Adaptation and resilience work, meanwhile, is crucial to ensuring that communities survive and thrive in the face of floods, droughts, cyclones and other impacts. Last year alone, extreme flooding in Pakistan, heat in India, droughts in Europe and China, and locust swarms in Africa caused death, economic paralysis or food shortages.
Adaptation efforts vary according to the extent of impacts in communities. They must therefore be led by people on the ground, backed by international finance, expertise and resources. Examples are already cropping up. ThroughRestore Africa, for instance, analliance of governments, multilateral agencies and aninvestment manager is delivering US$150m to smallholder farmers to restore degraded agricultural land in Africa.
The Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda launched at last year’s COP27 will pave the way for similar projects by setting 30 measurable adaptation goals in five impact systems (food and agriculture, water and nature, coastal and oceans, human settlements, and infrastructure). The champions are now working to shore up action under this agenda.
Nature regeneration, finally, sits at the crux of efforts to cut emissions and build resilience. We will not achieve either without tapping into nature’s capacity to store carbon, produce food and buffer shorelines from rising sea levels, among other ecosystem services.
The world has recently acknowledged this and set landmark goals to act. Last December countries committed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and protect a third of land and oceans. In March of this year, they agreed to protect biodiversity in international waters.
Like the Paris agreement, these deals set a direction of travel. But it’s only a first step—then we have to move.
The global stocktake will soon make clear that we are falling far short of meeting the Paris goals. We are already suffering the consequences. While this will be a sobering moment of reflection, it must also be a rallying call for us all to look at what is working and urgently ramp it up—together.
