*[Enwl-eng] here is the latest news from the High-Level Champions!
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UN Global Climate Action
24 May 2022
High Level Climate Champions
Newsletter
Africa's Race to Sustainable Development
Achieving a just, equitable transition to a healthy, resilient, zero-emission future across Africa requires multilateral collaboration across the public and private sector – with African policymakers, financiers, business leaders and civil society involved throughout. Major international events in Spain, Rwanda and Kenya in May brought many of those stakeholders together to foster that collaboration in the run-up to Africa’s COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh.
At the heart of Africa’s race to sustainable development is energy. More than 600 million people in Africa still lack basic access to affordable, reliable, clean energy. Additionally,
1.2 billion people – one in seven – lack access to cooling, which is crucial to food security, medical supplies, livelihoods and the prevention of heat-related deaths, according to Sustainable Energy for All.
Delivering clean energy to the communities can drive wider sustainable development, supporting health care, food security, education, and jobs, livelihoods and resilience to climate change impacts.
The SEforAll Forum in Kigali brought together ministers from Africa and Asia Pacific, development financiers and the High-Level Champions, to talk about how to achieve a just and equitable energy transition and a modern energy minimum of 1 kWh per year per capita. This marked an important step turning the financial commitments made at COP26 into action in Africa and Asia, starting in 2022. That calls for de-risking project pipelines, addressing bankability, crowding-in private sector finance and supporting enabling policies and regulations.
The summit closed with around US$347 million in commitments, including US$242 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies to accelerate the energy transition in 10 developing countries and US$50 million from the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet in support for SEforAll.
In Barcelona, the Africa Green Hydrogen Alliance was formally launched at the Green Hydrogen Global Assembly, aiming to foster collaboration on creating a sustainable enabling environment for green hydrogen development in the continent. The founding countries, Kenya, South Africa, Namibia, Egypt, Morocco and Mauritania are inviting other countries to join and help make Africa a frontrunner in the global market.
Green hydrogen can rapidly decarbonize industrial sectors such as steel, chemicals, fertilizers, shipping and trucking. Many African countries are well-suited to develop green hydrogen, with strong solar and wind energy potential and large tranches of non-arable land. This could provide Africans with access to clean energy, jobs, public health benefits, domestic wealth creation and export revenues.
COP27 High-Level Champion Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin spoke at the assembly about the need to address climate change holistically, shift from pledges to implementation, regionalize and localize the climate agenda and get finance flowing.
Stop Burning Money
The unchecked open burning of waste in Africa is fuelling illness, premature death and climate change. The challenges of reining it in are big – but so are the opportunities for Africa, according to a report released by Engineering X and the High-Level Champions during this month’s Africities conference in Kisumu.
Sub-Saharan Africa generated around 9% of global waste as of 2016, of which two-thirds is dropped in landfills and open dump sites. This spreads pollution into the air, water and food.
But it doesn’t have to continue. 70-80% of the municipal solid waste generated in African cities is recyclable and could be worth US$8 billion per year in a circular economy. Addressing the structural deficiencies in waste management and promoting a circular economy will strengthen local manufacturing, create jobs, reduce unemployment, support inclusive and sustainable local and regional economies, and reduce air pollution and emissions.
The African Union aims for African cities to recycle at least half of their waste by 2023. This requires a systemic transformation, and the report sets out recommendations for achieving it. Among them, it recommends expanding the High-Level Champions’ partnership with Engineering X by welcoming other international and regional partners into the work.
The Champions will prioritize this work in the run-up to COP27, with an opportunity to launch a multi-partnership commitment to reduce and phase out open waste burning.
Build with Nature
African cities are among the fastest-growing in the world - and some of the most at-risk from droughts, floods, sea level rise, cyclones, landslides, extreme heat and pollution. Water demand in African cities is projected to triple by 2030.
This makes the shift to zero-emission, resilient and circular development crucial to Africa’s growth. Cities can adapt to the impacts of climate change, recycle much of the waste that is being burned, and reduce emissions – as long as their development is planned holistically, according to discussions at the Africities conference.
The protection, restoration and management of water and forest resources is particularly important in making cities resilient to climate change impacts and mitigating disaster risk. Smaller intermediary cities have a strong opportunity to test new development models. But this is constrained by limited access to finance, poor land management, a lack of integrated development plans and other factors.
Africa-led initiatives are working to change that. Among those is the Catalytic Fund for Urban Water Resilience, which will launch in full at COP27 with pilot programmes in two African cities. The fund, supported by WRI and other Marrakech Partnership partners, will help jumpstart projects by providing necessary finance for technical assistance and project implementation.
There’s also the Global Evergreening Alliance’s Restore Africa programme, which on Monday drew US$150 million of investment from Climate Asset Management. The programme aims to deliver the world’s largest-ever farmer-led carbon sequestration project, supporting 1.5 million small-scale farming households and restoring 1.9 million hectares of degraded land. The programme was jointly launched with the African Union’s African Restoration Initiative (AFR100).
The High-Level Champions are working closely with the Marrakech Partnership to ensure that summits such as the recent May Ministerial in Copenhagen result in project-ready solutions that are matched by needed financial flows. They will focus on mobilizing finance and investment, reducing reliance on debt instruments, expanding insurance coverage, and projectizing everything.
Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week 2022: Get Involved!
The Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week 2022 (LACCW 2022) is scheduled for 19 to 22 July in Santo Domingo, hosted by the Dominican Republic. The Glasgow Climate Pact from COP26 recognizes the Regional Climate Weeks as a platform for national governments and stakeholders to strengthen the credible and durable response to climate change. LACCW 2022 will be a collaboration space for national and subnational governments, indigenous communities, the private sector and civil society to explore the resilience against climate risks, the transition to a low-emission economy and partnerships to solve pressing challenges.
Join LACCW 2022 as a side event host or show your success stories in the Action Hub by submitting your Expression of Interest before the 31 May deadline.
Spotlight on our Youth Fellows
The High-Level Champions have appointed five youth fellows to work with the team over 2022, and will spotlight one in each of the following newsletters.
Shravani Sharma grew up watching her Indian city of Guwahati expand from a simple, quiet town to a bustling metropolis. Without realizing it, as a teen she gained first-hand understanding of inadequate urban planning, infrastructure shortfalls and transport challenges. As more Indians achieved their aspiration of owning a car, they inadvertently contributed to growing congestion, air pollution, road accidents and health problems.
As an urban and transport planner pursuing a PhD in transport and human factors, Shravani now works to understand what drives or impedes positive behavioural change. Factors such as passions, disabilities and mental health can influence decisions to, for instance, commute by bus, foot or bike. This helps understand if transport choices have any impact on the wellbeing of citizens and capture a country’s progress beyond economic parameters.
The key, Shravani says, is to make targets inclusive and holistic, taking into account the consumer’s perspective. “After all, it is for the people and by the people that these initiatives need to be accepted and adopted to be able to tackle this common goal.”
Shravani Sharma is Transport Youth Fellow on the Champions’ team. She is earning her PhD in transport and human factors at Warwick Manufacturing Group, University of Warwick.
Keeping Up With the Champions
a.. The High-Level Champions, Mr. Nigel Topping and Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, are at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
a.. Dr. Mohieldin last week took part in the GFANZ CEO Principals Group meeting, and along with Mr. Topping in meetings with the Marrakech Partnership members and the Global Stocktake technical dialogue co-facilitators.
a.. Egypt’s COP27 presidency announced it will organize a series of regional forums with the five UN Regional Commissions on the “Projectalization Climate Finance”. This will bring together public and private sector stakeholders to facilitate engagement with other partners and stakeholders to accelerate public and private investment mobilization and concrete initiatives through projects. These will correspond to the needs of each region in addressing climate change holistically and narrowing the gap in finance. The forums will be held in coordination and collaboration with the High-Level Champions.
a.. Dr. Mohieldin attended Africities and gave a press conference, which you can watch here.
a.. Mr. Topping and Dr. Mohieldin convened stakeholders in the Marrakech Partnership to share updates on the current work programme and talk about COP27 priorities.
a.. The Champions’ priorities for COP27 include adopting a holistic approach to climate action, focusing on implementation, mobilizing finance at scale, setting up regional roundtables, and boosting last-mile, local delivery, they said in a statement six months before Sharm El-Sheikh.
a.. Mr. Topping spoke at the Sustainable Energy For All Forum in Kigali on the road to COP27.
In Case You Missed It
a.. The Global Stocktake Technical Dialogue begins with meetings in June, November and June 2023, according to an information note by the co-facilitators. 45 seats will be made available for non-Party participants across three roundtables, with the High-Level Champions collaborating with the UNFCCC secretariat on the expression of interest process.
a.. Renewables are the world’s ‘lifeline’ in the race against the worst impacts of climate change, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, setting out five actions needed to jumpstart the energy transition. They include treating renewables as an essential public good, shifting subsidies away from fossil fuels and tripling public and private investments in renewables.
a.. The world set new records on four key climate change indicators in 2021 – greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate report. Extreme weather led to hundreds of billions of dollars in economic losses, wreaked a heavy toll on human lives and wellbeing, and triggered shocks for food and water security and displacement that have accentuated in 2022.
a.. Companies committed to cutting emissions in line with climate science now represent US$38 trillion of global economy, according to the Science Based Targets initiative. Almost 80% of targets approved in 2021 were aligned with 1.5°C.
For more news from across the Race to Resilience and Race to Zero community, check out climatechampions.unfccc.int.
Mark Your Calendars
a.. World Economic Forum Annual Meeting: 22-26 May
b.. Eight Harvests to 2030: Moving from Food System Commitments to Action for Africa, at WEF: 25 May
c.. World Health Assembly: 22-28 May
d.. G7 Climate, Energy, and Environment Ministers’ Meeting: 25-27 May
e.. Asian Youth Adaptation Forum: 31 May
f.. UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2022: 1-2 June
g.. Stockholm +50: 2-3 June
h.. World Environment Day: 5 June
i.. UNFCCC Bonn Climate Change Conference: 6-16 June
j.. Regions4 General Assembly 2022: 15-16 June
k.. United Nations World Oceans Day: 8 June
l.. London Climate Action Week: 25 June-3 July
m.. G7 Leaders’ Summit: 26-28 June
n.. UN Ocean Conference: 27 June-1 July
o.. Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week 2022: 18-22 July
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Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2022 8:13 PM
Subject: Vladimir, here is the latest news from the High-Level Champions!
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