Why drought resilience matters for the global environment

Date: December 5, 2024

Time: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Venue: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at MET– 04 and on X @STAP_GEF

With climate change intensifying, drought is emerging as a critical global challenge. It leads to ecosystem disturbances, biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and water scarcity, threatening agricultural systems and food security, undermining livelihoods, and driving migration and conflicts. The GEF addresses drought in the land degradation focal area, including through drought-smart land management and drought mitigation in drylands.

A significant aspect of today's climate change degradation is linked to materials extraction, processing, use, and disposal. Hence, the circular economy offers an opportunity to tackle climate change and deliver other environmental and socioeconomic benefits by ensuring that focusing on maintaining resources in use for as long as possible, extracting the maximum value while in use, and recovering and recycling products and usable materials at the end of their serviceable life.

Over the past decade-and-a-half, the GEF has been a leader in supporting climate change adaptation in the developing world – by investing over US$1.3 billion to help communities, notably through the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) and the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF). The GEF has been an “early mover” in climate change adaptation. This base of past experience is not only a rich source of insights and learning, it also places the GEF in a unique position to scale-up and mainstream adaptation in the future.

STAP releases assessment of climate mitigation science – calling on the GEF to make a transformational contribution towards a global low-carbon economy During this time of significant change in climate politics and global financial architecture for climate action, the GEF faces new challenges and opportunities. The newest STAP report, prepared by leading experts in the field, under the leadership of STAP Panel Member, Prof. N.H. Ravindranath, reviews recently published climate science literature and provides a set of important considerations for the GEF’s role in this context.

Improving energy efficiency (EE) is the single most important abatement opportunity reducing global warming. For the next couple of decades, energy efficiency’s contribution to energy use or emission reduction is estimated between 25-50% of the total mitigation potential depending on the model used. Most models put the associated absolute CO2 emission reduction potentials in 2030 between 4 and 8 Gt (IEA, 2011).

STAP and UNEP's Global Programme of Research on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts, and Adaptation initiated a process to assess the state of knowledge on the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of climate change adaptation (CCA). This report reflects the synthesis of efforts over the past two years in that area, and draws from a wide base of knowledge regarding the current state of national and multilateral actions on adaptation, the outcomes of the Paris Agreement, and the needs and priorities of the GEF.

This STAP guidance proposes a common standard for climate risk screening of GEF projects based on the scientific literature and builds on earlier work undertaken over the last several years in response to the Council’s request that STAP examine the effects of climate change on GEF projects. At a minimum, each agency should use a risk screening process that includes four steps (hazard identification, assessment of vulnerability and exposure, risk classification, risk mitigation plan), ranks risks according to a clearly defined scale, and uses the best available data.

The open session of the bi-annual STAP Meeting was held in the World Bank's Main Complex, 1818 H Street, NW, conference room, MC7-100, Washington, DC, and featured presentations and discussions on: the Science of Integrated Approaches, Socio-Economic Impacts of Protected Areas, and Climate Risk Screening.

The open session of the bi-annual STAP Meeting was held in connection with the 54th GEF Council and 6th GEF Assembly Meetings in Da Nang, Viet Nam.

The meeting was held in the Ariyana Ballroom 1A, Ariyana Convention Center, on the grounds of the Furama Resort. The open session featured the following list of  presentations, with discussions on: Climate Risk Screening, Environmental Security, Circular Economy, and Local Commons; Global Benefits.