Pre-conference to COP29 Climate Change “Rising to the challenge of Climate Change : A Journey of Hope and Commitment : An Inter-Generation Dialogue”
Alexandria, Egypt 9-11 September 2024
As the world prepares for the COP29 event in Baku in November 2024, this pre-COP meeting (Webinar) is being organized in Alexandria, Egypt, 10 to 11 September 2024 to explore how the evolution of global trends since COP28 are presenting the issues today.
We hope that it will be an inter-generational dialogue with youth, especially from Africa, and we expect that the results of this Webinar will feed into the RACC and STS events in Japan in October and ultimately into COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2024.
The program is organized around eight sessions, plus an official opening session of 30 minutes for official words of welcome. The first technical opening session will be 90 minutes, but it is an overview session and thus could be merged into the official opening session if required. Herewith a first draft of the suggested program:
8 September 2024 TIME Day 1
9 September 2024 Day 2
10 September 2024
Arrivals and check-in at the hotel 0930 -1000 Official opening -- --
1000 - 1130 Session 1 Session 5
1130-1200 Coffee Coffee
1200 - 1330 Session 2 Session 6
1330- 1430 Lunch Lunch
1430- 1600 Session 3 Session 7
1600-1630 Coffee Coffee
1630-1800 Session 4 Session 8
1800- 2000 -- rest -- Departures
Welcome Dinner 2000 - 2200 Dinner
If desired, I have prepared an overview presentation on the whole issue of climate change that could be used either with the end of the opening session or the opening of the first technical part of the Pre-COP29 conference.
Session 1:
A review of the status of the challenge:
The world made three major commitments in 2015:
• We adopted the SDGs as our agenda for action 2015-2030
• We took commitments in Paris to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees
• We endorsed the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the promotion of resilience
We then developed the targets:
• Reduce emissions by 45% by 2030 and reach zero net emissions by 2050; And
• Pursue the SDGs, all of which have detailed performance indicators. especially the abolition of extreme poverty and hunger.
So, the session should assess where do we stand on these commitments as we approach COP29? We should have 1-2 technical presentations covering:
• Climate change: Where are we in terms of emissions, and are we on a path to reach net zero emissions by 2050?
• Where are we in terms of the “Energy Transition” necessary for the reduction of the emissions?
• Beyond energy, what about the other sectors?
Session 2:
Balancing Mitigation, Adaptation and Resilience:
Mitigation:
We must accelerate the drive towards zero net emissions by 2050. But that means that in addition to the fraught debate about fossil fuels and CO2 we must also address methane and nitrous oxide.
Over 100 countries have committed to reduce methane, which is 25 times as potent as CO2 and dissipates in about 12 years. This means that significantly reducing methane would also have a short term impact on emissions in CO2 equivalent GHGs. Can we accelerate this?
Adaptation:
The problematic consequences of climate change in terms of extreme weather events are manifested all over the world. From forest fires to hurricanes to floods to droughts, extreme weather events are inflicting pain all over the world, but none more significantly than among the poor especially in the drylands where droughts and local conflicts are threatening widespread famine in many places especially in Africa.
Also, the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are facing possible disappearance as sea level rises, and as their low-lying shores are hit by ever greater wave surges.
Simply stated, the terrible consequences of climate change are already here. The poor, who contributed least to creating the problem, are the ones suffering most from its consequences, and they are suffering now. So, as we continue to pursue the reduction of emissions and then move on to negative reduction of the legacy of emissions in the atmosphere, we must also think of promoting adaptation and resilience in the poorest areas of the planet.
In various discussions of climate change, it has been recorded that, as a moral responsibility, the rich countries who built their wealth by emitting GHGs over centuries, owe the poor such assistance. A fund for adaptation projects in the global south was promised at $100 Billion annually (a fraction of what is really needed), but even that promise was never completely fulfilled.
In COP27 and COP28 a “Loss and Damage” fund was created and financing it has started with a modest amount. What are the prospects of increasing such funding significantly? How can we ensure “Climate Justice” as we seek such funding?
Resilience: Social and institutional as well as economic capacities
Resilience is about the capacity of a society, its physical setting and its economic activities to withstand serious natural challenges (e.g. Floods, droughts and hurricanes) and rebound to its earlier functioning level. This has to be promoted through systematic approaches to building human capital, institutional capabilities and technical knowhow, so that nations and communities at risk of climate change can promote and build up an effective resilience to the challenges ahead.
Conclusions:
Each of these two aspects of fighting climate change (adaptation and resilience), needs a more detailed discussion at COP29. We should not allow Adaptation and Resilience to be crowded out by long discussions of mitigation, important as mitigation is.
Session 3:
Climate Change and the SDGs:
While Climate Change is mentioned as SDG 13, it really is much more than that. It is truly embedded in the framework of the SDGs and cuts across all other activities. Thus action on Climate Change must be embedded in the broader SDG framework.
But perhaps of all the other considerations, the interactive links between climate change with water and food security and biodiversity are particularly important.
This session should elucidate the interactive relations between climate change and those three broad topics. Recognizing that improvements in other SDGs like education and equality will also help societies better confront the challenges of clime change.
Session 4:
The Role of Science, Technology and Innovation:
We live at an unbelievable moment of revolutionary change in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI). The revolutions in the new biology, ICT and the emergence of AI, all herald unprecedented possibilities. The ability to understand and mobilize the revolutionary new developments to help humanity redress the imbalances we have created in our planetary ecosystems is a big challenge.
