UN Climate Ambition Summit 2020

On December 12, 2020, the UN, United Kingdom, and France co-hosted the Climate Ambition Summit 2020, in partnership with Chile and Italy. This was a monumental step on the road to the UK-hosted COP26 next November in Glasgow. It was a virtual event held to mark the completion of five years since the signing of the Paris Agreement.

The objective was to bring leaders together who are ready to make new commitments to tackle climate change and deliver on the Paris Agreement. Countries were expected to set out new and ambitious commitments under the three pillars of the Paris Agreement: mitigation, adaptation and finance commitments. There was to be no space for general statements.

Address by the UN Secretary-General

In his opening remarks the UN Secretary-General António Guterres made the following important points:

• Five years after Paris, we are still not going in the right direction. Paris promised to limit temperature rise to as close to 1.5 degrees as possible. But the commitments made in Paris were far from enough to get there. And even those commitments are not being met.
• Carbon dioxide levels are at record highs. Today, we are 1.2 degrees hotter than before the industrial revolution. If we don’t change course, we may be headed for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than 3 degrees this century.

I call on all leaders worldwide to declare a State of Climate Emergency in their countries until carbon neutrality is reached. Some 38 countries have already done so, recognizing the urgency and the stakes. I urge all others to follow.

• We are not doomed to fail. The recovery from COVID-19 presents an opportunity to set our economies and societies on a green path in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
• The trillions of dollars needed for COVID recovery is money that we are borrowing from future generations. We cannot use these resources to lock in policies that burden future generations with a mountain of debt on a broken planet.

The central objective of the UN for 2021 is to build a truly Global Coalition for Carbon Neutrality by the middle of the century. To make it a reality, we need meaningful cuts now to reduce global emissions by 45% by 2030 compared with 2010 levels. This must be fully reflected in the revised and strengthened Nationally Determined Contributions that the Paris signatories are obliged to submit well before COP26 next year in Glasgow.

It is time to:

• put a price on carbon;
• phase out fossil fuel finance and end fossil fuel subsidies;
• stop building new coal power plants;
• shift the tax burden from income to carbon, from taxpayers to polluters; 
• make climate-related financial risk disclosures mandatory; and
• integrate the goal of carbon neutrality into all economic and fiscal policies and decisions.

This is a moment of truth.  But it is also a moment of hope.

• More and more countries have committed to net zero emissions.
• The business community is getting on board the sustainability train.
• We see cities striving to become greener and more livable.
• We see young people taking on responsibility – and demanding it of others.
• Mindsets are shifting. Climate action is the barometer of leadership in today’s world. It is what people and planet need at this time. 

We have the blueprint: the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change. But we all need to pass a credibility test: let’s make the promise of a net zero world a reality now. On the path to COP26, I urge everyone to show ambition, stop the assault on our planet -- and do what we need to guarantee the future of our children and grandchildren.

Address by the Indian Prime Minister

Prime Minister Modi too addressed the Summit. At the Paris Meeting in 2015, India had announced its Nationally Determined Contribution of reducing emissions intensity of GDP by 33-35% by 2030 along with its renewable energy and forest cover targets. At the Climate Ambition Summit, however, Mr. Modi refrained from announcing enhanced ambitions or targets. 

The important points made by Mr. Modi were:

• India was not only on track to fulfilling its climate commitments but would go further.
• India had reduced its emissions intensity by 21% since 2005. 
• Installed solar capacity had grown to 36 GW in 2020. 
• The country’s renewable energy capacity was the fourth largest in the world and would reach 175 GW before 2022.
• We have an even more ambitious target, 450GW of energy capacity by 2030. 
• We have also succeeded in increasing forest cover.
• India had pioneered the International Solar Alliance as well as the Coalition for Disaster Relief.

Mr. Modi added, “In 2047, India will celebrate 100 years as an independent modern nation. Centennial India will not only meet its own targets but also exceed expectations.”

14 Key Nations Commit to Protect Oceans

The world’s most far-reaching agreement to protect and sustain ocean health was announced in early December 2020 by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel) set up by 14 countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Portugal, and the island nations of Fiji, Jamaica, and Palau.

The Ocean Panel is a unique initiative by the 14 world leaders who are building momentum for a sustainable ocean economy in which effective protection, sustainable production and equitable prosperity go hand in hand.

By enhancing humanity’s relationship with the ocean, bridging ocean health and wealth, working with diverse stakeholders and harnessing the latest knowledge, the Ocean Panel aims to facilitate a better, more resilient future for people and the planet. 

Established in September 2018, the Ocean Panel has been working with government, business, financial institutions, the science community and civil society to catalyze and scale bold, pragmatic solutions across policy, governance, technology and finance to ultimately develop an action agenda for transitioning to a sustainable ocean economy. The Ocean Panel is the only ocean policy body made up of serving world leaders with the authority needed to trigger, amplify and accelerate action worldwide for ocean priorities. 

