VideoReport: Kumasi Children’s Park begs for revival

The Kumasi Children’s Park is begging for revival as the enclave turns into a den of criminal activities.

There have been several talks about private-public sector interest to resuscitate the recreational park.

But this quest to support children’s development has yet to become a priority.

Kofi Adu Domfeh visited the park to assess its state and engage with residents.

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African leaders tasked to focus on climate-related security risks

Researchers at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) have released a new essay that gives impetus for the African Union (AU) to refocus on climate-related security risks and build a broad support to appoint a dedicated AU Special Envoy for Climate Change and Security.

This comes ahead of the 32^nd Summit of AU Heads of State on 10–11 February in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which is on the theme “Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons: Towards Durable Solutions to Forced Displacement in Africa”.

Clearly in 2019, the AU wants to increase attention to the root causes of forced displacement and bolster the capacity of AU Member States to tackle the problem and create sustainable strategies.

As SIPRI researchers point out in a new essay, migration and forced displacement are only symptoms of broader social, political, economic and ecological ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors. “Especially in Africa, climate-related change is one of the most serious push factors,” says Dr. Florian Krampe. He stresses that “to address the push from climate impacts, there is a need to not only better comprehend but, to better respond to climate-related security risks.”

The AU is critical in showcasing leadership and developing adequate responses to climate-related security risks.

Vane Aminga argues: “The responses will require an integrated approach that combines knowledge on climate risks and the social and political realities of the regions.”

As the SIPRI essay shows, despite rhetorical steps and statements—including the proposal of a Special Envoy for Climate and Security in May 2018—the AU lacks a tangible policy framework that lays out specific actions on how to respond to climate security within the its peace and security framework.

Being the most vulnerable continent to climate change—inextricably linked to the continent’s peace and security—Africa is in need of a clear climate security strategy and strategic leadership.

Part of this should be the appointment of a Special Envoy to Climate Change and Security which could help widen the understanding of climate-related security risks within the AU.

“The idea of the Special Envoy is apt and an opportunity to pre-empt migration and forced displacement,” says Krampe. “Moreover, this will provide an opportunity to ‘climate-proof’ the AU’s peace and security architecture”.

Reviving dying land is doable by 2030, UN review concludes

Reviving damaged lands and the livelihoods of people affected by desertification, land degradation and drought can be possible by 2030, according to participants who attended the intergovernmental committee that reviews the implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Participants at the 17^th Committee to Review the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC17), in Georgetown, Guyana, stated that the speed at which countries are implementing the Sustainable Development Goal target of land degradation neutrality puts it within reach, and stated two other reasons.

The process of setting the target at the country level has drawn in other land-related sectors at the country-level, and triggering positive change. In addition, countries are spending more money on activities to contain land degradation and desertification and to manage drought effectively.

In the four years since countries reached the agreement to achieve land degradation neutrality (LDN) by 2030, 120 of the 169 countries affected by desertification, land degradation or drought have started identifying where to reduce the risk of degradation and where to recover degrading land. The process of setting the 2030 country targets for LDN has broadened action to other land-related sectors.

As a result, the Committee was able to review the first-of-its-kind global assessment of land degradation by governments, which is based on quantitative earth observation data collected and analyzed in at least 127 countries. The assessment’s uniqueness lies in that countries are working to measure and monitor three essential indicators of land degradation in the same way over the same period, so that the status of LDN can be determined for the globe.

Based on the assessment, the Committee laid out a range of actions that address issues such as land rights, drought and gender equality, for governments to consider and agree on when they meet in October of this year in New Delhi, India, during the 14th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP14).

“We have seen a sea-change and huge progress” since the Convention was negotiated in 1994, said Monique Barbut, the UNCCD Executive Secretary, during the closing of the meeting.
“With a tiny budget we’re getting things done. We have the LDN fund up and running. We have LDN projects taking shape in more than hundred countries.  A project preparation facility with the other Rio conventions is in the pipeline. Drought plans are being developed in nearly 50 countries. Land degradation and drought are recognized in the Global Compact on migration as key areas of concern,” Barbut said.

Countries said “LDN is a visionary target” and expressed their satisfaction with this first collaborative analysis and assessment of land degradation. Many countries praised the achievements in data gathering and stressed the added value of the provided tools, which facilitated the use of national data to derive the indicators of land degradation using internationally standardized methodologies. However, many also called for the improvement of the tools, training in their application and support to generate more detailed national data.

