Wetlands International and partners commit for transformation at UN Climate Action Summit
The initiative will encourage countries and in- vestors to put local communities and wetland restoration at the heart of sustainable devel- opment and climate adaptation measures. The aim is, by end 2030, to have restored and safeguarded 20 million hectares of wetlands in at least six major wetland systems, so im- proving the adaptive capacity and security of around 10 million people across the Sahel. Building with Nature is a way of planning, de- signing and building coastal, river and delta infrastructure that works with nature and nat- ural processes rather than building in or fight- ing against nature. Buoyed by the successful mainstreaming of Building with Nature in Indonesia, the partners for Building with Na- ture Asia’ are developing propositions for the implementation of Building with Nature in 15 landscapes in five countries by 2030, boosting the resilience of around 30 million people. A Shared Ambition on ‘Accelerating Adapta- tion through Building with Nature in Asia’ was presented by EcoShape and Wetlands Interna- tional during the ‘Building a Resilient Future’ event on 22 September in New York, convened by the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP). During the GRP day of events, Wetlands Inter- national and One Architecture made public their joint commitment on climate-resilient cities, working together to integrate wetlands in the urban landscape. The overarching goal is to build more resilient, and livable-, cities across Asia.
The focus of the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019 was to generate concrete proposals that can be accelerated for climate action. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for tangible plans that will help countries reach the scale and speed of mitigation, adaptation and resilience needed to deal with the climate emergency. The summit elevated political attention to the power of Nature-Based Solu- tions (NBS) for climate and sustainable devel- opment. The CEO of Wetlands International, Jane Madg- wick, was honoured to be an invited speaker in the Nature-based Solutions day of the Summit, where the NBS for Climate Manifes- to was launched. She called attention to the need and opportunities to focus on water and wetland NBS, alongside forests and introduced Wetlands International’s ambitious plans with partners to tackle land degradation and water insecurity in the Sahel and to enhance coastal resilience in Asia. These commitments are included in the nearly 200 initiatives and best practices from around the world, featured in the NBS Contributions Platform. The “Blue Lifelines for a Secure Sahel“ (BLiSS) initiative, a broad collaboration led by Wet- lands International, involving the African Un- ion Great Green Wall Initiative and CARE, aims to enable investments and action to revive and safeguard the region’s rivers, floodplains, lakes, deltas and ponds ― improving water and food security, restoring peace and build- ing resilience for communities.
With global emissions are reaching record levels and showing no sign of peaking, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on all leaders to come to New York on 23 September for the Climate Action Summit with concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent over the next decade, and to net zero emissions by 2050.
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Wetlands Annual Review 2019
Wetlands Annual Review 2019
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