The Ocean Panel’s approach is both ambitious and practical. It recognizes that collaborative partnerships are essential and began its work by seeking input from a diverse array of stakeholders to develop a widely accepted understanding of what a sustainable ocean economy should look like, including an Expert Group and Advisory Network. The Ocean Panel Secretariat, based at World Resources Institute (WRI), assists with analytical work and science, communications and stakeholder engagement. 

Major countries such as France, Russia, China, and the United States were not invited to join the Panel. Since negotiation with such countries is usually difficult, the flounders decided to get a group where high politics wouldn’t get in the way and they could be focused on the task. The idea was to gather a coalition of the willing—a like-minded group of countries with the ocean deeply embedded in their culture and history—to conduct discussions that would be underpinned by science. Consequently, the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy includes nations large and small, rich and poor, spread across all ocean basins. All are economically dependent, to varying degrees, on the seas.

Combined, they represent 40% of the world’s coastlines, 30% of the offshore exclusive economic zones, 20% of the world’s fisheries, and 20% of the world’s shipping fleet. The 14 countries are now inviting other nations to join the effort.

The effort was backed up by a team of 253 scientists that conducted new ocean research and published 16 authoritative papers on topics ranging from an assessment of stemming the flow of plastic waste to combating climate change.

The members of the Panel also were willing to turn conventional thinking on its ear. Instead of considering the ocean as merely a victim of climate change—which it undoubtedly is, as it is both warming and acidifying—the leaders say the seas should be harnessed to become part of the global solution. The key to that is to take an all-in approach—sustainably manage 100% of the ocean, not just the protected areas. Properly managed, the panel says, the ocean economy, including fishing, can expand. Additionally, actions such as restoration of mangroves, kelp beds, and seagrasses that absorb carbon could help offset global emissions by as much as a fifth, and help hold global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius.

The Agreement

Overall, the 14 leaders agreed to sustainably manage 100% of the oceans under their national jurisdictions by 2025—an area of ocean roughly the size of Africa. Additionally, they vowed to set aside 30% of the seas as marine protected areas by 2030, in keeping with the UN campaign known as “30 by 30.” 

Both of those large commitments will help end overfishing and illegal fishing, rebuild declining fish stocks, halt the flow of plastic waste into the seas, and clean up “dead zones” created by runoff from farm waste.

The solutions offered by the Panel could generate 40 times more renewable energy, through development of offshore wind energy production and wave and tidal power, and lift millions of people out of poverty. The Panel’s economists forecast that every $1 invested in a sustainable ocean would return $5 in economic, social, and environmental benefits.

The solutions involve a range of 74 actions, some already in progress. New technology, for example, enables Ghana to track foreign fishing vessels lurking off its coast and crack down on illegal fishing. While the Panel’s call for investment in sewage and waste management infrastructure to curb the flow of plastic waste into the seas is prohibitively expensive and unlikely to happen on a large scale in the coming decades, many developing nations have banned various single-use plastic products and others are deploying catchment systems on major rivers in Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia to capture plastic waste before it is disgorged into the seas.

Plan backed by science

The effort was backed up by a team of 253 scientists that conducted new ocean research and published 16 authoritative papers on topics ranging from an assessment of stemming the flow of plastic waste to combating climate change.

 

IPBES Report on Biodiversity and Pandemics

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an independent intergovernmental body established by States to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development. It was established in Panama City, on 21 April 2012 by 94 Governments.  It is not a United Nations body.  However, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) provides secretariat services to IPBES. 

In late October 2020, IPBES released a report on “Biodiversity and Pandemics” that emerged from a Workshop held to review the scientific evidence on the origin, emergence and impact of COVID-19 and other pandemics, as well as on options for controlling and preventing pandemics.

The workshop brought together 22 experts from all regions of the world, to discuss:

1) how pandemics emerge from the microbial diversity found in nature; 

2) the role of land use change and climate change in driving pandemics; 

3) the role of wildlife trade in driving pandemics; 

4) learning from nature to better control pandemics; and

5) preventing pandemics based on a “one health” approach.

The key messages of the report were:

1. Pandemics emerge from the microbial diversity found in nature.

• The majority (70%) of emerging diseases (e.g. Ebola, Zika, Nipah encephalitis), and almost all known pandemics (e.g. influenza, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19), are zoonoses – i.e. are caused by microbes of animal origin. These microbes ‘spill over’ due to contact among wildlife, livestock, and people.
• An estimated 1.7 million currently undiscovered viruses are thought to exist in mammal and avian hosts. Of these, 540,000-850,000 could have the ability to infect humans.

• The most important reservoirs of pathogens with pandemic potential are mammals (in particular bats, rodents, primates) and some birds (in particular water birds), as well as livestock (e.g. pigs, camels, poultry).

2. Human ecological disruption, and unsustainable consumption drive pandemic risk.

3. Reducing anthropogenic global environmental change may reduce pandemic risk

4. Land-use change, agricultural expansion, and urbanization cause more than 30% of emerging disease events

5. The trade and consumption of wildlife is a globally important risk for future pandemics

6. Current pandemic preparedness strategies aim to control diseases after they emerge. These strategies often rely on, and can affect, biodiversity.