Furtermore, in addition to exploring the possibilities of new technologies, we should also be concerned with access of the poor to these new technologies that the new scientific breakthroughs are making possible. this session should cover:
Mobilizing Science for sustainability: Given the revolution in STI, we are concerned that the poorest nations, which are in the greatest need of the best-designed and most effective policy, program, project and technology packages, are also the ones least likely to have access to the most effective ideas in Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) tailored to meet their specific local, national, and regional challenges.
The International Science Council (ISC) has formed “The Global Commission on Science for Sustainability” , of which the author is a member, and it has evolved its concept of “Science Missions for Sustainability” . The idea is to have about 20 “hubs” to be located in different regions of the world, and which could mediate the best of science around the world linking with the national, regional and local institutions in each region. These links should ensure that the national and local institutions can successfully develop the most suitable technologies to deal with the specific problems that they are confronting.
The discussions should clarify policy and institutional and legal issues – from IPR to trade to a difficult investment landscape to other institutional issues – that may affect our ability to bring these benefits to the poor and the vulnerable.
Session 5:
The special case of the Food and Agriculture Sector:
While in every other sector which is contributing to emissions the best we can do is to reduce the emissions and increase the efficiency of its operations, the Food and Agriculture Sector can actually be transformed so that it goes from being a major emitter of GHGs to being a major contributor to removing GHGs and thus an integral part of the solutions that humanity brings to meeting the challenge of climate change. Furthermore, that transformation would also enable the sector to be much more efficient and effective in its mission to reduce poverty and abolish hunger, even as it protects our ecosystems.
Here we are addressing the Food and Agriculture Sector in its broadest interpretation: Including forestry and fishing in addition to the production of crops and livestock. We think of the processes covering all inputs from seeds and cuttings to water, soil and nutrients (including natural processes such photosynthesis and the nitrogen-fixing ability of legumes, to the use of chemical fertilizers) as well as human labor and consumption of energy. The Food and Agriculture Sector also includes the post-harvest processes until the products reach the consumer.
This broad perspective requires that we address many different aspects of the complex multi-faceted reality of the Food and Agricultural Sector. These aspects include: Changing landscapes; deforestation, afforestation and reforestation; agroforestry; better water management; working with nature not against it; moving to precision farming; scientific management; land use changes; sustainable land management; carbon sequestration in soils; urban green spaces; urban Agriculture; the right kind of seeds; and reducing waste.
The revolution in ICT (including AI technologies) and in the new biology gives us a toolkit that enables us to do much about each of these topics.
This is an important topic to highlight in COP29. It emerges as a win-win-win proposition: reduce emissions – deal with poverty and hunger – increase adaptation and resilience.
Session 6:
Financing our response to Climate Change and the SDGs
The world needs to mobilize massive funding, somewhere between $2-5 trillion annually to help the world rise to the challenge of climate change as well as finance the SDGs.
Limitations of Official Development Assistance (ODA) mechanisms.
Against these huge needs, we note that total Official Development Assistance (ODA) from the OECD countries amounts to about $200 billion annually, and that is for all sectors, not just climate related ODA. The various multilateral Green Funds deploy another $30 billion or so. The MDBs, including the World Bank, are mostly giving loans that could add another $50 billion or so.
So it is very unlikely that by adding incrementally through the existing mechanisms of development finance, or adopting new twists that still rely mostly on tax revenue from the high-income countries and loans from multilaterals, that we will reach the requisite $2-5 Trillion required annually.
Furthermore, there is no possibility for the countries of the Global South to generate the requisite resources out of their own limited budgets, when they are also crushed by a debt overhang.
A new Approach:
We need a new approach. A new approach that would raise the needed 2-5 trillion annually to finance a portfolio of policies and projects that would benefit the Global South in responding to the challenges of climate change with proper Mitigation, Adaptation and Resilience interventions, and implement the SDGs.
The limited public funds available should be used to prepare the projects, and then de-risk such projects. These would then beappropriately mediated by a reformed international banking system. This could raise the trillions of dollars needed. They would become more approachable, because the 2024 assets of financial institutions world-wide are more than $460 trillion.
Finally it is important that we consider that there is a need for “Climate Justice” in designing such schemes and novel approaches, reflecting the reality that the poor who contributed least to the problem of climate change are those who are suffering most from its consequences.
Reducing the debt of the global south through debt swaps and restructuring the debt burden with some debt forgiveness for the poor is a necessary and helpful addition to the massive program sketched out above, as would some mediation of the short-term aspects of the returns to the investors and the long-term return from the investment to the poor country. Thus, giving an expanded mandate to the IFIs will be required, as they will remain important players in funding the SDGs and in dealing with the debt overhang.
SO:
This session should discuss these novel financing mechanisms and their viability, and seek to identify ideas about:
• The strategy to balance mitigation, adaptation and resilience
• Climate Justice in dealing with the Loss and Damage Fund
• Novel Financing mechanisms
• Suggestions for the restructuring of the global financial architecture
Session 7:
The Views of the Egyptian and African Youths
The purpose of this session would be to allow youth to present their views on the challenges of climate change and how they see the priorities for action.
Session 8:
Closing Discussion: An Intergenerational Dialogue
After hearing the youth, the senior participants will discuss the whole pre-COP29 event and engage in a dialogue with them.
The dialogue will be completed by a few closing remarks from the organizers of the conference…
ALL Rights © Reserved To BCRC