UN Climate Change News, 2 December 2019, Madrid, Spain – The devastating impacts of climate change are being felt all around the world. Polar ice shields are melting and the sea is rising, while extreme weather events from severe storms to hurricanes and drought are intensifying, affecting millions of people on every continent.
Building resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change will require imaginative, long-term thinking and a readiness to harness emerging trends and technologies to spark transformative adaptation. In this spirit, for the first time, COP 25 will feature a Resilience Lab, which will serve as a central hub for forward looking resilience-related events and engagement workshops throughout the duration of the UN Climate Change Conference.
Discussions and events held within the Resilience Lab will challenge participants to re-examine their assumptions and transcend the boundaries of mainstream thought on adaptation and resilience building. Speakers and attendees will be asked to look beyond 2030 and introduce ideas or solutions that can scale up and transform adaptation efforts or deploy disruptive frontier technologies in the service of maximizing long-term resilience.
This initiative builds upon the inaugural Resilience Frontiers event, which took place in April 2019 during Korea Global Adaptation Week, and gathered one hundred thought leaders for five days of foresight and collective thinking on how to maximize long-term resilience to climate change. The event marked the launch of the Resilience Frontiers Initiative, which is a Nairobi work programme joint-action pledge under the UNFCCC, and an interagency effort coordinated by the UNFCCC secretariat in collaboration with various United Nations agencies and other partners.
Eight distinct but interrelated pathways to a resilient future emerged from these exercises, ranging from ensuring universal and equitable access to frontier data technologies, to mainstreaming regenerative food production, to developing transformative financial instruments, and beyond.
Events within the Lab will seek to map and identify entry points that would serve as building blocks for the transition to a resilient future as envisioned by the Resilience Frontiers pathways.
Recognizing the visionary leadership and ingenuity of youth, each day of the Resilience Lab will include a youth-focused and youth-driven minilab. These minilabs will open up a space for youth from different regions and backgrounds to share their ideas and insights about transformative adaptation and resilience related to the eight pathways. In turn, these ideas and insights will help inform how work on the Resilience Frontiers initiative is taken forward.
The Lab will also feature several opportunities for indigenous peoples to share their perspectives and ideas related to resilience building. In particular, their participation will shine a light on how indigenous values, knowledge, and practices foster a reciprocal relationship with nature that cares for the needs of both people and the natural support systems on which they depend.
The Resilience Lab can be found in Hall 6 of the Conference venue.
Overview Programme
Mon 2 December: Opening day
Tue 3 December: Transforming humanity’s interface with nature, building on indigenous values
Wed 4 December: Applying lifelong learning for environmental stewardship
Thu 5 December: Ensuring universal and equitable access to frontier data technologies
Fri 6 December: Managing water and other natural resources in a participatory and equitable way
Sat 7 Dec: Optimizing future health and wellbeing using a holistic and ecosystem-centred approach
Mon 9 December: Managing transboundary considerations equitably
Tues 10 December: Mainstreaming regenerative food production
Wed 11 December: Developing transformative financial instruments
Thu 12 December: 25 years of adaptation under the UNFCCC as a launchpad for a resilient future
Fri 13 December: Closing day
The detailed programme for each day will be posted on the Adaptation Exchange on Twitter and Facebook.
More information about Resilience Frontiers is available via http://www.resiliencefrontiers.org/