Climate Change Blog: What's the one thing you'd say?
The Bangkok UNFCCC intercessional Climate Change meeting has concluded. This meeting was an important lobbying event to influence the drafting of the climate change treaty ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in December.
I laid out five recommendations (see below), broadly based on the Views from the Frontline experience of assessing progress towards implementation of disaster risk reduction, for taking forward at that Bangkok meeting.
I’m now back in London after almost two weeks at the talks. As has been commented by others - though some progress was achieved the most pressing questions remain unaswered;
On the climate mitigation side the critical determination of emission reduction targets remains unresolved. Mitigation is essential to make adaptation feasible.
On the adaptation side the scale and source of adpatation funding is not yet clear, nor have issues such as prioritisation of the most vulnerable, or the form of the financial mechanism to provide the necessary financial support.
If governments now omit to mobilise the political will that is needed to break the deadlock the only choice is for difficult issues to be left until post-Copenhagen. These are not easy problems to resolve given the divisions between delegates and countries in many ways reflected the divisions in a grossly inquitable and divided world - between rich and poor, haves and have nots.
The revised negotiating text is due to come out at on 23rd Oct. It remains to be seen what principles, objectives and approaches related to risk reduction will remain in the latest draft. Once the new draft is available I'll circulate, highlight the critical areas and provide some comments relevant to the DRR community. All in all a fascinating insight into geo-politics although issues of justice and equity and fundamental changes to our current development path appeared along way from the negotiating table.
Find out about the UNFCCC Bangkok intersessional here
Marcus Oxley: Chair: Global Network for Disaster Reduction
The five recommendations are:-
1. Adaptation actions to give priority to addressing underlying drivers of vulnerability (e.g. poor governance, unsustainable livelihoods, food insecurity, environmental degradation)
2. Adopt participatory community-based approaches supported by effective decentralised governance processes as primary strategy to reduce vulnerability
3. Innovative funding strategies that encourage multi-stakeholder partnership and target high-risk groups to directly access resources
4. Undertake climate-sensitive capacity-vulnerability assessments at the local level as strategic entry point to strengthening resilience.
5. Establish an independent local-level monitoring function as part of the measurement and verification system with strong participation from at-risk groups and civil society.
