News.Nov 10, 2017

Both climate adaptation and mitigation offer opportunities to address source-to-sea priorities

Plan smart, work together and break the silos! Those messages can be said to summarize a very interesting panel discussion held at COP23 on the opportunities to address freshwater, ocean and climate change priorities together.

The Action Platform for Source-to-Sea Management joined forces with several of its members including Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA), Delta Alliance, FAO, IUCN and SIWI to explore challenges and opportunities to address source-to-sea priorities in the context of climate change at the 23rd Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC.

The speakers and panelists discussed challenges and opportunities to address source-to-sea priorities through climate adaptation and mitigation measures as part of water management in agriculture, in cities, in small island developing states and in deltas. The event was held at the Nordic Pavilion at COP23, with keynote speaker Eva Svedling, Vice Minister, International Development Cooperation and Climate, Sweden and panelists Cees van De Guchte, Policy Specialist at Deltares and Delta Alliance; James Dalton, Director of the Global Water Programme, IUCN; Katarina Luhr, Vice Mayor of Stockholm; Jennifer Lenhardt, Expert on Sustainable Cities at WWF Sweden; and Eduardo Mansur, Director of the Land and Water Division, FAO. Birgitta Liss Lymer, Coordinator of the S2S Platform, moderated the panel.

Another event “Imagine our world with +4⁰: Coping with the impacts of climate change on water for SDG 6, 11 and 14”, was organized by SIWI and the French Water Partnership as an official COP23 side-event highlighted the effects on the hydrological cycle from climate change and related impacts on water scarcity, coastal urban resilience and deltas.

For further reading: http://alliance4water.org/resources/Freshwater-and-oceans_WEB.pdf