Global action on climate adaptation
Road surfaces that don’t melt during hot summers and drought-resistant seeds are the kind of solutions needed as the world adapts to climate change, according to the Global Commission on Adaptation.
The Commission, which is backed by more than 20 countries, including the UK, Germany and China, is running a Year of Action ahead of its Climate Adaption Summit in the Netherlands in October 2020.
Patrick Verkooijen, CEO, the Global Center on Adaptation, and Co-managing Partner of the Global Commission on Adaptation, said the initiative was about “implementing real solutions around the world which show that adaptation is not just the right thing to do but the smart thing to do.”
“Adaptation not only has economic benefits, but it is also essential if we are to avoid climate apartheid — a world in which the wealthy pay to escape from the worst impacts of climate change, while the poor are left to suffer,” Verkooijen added
International support
More than 75 governments, institutions, civil society organisations, and private sector players are helping to advance eight ‘Action Tracks’. These are focused on: finance and investment, food security and agriculture, nature-based solutions, water, cities, locally-led action, infrastructure, and preventing disasters.
As part of the finance and investment stream, the private-sector led Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment has been launched by London-based insurance broker and advisory business Willis Towers Watson in partnership with the governments of the UK and Jamaica, the Global Commission on Adaptation and the World Economic Forum.
It will focus on developing data and analytical tools to better understand the risks posed by climate change and to align investment flows towards infrastructure capable of withstanding a changing climate.
Resilient infrastructure
John Haley, CEO of Willis Towers Watson, said: “Pricing the risks posed by climate change will create opportunities to build a network of resilient infrastructure in high, medium and low-income countries, enabling us to better prevent future human and financial disasters.”
A report on climate resilient infrastructure from the OECD lists a range of impacts to infrastructure from temperature changes, rising sea levels, changing rainfall patterns and storms. These include melting road surfaces and buckling railway lines; damage to bridges; port and airport disruption and disruption of energy supply due to flooding.
The Global Commission on Adaptation is based in the Netherlands and led by Ban Ki-moon, 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the World Bank. It is guided by 33 commissioners and 19 convening countries, representing all regions of the globe, and co-managed by the Global Center on Adaptation and World Resources Institute.
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