needed to deliver an economic and social transformation in a 1.5-degree world. In 2020, the buildings and construction sector accounted for almost 40% of global energy-related GHG emissions, 35% of final energy demand, and a large share of global resource extraction. How we construct our buildings and cities is an example of unsustainable consumption and production practices. Hence, without a doubt, the way we build and use our buildings must change if we are to reach the climate change mitigation targets set out in the Paris Agreement. By contributing to priorities on meaningful youth engagement, as outlined in the Glasgow Climate Pact, the UN’s Youth 2030 Strategy, and Our Common Agenda, the event will highlight the importance of youth leadership for accelerated climate action on the ground. It will gather young climate leaders, UN experts, civil society, the private sector, youth constituencies, and national governments to co-create solutions to bridge youth finance gaps.
The progress on climate change is constrained by policies that limit developing countries’ access to concessional funding, create disparities in the cost of capital, and restrict access to goods required to reach net zero. The world has found it easy to make capital move. Don’t know how an inanimate object can have priority over a breathing person. You can have all the finance in the world, and if the trade policies are not right you will not get anywhere. If we can outline three principles with respect to reforming financial structures: the responsibility of leaders to set the vision and create mission-oriented institutions by getting finance for a purpose; using public finance to crowd in private finance; and the obligation of private companies to financially contribute to those solutions. Reimagining the financial architecture of climate action demands humane immigration and just trade policies. This was the message coming out of a side event at the Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 27) on the role of the state in mobilizing and directing finance for climate and health. PM Shehbaz Sharif was on a visit to Sharm El-Sheikh to participate in the 70th session of the Conference of Parties. The COP-27 conference on the devastating effects of climate change was particularly fruitful for Pakistan. For the first time, losses and disasters were recognized as a cause of increased financial pressure on developing countries, she maintained. There was a global consensus on providing financial resources to compensate for the losses of developing countries. Nature-based solutions must be the heart of Pakistan’s ambitious climate action agenda under the convention and Paris Agreement. Indeed, the objectives of the Middle East Green Initiative (MGI) are aligned with the objective of Pakistan’s national forest policy and the Green Pakistan program, which is focused on protecting, enhancing, and managing our forests, wildlife, and ecosystem by 2023. Pakistan expresses a keen willingness to provide and cooperate with all MGI member countries in sharing experience and tech expertise related to the restoration of forests, dryland areas, and mangroves, management of protected areas, carbon stock assessment, and establishment of forest monitoring systems. Pakistan looks forward to a close collaboration with the member states, not only in this initiative but in all the actions needed to protect the world. It’s hoped that COP-27 would yield concrete results, especially in developing countries with regard to the financing of waste and damage caused by environmental causes.