7. Escape from the Pandemic Era requires policy options that foster transformative change towards preventing pandemics.

The current pandemic preparedness strategy involves responding to a pandemic after it has emerged. Yet, the research reviewed in this report identifies substantial knowledge that provides a pathway to predicting and preventing pandemics. This includes work that predicts geographic origins of future pandemics, identifies key reservoir hosts and the pathogens most likely to emerge, and demonstrates how environmental and socioeconomic changes correlate with disease emergence. Pilot projects, often at large scale, have demonstrated that this knowledge can be used to effectively target viral discovery, surveillance and outbreak investigation. The major impact on public health of COVID-19, of HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, influenza, SARS and of many other emerging diseases underlines the critical need for policies that will promote pandemic prevention, based on this growing knowledge.

To achieve this, the following policy options have been identified:

• Launching a high-level intergovernmental council on pandemic prevention, that would provide for cooperation among governments and work at the crossroads of the three Rio conventions
• Policies to reduce the role of land-use change in pandemic emergence.
• Policies to reduce pandemic emergence related to the wildlife trade:
• Closing critical knowledge gaps

Conclusion

This report is published at a critical juncture in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, at which its long-term societal and economic impacts are being recognized. People in all sectors of society are beginning to look for solutions that move beyond business-as-usual To do this will require transformative change, using the evidence from science to re-assess the relationship

between people and nature, and to reduce global environmental changes that are caused by unsustainable consumption, and which drive biodiversity loss, climate change and pandemic emergence. The policy options laid out in this report represent such a change. They lay out a movement towards preventing pandemics that is transformative: our current approach is to try to detect new diseases early, contain them, and then develop vaccines and therapeutics to control them. Clearly, in the face of COVID-19, with more than one million human deaths, and huge economic impacts, this reactive approach is inadequate.

This report embraces the need for transformative change and uses scientific evidence to identify policy options to prevent pandemics. Many of these may seem costly, difficult to execute, and their impact uncertain. However, economic analysis suggests their costs will be trivial in comparison to the trillions of dollars of impact due to COVID-19, let alone the rising tide of future diseases. The scientific evidence reviewed here, and the societal and economic impacts of COVID-19 provide a powerful incentive to adopt these policy options and create the transformative change needed to prevent future pandemics. This will provide benefits to health, biodiversity conservation, our economies, and sustainable development. Above all, it will provide a vision of our future in which we have escaped the current ‘Pandemic Era’.

Global Biodiversity Outlook 5

On 15^th September 2020, the secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) released the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5.

Key Messages of the Report

• The report outlines eight major transitions needed to slow, then halt nature’s accelerating decline.
• Final report card on Aichi Biodiversity Targets, set in 2010: 6 of world’s 20 goals “partially achieved” by 2020 deadline.
• Towards a landmark new global post-2020 biodiversity framework: GBO-5 synthesizes scientific basis for urgent action.
• Bright spots include: extinctions prevented by conservation, more land and oceans protected, fish stocks bounce back in well-managed fisheries.

Eight Transitions

The Report calls for a shift away from “business as usual” across a range of human activities. It outlines eight transitions that recognize the value of biodiversity, the need to restore the ecosystems on which all human activity depends, and the urgency of reducing the negative impacts of such activity:

1. The land and forests transition: conserving intact ecosystems, restoring eco-systems, combatting and reversing degradation, and employing landscape level spatial planning to avoid, reduce and mitigate land-use change.
2. The sustainable agriculture transition: redesigning agricultural systems through agroecological and other innovative approaches to enhance productivity while minimizing negative impacts on biodiversity.
3. The sustainable food systems transition: enabling sustainable and healthy diets with a greater emphasis on a diversity of foods, mostly plant-based, and more moderate consumption of meat and fish, as well as dramatic cuts in the waste involved in food supply and consumption.
4. The sustainable fisheries and oceans transition: protecting and restoring marine and coastal ecosystems, rebuilding fisheries and managing aquaculture and other uses of the oceans to ensure sustainability, and to enhance food security and livelihoods.
5. The cities and infrastructure transition: deploying “green infrastructure” and making space for nature within built landscapes to improve the health and quality of life for citizens and to reduce the environmental footprint of cities and infrastructure.
6. The sustainable freshwater transition: an integrated approach guaranteeing the water flows required by nature and people, improving water quality, protecting critical habitats, controlling invasive species and safeguarding connectivity to allow the recovery of fresh water systems from mountains to coasts.
7. The sustainable climate action transition: employing nature-based solutions, alongside a rapid phase-out of fossil fuel use, to reduce the scale and impacts of climate change, while providing positive benefits for biodiversity and other sustainable development goals.
8. The biodiversity-inclusive OneHealth transition: managing ecosystems, including agricultural and urban ecosystems, as well as the use of wildlife, through an integrated approach, to promote healthy ecosystems and healthy people.