Key updates
Energy was a key topic of discussion at the climate change event today.
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 Sendai Stakeholder Engagement Mechanism have launched their position on COP26.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change presented the first chapter of its 6th report. This informative session showed how urgent it has become to put in place concrete actions before severe events hit the whole planet. The report provides an overview of increasing global heat. It highlights how Africa and Asia are highly exposed while small island countries will pay a huge load because of the sea level rise. During this presentation, a serious focus was made on the loss and damage that the increasing global temperatures will have and this is a sufficient argument to improve the collection, access, and management of data to promote data-informed policies; and to encourage research with high standards to ensure the provision of reliable data
Young people have organised themselves to call on The Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM Excom) to consider and integrate loss and damage and to accelerate the policies. They presented their policy analysis, the slow progress and the need to mobilise additional funds to ensure the social protection of the victims of loss and damage; and build the resilience of communities most at-risk that are disproportionately affected by climate change.
The Global Climate Funds (GCF) manager has met with less developed countries. The objective was to present funds and reflect with constituencies on the possibility to improve the service delivered by the funds. After the presentation of the funds and its activities, a debate on how the length of time adaptation projects require versus mitigation projects – and therefore the validity of assessment was held. It was suggested to the GCF to split adaptation and loss and damage, as this is the only way the period of assessment will not lead to new hazardous events that can affect the project (sometimes) before it starts.
It is important to mention that GCF funds countries through Accredited Entities. The funds are provided as a loan or donations. However, civil society organisations can collaborate with government entities to submit and implement projects at the national or subnational level.
Loss and damage: negotiation on loss and damage took place long into the night. It was dedicated to the analysis of the WIM Excom loss and damage draft paper. As usual, this document has brought some disagreements between less developed countries, G7, China and developed countries. However, it is important to mention that there was significant progress achieved during the last two COP events on the Warsaw International Mechanism.
Some points remain to be solved. Among these points, it is important to remember that the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage was installed in Madrid. This network should be considered as a complementary executive body rather than a competing tool.
