Water and Climate Leaders - Recipe for Successful Adaptation

Introduction

Climate change is exacerbating both water scarcity and water-related hazards, as rising temperatures disrupt precipitation patterns and the entire water cycle. It is estimated that 80% of the impacts of climate change are felt through water and the crisis will only intensify in the future.

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, the Water and Climate Coalition Leaders issued an urgent and united call for integrated water and climate action to replace the existing fragmented and crisis-driven approach.

In this session, the Water and Climate Coalition Leaders will provide strategic guidance on integrating the water and climate agendas (incl. the UN 2030 Agenda, the Sendai Framework, the Paris Agreement and Africa’s 2063 Agenda), to maximize synergies in designing and implementing actions to achieve SDGs 6 and 13.

Objectives

The Leaders will present and discuss with the audience the following six tangible outcomes to be proposed at the 2023 UN Water Decade Conference:

A globally connected water observing system
A new financing rationale that considers societal benefit and ecological sustainability in water and climate development
An explicit river basin cooperation framework for assessing and sharing benefits of water-climate adaptation and mitigation activities
An agreed open access process and platform that takes stock of climate and water related activites
An International Year of Glacier Preservation in 2025 and an international mechanism to facilitate the access to accurate and timely information on cryosphere
A methodology and process to catalyze real change on the ground