Barbut, whose term as head of the Convention ends in February, admitted she “was very suspicious and very tough about UNCCD and what it could achieve” in the very early days when she was part of the team that negotiated the three Rio Conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification.

“But the potential of this convention has only just started to be realized,” she said, and urged countries to use their creativity and imagination to help amplify UNCCD and help it reach its full potential and stressed that “it is not an impossible ambition.”

The Committee thanked the outgoing Executive Secretary for her contribution to raising the visibility of the Convention at a global level.

In a statement released yesterday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres thanked Barbut for “her outstanding commitment and dedicated service to the Organization,” and announced the appointment of Ibrahim Thiaw of Mauritania as her successor.

The CRIC has met for its 17th session with 94 countries in attendance.

Dramatic growth in laws to protect environment, but widespread failure to enforce, finds report

The first-ever global assessment of environmental rule of law finds weak enforcement to be a global trend that is exacerbating environmental threats, despite prolific growth in environmental laws and agencies worldwide over the last four decades. 
 

Despite a 38-fold increase in environmental laws put in place since 1972, failure to fully implement and enforce these laws is one of the greatest challenges to mitigating climate change, reducing pollution and preventing widespread species and habitat loss, the UN Environment report found.

The report is being released as climate experts and political and economic leaders seek to address dire findings released in October by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which urged rapid action to transform the global economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.”

"This report solves the mystery of why problems such as pollution, declining biodiversity and climate change persist despite the proliferation of environmental laws in recent decades,” said David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment. “Unless the environmental rule of law is strengthened, even seemingly rigorous rules are destined to fail and the fundamental human right to a healthy environment will go unfulfilled."

While international aid did help countries to enter into over 1,100 environmental agreements since 1972 and develop many environmental framework laws, neither aid, nor domestic budgeting, has led to the establishment of strong environmental agencies capable of effectively enforcing laws and regulations.

The report authors identify multiple factors contributing to poor enforcement of environmental rule of law, including poor coordination across government agencies, weak institutional capacity, lack of access to information, corruption and stifled civic engagement.

“We have the machinery in the form of laws, regulations and agencies to govern our environment sustainably,” said Joyce Msuya, Acting Executive Director of UN Environment. “Political will is now critical to making sure our laws work for the planet. This first global assessment on environmental rule of law highlights the work of those standing on the right side of history — and how many nations are stronger and safer as a result.” 

The report details the many developments in environmental law since 1972, including the adoption of a constitutional right to a healthy environment by 88 countries, with another 65 countries having enshrined environmental protection in their constitutions. In addition, over 350 environmental courts and tribunals have been established in over 50 countries, and more than 60 countries have at least some legal provisions for citizens’ right to environmental information.

“The international community can do more,” Carl Bruch, Director of International Programs at the Environmental Law Institute said. “Too often donor support focuses on very specific areas of the environment, resulting in robust environmental programs in some areas, and no funding or attention to other areas. This patchwork approach can undermine environmental rule of law by not providing consistency in implementation and enforcement and by sending confusing messages to the regulated community and the public.  As a result, many of these laws have yet to take root across society, and in most instances, the culture of environmental compliance is weak or non-existent.”

The report devotes significant attention to one particularly worrying trend: the growing resistance to environmental laws, which has been most evident in the harassment, arbitrary arrests threats, and killing of environmental defenders. Between 2002 and 2013, 908 people — including forest rangers, government inspectors, and local activists –were killed in 35 countries, and in 2017 alone, 197 environmental defenders were murdered.

“The criminalization and increasing attacks on environment defenders are clear violations of environmental rule of law and an affront to the rights, roles and contributions of indigenous peoples and civil society in protecting our environment.  This report captures the prevailing lack of accountability, strong environmental governance and respect for human rights for the sustainability of our environment,” said Joan Carling, indigenous rights activist and environmental defender from the Philippines.

The effective engagement of an informed civil society results in better decision making by government, more responsible environmental actions by companies, and more effective environmental law.

The provision of periodic reports on domestic environmental quality, including on air quality and water quality helps achieve these goals. Unfortunately, according to the Environmental Democracy Index, only 20 of 70 countries reviewed, or 28 percent, are ranked as “good” or “very good” in producing a regular, comprehensive, and current “State of the Environment” report. 

