Climate Week NYC Launch of UN Adaptation Academy’s Global Training Programme to Accelerate Climate Action

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021, 00:00 EDT, NYC, NEW YORK, USA

Climate Week NYC Launch of UN Adaptation Academy’s Global Training Programme to Accelerate Climate Action

A new training program to enhance climate resilience efforts at national scales under the global Paris Agreement is being launched on September 24, 2021 at a Climate Week NYC event where representatives of the governments of the U.S., the Netherlands, Egypt, and South Africa are scheduled to speak alongside the UNFCCC secretariat, Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA), Oregon State University, and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education.

Under the leadership of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat and AGWA, a collaborative group of research, practitioner, and education partners — Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand), IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (Netherlands), Korea Environment Institute (South Korea), and Oregon State University (United States) — are behind the new training program known as the Climate Action and Support Transparency Training (CASTT) Adaptation Academy.

Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs for the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Sherpa to the UN High Level Panel on Water says,

“Climate change impacts catch up on us, the most vulnerable first. We can and must step and speed up, change course now. With that comes the urgent need to invest in people, processes, and partnerships to get to best solutions for a resilient future that we can replicate and scale.

The UNFCCC Adaptation Academy does just that: investing in the enabling environment we so much need, to get to the core of transformative climate action. Amazing to see AGWA leading this Academy with our own IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, with the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Korea Environment Institute (KEI) and Oregon State University. Investing in each other for inclusive, comprehensive, and transformative climate action.”

“Although every country faces important and sometimes dire climate impacts like amplified wildfires, flooding, sea level rise and droughts, the Adaptation Academy represents the first program delivered in partnership with the UNFCCC globally, aimed at national level decision-makers reporting on adaptation efforts and working to enhance transparency,” said John Matthews, AGWA’s Executive Director. “We also expect that bringing regional leaders together with scientists and policy specialists can catalyze new knowledge about how we share and implement transformative solutions to meet the challenges of climate change. If the NDCs are successful, the Paris Agreement will be successful. And that means empowering the decision makers, partners, and implementers working on NDCs.”

"Reporting on adaptation continues to be a challenge for most developing countries, and many are faced with a lack of standardized methodologies and tools, data and information and institutional arrangements for reporting. In this context, and to provide the needed support, the secretariat values enormously partnership opportunities, especially with institutions of excellence,” said Ovais Sarmad, Deputy Executive Secretary, UNFCCC.

In development since 2019, the Adaptation Academy launches its first training program courses online, due to the continuing COVID-19 emergency, the week after Climate Week NYC. With regional focuses on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Europe, Africa, and the Asia Pacific, the courses are designed for policy makers, ministry representatives of governments, professionals, and experts who are actively planning, implementing and reporting on climate adaptation, action, and transparency.

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About AGWA

Established in 2010, the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) is an international members-based organization working across technical and policy programs to mainstream resilient water resources management, focusing on the connections between water resources and climate adaptation and mitigation. https://alliance4water.org

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