Resilience
Climate change is increasing the incidence, frequency and magnitude of natural disasters and exacerbating the vulnerability of many countries and communities. It is therefore essential to enhance resilience and the capacity to adapt to a changing climate, above all for the poor who are the most affected. Photo © C&S Northway
Paris Pact on Water and Climate Change Adaptation Announced
Paris, 2 December 2015 – A broad coalition of nations, river basin organizations, business and civil society today announced the creation of the international Paris Pact on Water and Climate Change Adaptation to make water systems – the very foundation of sustainable human development - more resilient to climate impacts.
The “”Water Resilience Focus” event under the Lima to Paris Action Agenda on climate change also highlighted other key partnerships and coalitions to make river basins, lakes, aquifers and deltas more resilient to climate change and reduce human interference with oceans.
Almost 290 water basin organizations are engaged under the Paris Pact on Water and Climate Change Adaptation.
Climate changes, coupled with unsustainable use of water, are causing widespread impacts on societies and economies, creating droughts, floods and warming which affect all water systems and trigger negative and often fatal impacts.
Without improved water resources management, the progress towards poverty reduction targets, the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and sustainable development in all its economic, social and environmental dimensions, will be jeopardized.
Paris Pact on Water and Climate Change Adaptation
The pact involves a wide geographic coalition of national and cross-border river basin organizations, governments, funding agencies, local governments, companies and civil society.
It encompasses individual commitments to implement adaptation plans, strengthening water monitoring and measurement systems in river basins and promoting financial sustainability and new investment in water systems management.
These major collaborative projects combined represent over US$20 million in technical assistance and potentially over US$ 1 billion in financing. They include:
Cities Committing to Strengthen Resilient Water Systems
- The World Bank Group’s financial commitment of USD 200 million to enhance Water Security and Climate Resilience in Kenya’s Coastal Region.
- A financing program, including 50 million euros from AFD and 15 million euros from Senegal, to protect 300 000 people from flooding Pikine, a suburb of Dakar.
Business Community Engages to Monitor and Reduce its Water Use
The private sector is mobilizing a coalition of companies, including 27 which have already committed, under the Business Alliance for Water and Climate Change.
The objective is to reduce risks related to the quality and availability of water. Actions will include water impact measurement and reduction; reporting and transparency; collective action within river basins and taking stewardship of water use through the business value chain.
The alliance will take advantage of the mobilization of global networks and individual water initiatives on the NAZCA climate action portal to monitor, scale-up and initiate other collaborative initiatives after the COP21 climate change conference.
Countries join a coalition to enhance resilience on deltas
The Delta Coalition includes 12 countries (Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, South-Korea, Mozambique, Myanmar, Netherlands, Philippines, Vietnam, France and Bangladesh) to bring deltas to the forefront of global policy discussions, build partnerships and focus on action, aiming to increase resilience for almost 250 million people in deltas in these 12 countries.
Beyond these LPAA initiatives, a strong civil society and high level mobilization
Civil society plays a key role in the water and climate change agenda. All actors, including NGOs, such as SIWI or the World Water Council, French Water Partnership, CLOCSAS-LAC, among others will bring their commitments to enhance water resilience. Furthermore, the Youth Commitment for Water and Climate Change Adaptation has been signed by more than 20 youth networks in the world.
Enhancing action on conservation and resilience of oceans to climate change
Climate change deeply impacts the marine environment as well as the hundreds of millions of people who depend on it. National and local governments, international organizations and the private sector are building concrete initiatives on three main topics: commercial shipping, marine protected areas and shoreline management.
The LPAA initiatives addressing WATER and OCEANS RESILIENCE are, as for today:
The Lima-Paris Action Agenda is a joint undertaking of the Peruvian and French COP presidencies, the Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the UNFCCC Secretariat. It aims to strengthen climate action throughout 2015, in Paris in December and well beyond through: mobilizing robust global action towards low carbon and resilient societies; providing enhanced support to existing initiatives, such as those launched during the NY SG Climate summit in September 2014; and mobilizing new partners and providing a platform for the visibility of their actions, commitments and results in the run up to COP21.Learn more at http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lpaa/about/
Press contacts for the Focus:
LPAA Press Officer: Diane Gaillard | +33 6 99 62 49 79 | lpaa@cop21.gouv.fr
LPAA Event Programme online http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lpaa/cop-21/
LPAA Press kit: http://newsroom.unfccc.int/media/509508/lpaa-primer.pdf
LPAA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LPAA_Live
LPAA on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/136161474@N05/albums
LPAA videos, UNFCCC Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/climateconference
UNFCCC Twitter accounts:
English: https://twitter.com/unfccc
French: https://twitter.com/CCNUCC
Spanish: https://twitter.com/CMNUCC
German: https://twitter.com/UNKlima