In India, Thailand, and Uganda, data on pollution stemming from industrial facilities can only be obtained through a personal contact.

Major global organizations unite to address E-Waste

Seven UN entities have come together, supported by the World Economic Forum, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to call for an overhaul of the current electronics system, with the aim of supporting international efforts to address e-waste challenges.

The report calls for a systematic collaboration with major brands, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), academia, trade unions, civil society and associations in a deliberative process to reorient the system and reduce the waste of resources each year with a value greater than the GDP of most countries.

Each year, approximately 50 million tonnes of electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) are discarded -- the weight of more than all commercial airliners ever made. In terms of material value, this is worth 62.5 billion dollars-- more than the GDP of most countries.

"We need to develop innovative policies. We need to establish and monitor targets so we can measure whether our policies have any impact. We need new multi-stakeholder alliances, because reducing e-waste will require the cooperation of many actors, including the private sector," said David Malone, Rector, UN University and UN Under-Secretary General.

Less than 20% of this is recycled formally. Informally, millions of people worldwide (over 600,000 in China alone) work to dispose of e-waste, much of it done in working conditions harmful to both health and the environment.

The report, "A New Circular Vision for Electronics - Time for a Global Reboot," launched in Davos 24 January, says technologies such as cloud computing and the internet of things (IoT), support gradual "dematerialization" of the electronics industry.

"Global e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream and presents societal and environmental risk,” observed Peter Bakker, President and CEO, World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Meanwhile, to capture the global value of materials in the e-waste and create global circular value chains, the report also points to the use of new technology to create service business models, better product tracking and manufacturer or retailer take-back programs.

The report notes that material efficiency, recycling infrastructure and scaling up the volume and quality of recycled materials to meet the needs of electronics supply chains will all be essential for future production.

And if the electronics sector is supported with the right policy mix and managed in the right way, it could lead to the creation of millions of decent jobs worldwide.

The joint report calls for collaboration with multinationals, SMEs, entrepreneurs, academia, trade unions, civil society and associations to create a circular economy for electronics where waste is designed out, the environmental impact is reduced and decent work is created for millions.

The new report supports the work of the E-waste Coalition, which includes:

• International Labour Organization (ILO);
• International Telecommunication Union (ITU);
• United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment);
• United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO);
• United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR);
• United Nations University (UNU), and
• Secretariats of the Basel and Stockholm conventions.

The Coalition is supported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the World Economic Forum and coordinated by the Secretariat of the Environment Management Group (EMG).

Considerable work is being done on the ground. For example, in order to grasp the opportunity of the circular economy, today the Nigerian Government, the Global Environment Facility and UN Environment announce a 2 million dollar investment to kick off  the formal e-waste recycling industry in Nigeria. The new investment will leverage over 13 million dollars in additional financing from the private sector.

According to the International Labour Organization, in Nigeria up 100,000 people work in the informal e-waste sector. This investment will help to create a system which formalizes these workers, giving them safe and decent employment while capturing the latent value in Nigeria's 500,000 tonnes of e-waste.

UNIDO collaborates with a large number of organizations on e-waste projects, including UNU, ILO, ITU, and WHO, as well as various other partners, such as Dell and the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA). In the Latin American and Caribbean region, a UNIDO e-waste project, co-funded by GEF, seeks to support sustainable economic and social growth in 13 countries. From upgrading e-waste recycling facilities, to helping to establish national e-waste management strategies, the initiative adopts a circular economy approach, whilst enhancing regional cooperation.

Another Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE) report launched today by the World Economic Forum, with support from Accenture Strategy, outlines a future in which Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies provide a tool to achieve a circular economy efficiently and effectively, and where all physical materials are accompanied by a digital dataset (like a passport or fingerprint for materials), creating an 'internet of materials.' PACE is a collaboration mechanism and project accelerator hosted by the World Economic Forum which brings together 50 leaders from business, government and international organizations to collaborate in moving towards the circular economy.

"A circular economy brings with it tremendous environmental and economic benefits for us all…Our planet's survival will depend on how well we retain the value of products within the system by extending their life," said Joyce Msuya, Acting Executive Director, UN Environment.

