COP26 update: day two

The second update from GNDR Secretariat staff attending COP26 in Glasgow, UK

Key updates

Throughout COP26 we’re calling for international decision makers to give greater attention to loss and damage, gender equality and inclusion, and climate finance – read more.

The G77 working group had its first work on the analysis of the input made by the The Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts. Reflections on where to locate finance in regards to loss and damage were discussed. These included the inaccuracy in the language compared to the convention language.

Two key high-level people influenced the events:

• The Prime Minister of Norway, who on behalf of his country announced €1.5 million to indigenous communities to protect forests and biodiversity
• The President of Costa Rica shared his experience from the fields; he called to support the activities of indigenous communities who have the knowledge and the capacity to keep forests playing their key role to mitigate and fight climate change

This is the first time after 25 COP events that the voice of indigenous communities have been so audible in international spaces. We participated in the Plenary on a session on forests and indigenous communities.

We went to the informal session on Loss and Damage under the WIM Excom. (The key topics have been postponed, but we’ll continue to engage).

We attended the African Union Commission event on Strengthening Early Warning Capacites / Africa Union Multi-Hazard Situation Room. We were able to ask them to consider communities most at risk in their EWS plans – The Institutional Framework for Multi-Hazard Early Warning Action 2022-2030. The IFRC delegate commented, “Civil society needs to tap into coordination at the country level, hold authorities to account and put pressure on them. There is a need for this civil society space. Please don’t shy away – create this space to share information on risk management and disaster response.”

Lastly, Egypt has launched their Climate Strategy to 2050. We were invited to join the launch by Ahmed, a new GNDR member working for PanAfrican Climate Justice Alliance. He’s looking forward to connecting further with GNDR, especially in the run up to COP27 in Egypt. It was good to hear mentions of “those most affected” in some of the goals and plans, and we hope the strategy delivers.

Upcoming events

• Wednesday, 3 November at 11:30 GMT: Why are Natured-based solutions are crucial for climate and resilience. Hosted by the EU Pavilion. Shivangi Chavda, GNDR Senior Regional Lead for Asia, will be speaking.
• Saturday, 6 November, 12:00 GMT: COP26 Weekly Debrief from GNDR in English and French
• Wednesday, 10 November: Locally-led Solutions to DRR and Anticipatory Action Held in Resilience Hub
• Thursday, 11 November: Capacity Strengthening Seminar on Advocacy in English, French and Portuguese

Daily inspiration

We thought we’d highlight work of others at COP26 as part of our vision for everyone to work together to strengthen the resilience of communities most at risk. Today we saw the “Climate Clock“. The project is centered on a simple tool: a clock that counts down the critical time window to reach zero emissions (our “Deadline”), while tracking our progress on key solution pathways (“Lifelines”). By showing us what we need to do by when, the Clock frames our critical mission — a rapid and just transition to a safe climate future — and puts it at the very forefront of our attention.

Attending COP26?

Let us know and we’ll add you to the GNDR COP26 WhatsApp group.