Inauguration of the 7th APAN Forum and High-Level Plenary on Resilience for All.
The Critical Decade to Scale-up Action
Monday, 08 March 2021
10:00 – 11:15 am, Bangkok time, GMT+7, 12:00–13:15 (Tokyo time, GMT +9)
About the Session:
This session will talk about the urgency to scale-up adaptation action to build resilience for Asia and the Pacific. It will serve to build understanding on the necessity to step-up on climate adaptation efforts, and to consider how climate adaptation and resilience building can be adequately factored into decision making processes. As expressed through the UN Decade of Action to deliver on the Global Goals and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems, the next ten years will crucial to build resilient societies and nurture human well-being. A transformative recovery from COVID- 19 is to be pursued, addressing the roots of the crisis, reducing and mitigating risks from future potential crises in the fight to end poverty, combat climate change and prevent a mass extinction.
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Plenary Session on Policy and Climate Governance
Monday, 08 March 2021
11:45 – 12:45 am, Bangkok time, GMT+7, 13:45–14:45 (Tokyo time, GMT +9)
About the Session:
The session will focus on sharing examples of climate governance at international, regional, and national levels that support adaptation actions towards building resilience of sectors and society in an inclusive manner and are cognizant of trade-off. It will also look into examples of supportive role of climate governance in planning and financing of adaptation actions as well as technology transfer. The discussion also aims to bring out some key messages and recommendations on actions required in the area of climate governance to scale-up adaptation actions and enable resilience for all.
Key Messages:
- Climate governance encompass global, national and local dimensions. Countries at the global and national level have been enacting novel legal frameworks, strengthening and/or creating new institutions, and adopting new policies and plans, but shift is necessary from “forming to a functioning” climate governance system which will allow institutions to work at all levels.
- Climate change impacts are already being felt, local communities are first line of victims, voice of women and marginalized often unheard and excluded from climate governance almost at all levels. Resilience of human and social system cannot be built without an inclusive governance system in place.
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Plenary Session on Planning and Processes
Tuesday, 09 March 2021
09:45 – 10:45 am, Bangkok time, GMT+7, 11:45–12:45 (Tokyo time, GMT +9)
About the Session:
By depicting successful stories of project planning at the national, sectoral, and local levels toward building resilience of all sectors and society, as well as showcasing how global processes can support inclusive resilience building efforts, this session will discuss how to apply system thinking in development and project planning and processes to design inclusive adaptation actions that don’t create trade-offs, and break silos. The session will also highlight examples of the supportive role of development and project planning system and processes in ensuring inclusiveness and in financing well-designed adaptation actions and technologies. It will also touch upon how the correct use of scientific knowledge in planning and processes can avoid unintended long-term consequences of adaptation actions.
Key Messages:
- Regular development planning and budgeting processes often run in parallel. Enabling resilience for all cannot be achieved without breaking silos in economic, social and environmental sector development planning and budgeting processes. Example of sectoral silos (agriculture and water), thematic silos (CCA and RDD).
- Move away from short-term planning and investment horizons to capture the full extent of probable long-term climate risks and involve communities as leaders and partners than beneficiaries.
- Put a multi-stakeholder mechanism for evidence-based development planning and budgeting processes including consideration of transboundary climate risk, immediate benefits and long-term needs.
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Plenary Session on Science and Assessment
Wednesday, 10 March 2021
09:45 – 10:45 am, Bangkok time, GMT+7, 11:45–12:45 (Tokyo time, GMT +9)
About the Session:
This session will examine available knowledge of climate science, its application by different actors at different levels and limitations to support decision-making. It aims to bring examples of the use of climate science and its application by government, the private sector and funding agencies for designing adaptation actions supported by science. The session will review examples of the supportive role of climate science in long-term adaptation planning and in making technology choices for adaptation. The discussion aims to bring out some key messages and recommendations on key actions required in the area of climate science and risk analysis to support and scale-up adaptation actions and enabling resilience for all.
Key Messages:
- Climate science has made immense inroads in understanding, its causes and impacts. However, application of climate science in designing adaptation projects still constraint by lack of climate data and assessment specifically at local level planning.
- Resilience against adverse impacts of climate change cannot be built without integration of scientific assessment and understanding of impacts on natural, human and economic system in national and sectoral development planning, and financing and investing in adaptation actions.
- Embedding robust scientific information and under uncertainty in decision making across systems and scale.
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Plenary Session on Technologies and Practices
Thursday 11 March 2021
09:45 – 10:45 am, Bangkok time, GMT+7, 11:45–12:45 (Tokyo time, GMT +9)
About the Session:
The session will share good examples of technologies and practices for adaptation to climate change that are cognizant of any long-term adverse impact on environment and development. This session will also look into policy and governance issues related to technologies and practices. Discussions in this plenary session aim to delineate key messages and recommendations on actions required in the area of technologies for adaptation to support inclusive resilience building and to scale up adaptation actions.
Key Messages:
- Progress made in many fronts in technologies for adaptation to deal with adverse impacts of climate change, but one size does not fit for all.
- Many technologies and practices are often developed without adequate considerations of local communities’ ability to use, many are still beyond the reach for many vulnerable communities in developing countries such as real-time monitoring of moisture or nutrient levels in soil helps farmers to improve their on-farm water and fertilizer management to reduce the risk of crop failure.
- Time to scale up of use of digital technologies, such as earth observation system, geographic information systems, remote sensing, mobile phones not only for assessing risk but provide customised information that allows different actors to respond to climate change and extreme weather events.
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Plenary Session on Finance and Investment
Friday, 12 March 2021
09:45 – 10:45 am, Bangkok time, GMT+7, 11:45–12:45 (Tokyo time, GMT +9)
About the Session:
This session will share good examples of finance and investment flows that allow building inclusive resilience society, resilience of economic sectors, of nature and of local communities against the adverse impacts of climate change, trying to identify major gaps. This session will share examples of finance and investment by the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility, Multi-lateral Development Banks as well as from governments. It also aims to bring out some key messages and recommendations on actions required in the area of climate finance and investment to scale-up adaptation actions and enabling resilience for all.
Key Messages:
- Significant gap in financing and investing in adaptation actions is well recognised. The most vulnerable populations are not benefiting from current climate finance and investment. Only a fraction of adaptation finance that made available globally reach to them. Shift is necessary as this will not deliver intended results.
- Transformation is urgent and without shift from a time-bound that governed by a rigid results-based project financing “predict-and-act” approach to a wider approach to incorporate range of possible future climate risks and development scenarios, it will not deliver intended long-term adaptation results.
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Scaling-up Action
Friday, 12 March 2021
14:00 – 16:00 pm, Bangkok time, GMT+7, 16:00–18:00 (Tokyo time, GMT +9)
About the Session:
The closing session comprises of three main segments, as well as a vote of thanks.
Segment 1: Presentation of Forum’s Summary. A set of action-oriented recommendations on how to magnify current efforts on adaptation in the Asia-Pacific region will be presented. This will also include commitments of different organizations to advance these recommendations.
Segment 2: High-level Closing Plenary. This high-level closing plenary session will be attended by distinguished members of three Rio Conventions, i.e. Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCDD). The Vice President for Knowledge Management Asian Development Bank (ADB) and COP26 Regional Ambassador to Asia-Pacific and South Asia will also attend this high-level closing plenary session.
Segment 3: Key APAN Partners Commitments. This session will be attended by key APAN partners and will make commitments to carry forward recommendations as appropriate by their organization, as well as provide quick reflections on the 7th Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum.
Vote of Thanks: by APAN Secretariat.
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