Ghana to kick-start Year of Ambition at Africa Climate Summit

Ghana will host the Africa Climate Week 2019 from 18–22 March with series of activities that will demonstrate enhanced climate ambition across the continent.

Governments, private sector and other non-Party stakeholders will gather in Accra throughout this Climate Week to promote the critical work under the three transformational areas via the three levers of policy, technology and finance.

The event arrives in the wake of the COP24 international climate negotiations, which concluded with the successful finalization of the ‘Katowice Climate Package’ on 15 December –also known as the Paris Agreement Work Program.

It therefore represents the first major climate-orientated event in 2019 that will promote the Program’s ‘guidelines’ as the underpinning to practically implement the Paris Agreement.

The timely completion of these operational elements – and the ramping-up of national ambition relating to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change and support for developing countries to take climate action – will be critical to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and, ultimately, keeping the global average temperature rise to as close as possible to 1.5°C.

In terms of climate action, 2019 is already being hailed as the year of ambition, since the world has until 2020 for countries to come back to the table to revise their national climate action plans (also known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or “NDCs”. This is why United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is convening a landmark Summit in New York this September to spur global leaders to pledge stronger commitments to reduce emissions and strengthen resilience.

Africa Climate Week has firmly aligned itself with the New York event – firstly, by matching its overarching theme “Climate Action in Africa: A Race We Can Win” with that of the September Summit and, secondly, by selecting three of the Summit’s six ‘transformational areas’ as the focus of its thematic sessions on 21-22 March: Energy Transition, Nature-Based Solutions, and Cities and Local Action.

This is in acknowledgment of this Summit as the ‘headline event’ of the year – and recognizing that the Regional Climate Weeks are the obvious stages to precipitate momentum in developing countries in the lead-up to September.

The other three areas of the New York Summit will be Climate Action and Carbon pricing; Reducing Emissions from Industry and Building Resilience.

Meanwhile, the high-level segment, which takes place on Wednesday, 20 March, will bring together Ministers and senior leaders – including UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa – and focus on areas such as: visions for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) enhancement and implementation; carbon pricing and markets, as well as the operationalization of the ambition cycle in the Africa region.

The Africa Climate Week is the first of three annual regional climate events this year – the latter two being the Latin America & Caribbean Climate Week and the Asia Pacific Climate Week.

The Africa Climate Week is being orchestrated by a number of core partners, including World Bank Group, African Development Bank, West African Development Bank, CTCN, UNEP, UNEP DTU Partnership, UNDP, IETA, Marrakech Partnership and UN Climate Change.

Broadly speaking, the collective goal of these Climate Weeks is to support the implementation of countries’ NDCs under the Paris Agreement and climate action to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals.

In so doing, they bring together a diverse array of international stakeholders in the public and private sectors around the common goal of enhancing climate action.

Expanding irrigation can help African farmers produce twice as much food

Helping more farmers to access and use irrigation systems holds the key to African countries meeting hunger and food security targets, a new report sets out.

Food production in Africa still relies almost exclusively on rain-fed agriculture, leaving farmers and rural communities vulnerable to increasingly erratic rainfall patterns and extreme climate conditions.

Yet there is vast potential to scale up irrigation, particularly across sub-Saharan Africa, to increase crop yields and improve resilience to climate shocks, the report finds.

Water-Wise: Smart Irrigation Strategies for Africa, launched at the Malabo Montpellier Panel Forum, highlights success stories from six African countries where greater levels of irrigation have led to better and longer harvests, higher incomes and better prospects for farmers.

Analysing best practices from Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Niger and South Africa, the report authors find yields from irrigated crops can be double or more of comparable rain-fed yields on the continent. Moreover, the economic benefits of expanding areas under irrigation are estimated to be double the costs under climate change.

“This report shows the great potential for irrigation to improve agricultural output across Africa,” said Dr Saulos Klaus Chilima, Vice President of Malawi and co-chair of the Malabo Montpellier Forum, which is presenting the report at its meeting in Rabat, Morocco.

“The analysis shows that there are lessons we can learn from our neighbours within the continent itself. Malawi is committed to expanding the area of arable land under irrigation and has already seen incomes rise by up to 65 per cent where farmers participate in irrigation schemes.”

Just six per cent of cultivated land is currently irrigated in Africa, compared to 14 per cent in Latin America and 37 per cent in Asia.

