Accelerating Water & Climate Action at COP26 - Notes
The Stockholm International Water Institute ‘SIWI’ and the British Embassy, Stockholm on 24 August 2020 as part of the SIWI World Water Week hosted a webinar on Accelerating Water and Climate Action at COP26.
Lord Goldsmith, a UK government minister outlined some of the priorities for the UK in this area as co-chair of COP26. He noted that –
The COVID-19 pandemic has starkly underlined the interdependence of climate and health.
Politicians around the world have committed $10 trillion to COVID-19 recovery plans.
COP26 organisers at every level were encouraging this to be applied to a Clean and Green Recovery.
UK priority work areas for COP26 were -
Energy
Transport
Finance
Adaptation and Resilience
Nature
Nature-based solutions could contribute as much as a third of the Paris Agreement climate aims – he was hoping for more Nature-based Disclosure, on the lines of Climate-related Financial Disclosure.
Take the example of the Amazon, which was vital to world health, yet currently not seen as economically important – it was seen as worth more dead than alive.
The UK was doubling its climate finance to £11.6 billion.
Governments could not do everything, and there was a need to mobilise the public sector.
Worldwide, 80% of deforestation was caused by agriculture.
4 billion people lived without secure access to water, and factors like the melting of Himalayan glaciers were exceptionally important.
There were good example s of sustainable water investment, from the Catskill Mountains of New York, USA to the Tana River catchment in Kenya, and in Vietnam.
Work was in hand to develop water insecurity indicators.
UK initiatives included the Blue Planet Fund, and there would be a major water component to UK AID initiatives in Asia, Africa and the MENA region.
Sareen Malik of the African Civil Society Network on Water and Sanitation ‘ANEW’ spoke on –
NGO coordination in the field of water and sanitation.
The key role of accountable and non-corrupt governance.
The need for COP26 to address water poverty, and to unlock access to the climate finance promised at Copenhagen.
Sasja Beslik discussed –
Private investment and the key needs and opportunities in the water sector.
The need for clean and green finance – and for nature-based solutions to be people-centric.
Water’s role as a valuable asset.
A recording of the full webinar can be found on YouTube here.