Channelling climate change funding into UNCCD implementation

On 10 September 2007, during COP.8, a side event on How to Channel Climate Change Funding into UNCCD Implementation Activities and Outlook was organized by the GM, with the support of FAO and EcoSecurities.  This event illustrated how the GM supports the engagement of UNCCD country Parties and stakeholders in the climate change dialogue, and how it facilitates access to mitigation and adaptation funding opportunities through country- or regional-level activities and conceptual and strategic work.

 

Opening the event, the GM’s Managing Director, Christian Mersmann, stressed the enormous potential for collaboration on climate change between the Rio Conventions at the international level, and between all stakeholders at the national level. 

The event aimed to demonstrate how a synergistic and holistic approach to the UNCCD could help to tap climate change funding, and how work on climate change can be integrated into resource mobilization for implementation on the ground – particularly through partnerships with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector.

 

Alejandro Kilpatrick, Coordinator of the GM’s newly-established Climate Change and Ecosystems Services (CCES), described the CCES Programme within the broader UNCCD context: the programme is a response to calls for the GM to explore innovative funding opportunities in several COP decisions, GM evaluations and, now, the 10-year strategy for UNCCD implementation. The CCES Programme’s approach and activities are in line with its mandate to investigate and assist mobilization of new, innovative resources.

 

The CCES Programme, supported by the GM/FAO Investment Centre Collaborative Programme, deals with existing mitigation and adaptation finance opportunities, synergistic implementation of the Rio Conventions, and the future of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and carbon trading or new finance mechanisms such as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Synergies between the Conventions are especially important for financing.

Mr Kilpatrick emphasized the need for the GM to analyse how to support its (sub-) regional partners in accessing such mechanisms. Although not a panacea against land degradation, these mechanisms are an extremely valuable part of a broader investment package. The UNCCD should not view climate change in terms of adaptation only – mitigation also has a role, through avoided deforestation, for example. 

 

Through the CCES Programme, the GM contributes to UNCCD high-level dialogue on climate change and desertification and will inform United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations, to secure recognition of UNCCD issues in upcoming finance opportunities under the UNFCCC, starting with an event at the UNFCCC COP in Bali in December 2007.

The GM’s partners then made presentations to illustrate how the conceptual and strategic work is taken down to the country level:

 

  Download EcoSecurities’ presentation on Climate change:the linkages to degradation, finance mechanisms and how to make use of them (PDF, English, 526 Kb)

 

  Download EcoSecurities’ presentation on Identification and development of two regional CES initiatives in Ecuador and Nicaragua (PDF, English 1.16 Mb)

 

  Download Nicaragua’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources’ Socio-environmental and Forestry Development Programme (POSAF) presentation on Regional payment for environmental services system for carbon (PDF, Spanish, 5.65 Mb)

 

  Download the Government of Morocco’s presentation on Assistance in Formulating a CDM strategy for the Moroccan land use sector (PDF, English, 1.29 Mb)

 

  Download Conservation International’s presentation on Innovative financing mechanisms for sustainable land management / UNCCD (PDF, English, 1.88 Mb)

 

  Download Conservation International’s presentation on Climate change, land degradation and adaptation in the Andes (PDF, English, 3.42 Mb)

 

  Download the GM publication Cashing in on the links between climate change and land degradation (PDF, English, 847 Kb)

 

  Download the GMultipack of products and services in Latin America and the Caribbean (PDF, English, 335 Kb)