The report authors found several common features among the countries that have made significant progress in expanding irrigation, and offered nine recommendations to help others meet food security and nutrition targets under the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the Malabo Declaration.

“Dedicated, effective government institutions and significant increase in public investment for irrigation programs are critical,” said Dr. Ousmane Badiane, Malabo Montpellier Panel co-chair and Africa director for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). “In addition, interventions aimed at easing access to finance and building skills for operation, repair and maintenance of equipments are some of the key factors that have enabled countries to make considerable progress.

“Partnership with the private sector and farming communities and improved regulations for safe and sustainable use of water, are other driving factors.”

The report highlights the business case for irrigation development, pointing out that in the most vulnerable parts of Africa, irrigated agriculture also means farmers can extend the growing season, increase productivity and incomes, and improve their livelihoods.

In Niger, one of the countries with the fastest pace of irrigation expansion, up to 20 per cent of agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) is generated through irrigated agriculture.

“Two things need to come together in smart irrigation: first, robust technology that saves water and energy and can be sustained locally, and second, sound and fair local organizations with women and men farmers in the lead of their irrigation,” said Professor Joachim von Braun, Malabo Montpellier Panel co-chair and director of the Center for Development Research at Bonn University, Germany.

“Assuring both of these conditions call for wise policy design, not just top down directives, and the income opportunities will be attractive for rural youth.” 

But report authors reiterated that expansion must be planned carefully to avoid adverse impacts on the environment and human health.

“We must elevate irrigation to a top policy priority to bring it to scale as a key ingredient to ensure the continent’s food security in the face of more extreme weather conditions,” said Dr. Agnes Kalibata, former agriculture minister for Rwanda and a member of the Malabo Montpellier Panel. “We need to scale new models that put emphasis on farmer-led irrigation to scale household level resilience to shocks.

“Whether small-scale and farmer-led or large-scale, it is crucial that any irrigation systems and technologies supported by governments or the private sector will need to be designed to fit local environments and meet the needs of smallholder farmers.”

Katowice Climate Package to open new era of Global Climate Action

Governments have adopted a robust set of guidelines for implementing the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.

The implementation of the agreement will benefit people from all walks of life, especially the most vulnerable.

The agreed ‘Katowice Climate Package’ is designed to operationalize the climate change regime contained in the Paris Agreement. Under the auspices of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, it will promote international cooperation and encourage greater ambition.

The guidelines will promote trust among nations that all countries are playing their part in addressing the challenge of climate change.

The President of COP24, Michal Kurtyka of Poland, said: “All nations have worked tirelessly. All nations showed their commitment. All nations can leave Katowice with a sense of pride, knowing that their efforts have paid off. The guidelines contained in the Katowice Climate Package provide the basis for implementing the agreement as of 2020”.

The Katowice package includes guidelines that will operationalize the transparency framework.

It sets out how countries will provide information about their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that describe their domestic climate actions. This information includes mitigation and adaptation measures as well as details of financial support for climate action in developing countries.

The package also includes guidelines that relate to:

The process for establishing new targets on finance from 2025 onwards to follow-on from the current target of mobilizing USD 100 billion per year from 2020 to support developing countries;

How to conduct the Global Stocktake of the effectiveness of climate action in 2023; and

How to assess progress on the development and transfer of technology.

The UN’s Climate Chief, Ms. Patricia Espinosa said: “This is an excellent achievement! The multilateral system has delivered a solid result. This is a roadmap for the international community to decisively address climate change”.

“The guidelines that delegations have been working on day and night are balanced and clearly reflect how responsibilities are distributed amongst the world’s nations,” she said.

“They incorporate the fact that countries have different capabilities and economic and social realities at home, while providing the foundation for ever increasing ambition,” she added.

The agreed guidelines mean that countries can now establish the national systems that are needed for implementing the Paris Agreement as of 2020. The same will be done at the international level.

Functioning together, these systems will ensure that nations can act in an atmosphere of trust and assess progress of their climate actions.

“While some details will need to be finalised and improved over time, the system is to the largest part place”, Ms. Espinosa said.

Commenting on the decision, Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group, Gebru Jember Endalew, said: "While there are parts of the package that could and should have been stronger, the implementation guidelines adopted today provide a strong basis to start implementing the Agreement. The next step, of course, is for countries to take urgent, ambitious action to fulfil their Paris Agreement commitments."

