Accelerating Water & Climate Action at COP26 - Notes

The Stockholm International Water Institute ‘SIWI’ and the British Embassy, Stockholm on 24 August 2020 as part of the SIWI World Water Week hosted a webinar on Accelerating Water and Climate Action at COP26.

Lord Goldsmith, a UK government minister outlined some of the priorities for the UK in this area as co-chair of COP26. He noted that –

• The COVID-19 pandemic has starkly underlined the interdependence of climate and health.

• Politicians around the world have committed $10 trillion to COVID-19 recovery plans.

• COP26 organisers at every level were encouraging this to be applied to a Clean and Green Recovery.

• UK priority work areas for COP26 were -

  • Energy

  • Transport

  • Finance

  • Adaptation and Resilience

  • Nature

• Nature-based solutions could contribute as much as a third of the Paris Agreement climate aims – he was hoping for more Nature-based Disclosure, on the lines of Climate-related Financial Disclosure.

• Take the example of the Amazon, which was vital to world health, yet currently not seen as economically important – it was seen as worth more dead than alive.

• The UK was doubling its climate finance to £11.6 billion.

• Governments could not do everything, and there was a need to mobilise the public sector.

• Worldwide, 80% of deforestation was caused by agriculture.

• 4 billion people lived without secure access to water, and factors like the melting of Himalayan glaciers were exceptionally important.

• There were good example s of sustainable water investment, from the Catskill Mountains of New York, USA to the Tana River catchment in Kenya, and in Vietnam.

• Work was in hand to develop water insecurity indicators.

• UK initiatives included the Blue Planet Fund, and there would be a major water component to UK AID initiatives in Asia, Africa and the MENA region.

Sareen Malik of the African Civil Society Network on Water and Sanitation ‘ANEW’ spoke on –

• NGO coordination in the field of water and sanitation.

• The key role of accountable and non-corrupt governance.

• The need for COP26 to address water poverty, and to unlock access to the climate finance promised at Copenhagen.

Sasja Beslik discussed –

• Private investment and the key needs and opportunities in the water sector.

• The need for clean and green finance – and for nature-based solutions to be people-centric.

• Water’s role as a valuable asset.

A recording of the full webinar can be found on YouTube here.