The main issues still to be resolved concern the use of cooperative approaches, as well as the sustainable development mechanism, as contained in the Paris Agreement’s article 6. These would allow countries to meet a part of their domestic mitigation goals through the use of so-called “market mechanisms”.

Market mechanisms provide flexible instruments for reducing the costs of cutting emissions, such as carbon markets.

Here, the Paris Agreement recognizes the need for global rules to safeguard the integrity of all countries’ efforts.

These global rules are important to ensure that each tonne of emissions released into the atmosphere is accounted for.

In this way, progress towards the emission limitation goals of the Paris Agreement can be accurately measured.

“From the beginning of the COP, it very quickly became clear that this was one area that still required much work and that the details to operationalize this part of the Paris Agreement had not yet been sufficiently explored”, explained Ms. Espinosa.

“After many rich exchanges and constructive discussions, the greatest majority of countries were willing to agree and include the guidelines to operationalize the market mechanisms in the overall package”, she said.

“Unfortunately, in the end, the differences could not be overcome”.  

Because of this, countries have agreed to finalise the details for market mechanisms in the coming year in view of adopting them at the next UN Climate Change Conference (COP25).

Talanoa Dialogue and Action Before 2020.

The Fiji-led Talanoa Dialogue, a year-long inclusive dialogue around ambition as it relates to the Paris Agreement, concluded at COP24, with the Global warming of 1.5C report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a major input.

“As the decision adopted indicates, there is a clear recognition of the IPCC’s role in providing scientific input to inform countries in strengthening their response to the threat of climate change”, Ms. Espinosa underlined.

“I thank all experts for their hard work and important contribution to the IPCC’s work”, she added.

A coalition of African environmental civil society organisations under the umbrella of the Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) jointly raised concern about lack of concrete outcomes.

“There is no doubt that we leave Katowice when the IPCC Special Report has been trashed by a section of parties to the Climate Change Convention thus posing a credibility gap to the report,” said Mithika Mwenda, Executive Director for PACJA.

The final High-Level session in Katowice resulted in the Talanoa Call for Action, which calls upon all countries and stakeholders to act with urgency.

Countries are encouraged to factor the outcome of the dialogue into efforts to increase their ambition and to update their nationally determined contributions, which detail nations’ climate actions, in 2020.

A High-Level stock-taking of actions taken before 2020 gave countries the opportunity to assess their current level of ambition. Another stock-taking is planned for 2019.

“While there are clearly gaps that remain, the stock-take of actions taken before 2020 and the Talanoa Dialogue have clearly shown that the world has built a strong foundation for climate action under the Paris Agreement”, said Ms. Espinosa. 

Major Announcements

Many developed countries pledged financial support to enable developing countries to act. This is especially important for the replenishment of the Green Climate Fund.

Countries have sent significant positive signals towards GCF’s first formal replenishment, with Germany and Norway announcing that they would double their contributions.

The Adaptation Fund received a total of USD 129 million.

The engagement of multilateral development banks (MDBs), international organisations, businesses, investors and civil society at COP24 helped to build the political will towards the outcome in Katowice.

Many made key announcements that were critical to build momentum. These include:

The World Bank’s pledge of $200 billion in climate action funding for the period 2021-2025;

The MDBs announcement to align their activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement;

The commitment by fifteen international organizations to make their operations climate neutral; 

The announcement by the C40 Cities coalition, which includes cities across the globe, to work with the IPCC to identify how the Global Warming of 1.5C report can apply to cities’ climate actions.

“Katowice has shown once more the resilience of the Paris Agreement – our solid roadmap for climate action,” said UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres.

He has prioritized five ambitious areas – Ambition in mitigation, Ambition in adaptation, Ambition in finance, Ambition in technical cooperation and capacity building, and Ambition in technological innovation – which will be at the centre of the Climate Summit that he will convene in September 2019.
 
“And ambition must guide all Member States as they prepare their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for 2020 to reverse the present trend in which climate change is still running faster than us,” he stated. “It is our duty to reach for more and I count on all of you to raise ambitions so that we can beat back climate change”.

Many more announcements were made and inspiring examples of climate action showcased at the Global Climate Action High-level events.

The next United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in Chile and consultations will provide clarity on the city and exact date of the conference in due course.