Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Climate Week: AGWA Q&A with Mario Lopez
At a global high-level COP26 Communique Event, Regional Climate Week stakeholders heard that the 2021 Climate Weeks saw a common theme emerge: “regional collaboration as an enabling force for global progress” on climate action that could be amplified beyond COP26.
It’s just over thirteen months since the last LAC Regional Climate Week took place online due to COVID-19. Ahead of this year’s installment 18-22 July in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, we sat down with Mario Lopez, a senior water resources expert working with AGWA, who’ll be moderating our event Innovation in Water: Showcasing the Adaptation Action Coalition’s Progress on Water Resilience in the LAC on Thursday, 21 July.
AGWA: COP26 in Glasgow re-energized global momentum to address climate change. How is the LAC region capitalizing on this global momentum?
Mario: The rhythm of commitments translated into NDC updates and publications of national plans or strategies for adaptation to climate change has been maintained. In other words, an additional booster is not seen in the countries after COP26. Bolivia recently published its updated NDC and Costa Rica its National Adaptation Plan. The others implement their NDCs and NAPs at a slower pace given budget reductions in almost all countries.
AGWA: What are some of the projects or activities that demonstrate how LAC countries are creating meaningful solutions which can be adopted more widely outside the region?
Mario: In Latin America, most countries are highly vulnerable to climate change. For this reason, the objectives, priorities, and adaptation actions of NDCs seek to give equal or greater visibility to mitigation and adaptation. Synergies with other international goals and commitments are also observed in: Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the SDGs, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on Against Desertification (UNCCD) and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. This is also reflected in the recently published National Adaptation Plans.
Priority adaptation areas include improving the resilience of agricultural systems, terrestrial and wetland ecosystems, human health, key economic sectors and services for each country, and coastal zones and ocean ecosystems. Freshwater resources are not always developed as a sector or, when they are, not transversally as an opportunity or risk.
The importance of adaptation in the energy sector has grown. Several of the most recent NDCs include climate resilience in the energy sector.
Planning around NDCS and NAPs in the region — what to include and how to go about it — can serve as useful examples for other countries to replicate. For example, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, and Peru have integrated adaptation into their sectoral policies. The number of initiatives developed by each country is in accordance with its level of progress in climate change policies, as well as its economic position. In particular, there is a high level of activity around adaptation within the development agendas of countries like Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Costa Rica.
AGWA: What key challenges do LAC countries face in adapting to a future where demand for water is shifting while water availability is more variable and unreliable?
Mario: From the governance point of view, the main challenge is the proper implementation of adaptation actions established in the NDC and NAP in three aspects: 1) the participation of multiple sectors and effective coordination between relevant actors and institutions (coherence and complementarity across horizontal level and vertical level[1]); 2) financing[2]; and 3) accurate measurement and participatory monitoring. From the perspective of climate and water uncertainty, the main challenge is to improve the efficiency in the use of water, especially in the agricultural sector, and to ensure water availability[3] and, water and sanitation services in accordance with the universal principles of Human Rights to Water and Sanitation for the sectors of the population most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
AGWA: A lot has shifted in the world since last year’s virtual LAC Climate Week. Not only is COVID still here but there’s now the War in Ukraine impacting access to food and resources, recovery from a record-breaking tropical storm season in the Atlantic, as well as broad economic and sociopolitical challenges facing many countries. How is the region coping? Is it re-thinking strategies on adaptation and resilience?
Mario: The economies and production chains of the countries have been strongly affected by the pandemic and war events more than the impacts of hydrometeorological events. The social situation has severely affected this and migration from Central American, Caribbean, and South American countries has increased. Political shifts to the left in the countries have occurred and climate change is not on their agenda as a national priority. All this panorama has caused a significant reduction in the budgets and institutional structures of the countries, and the environment and water sectors have been the most impacted.
Adaptation goals have generally been maintained, but the originally planned resources have decreased or else the commitments of the new NAPs and NDCs state that they are subject to external financing. The new strategies to adapt and achieve resilience to climate change derived from multiple workshops, including Long-Term Strategies on Climate Change in Latin America, and the methodological proposal that allows the identification of investment opportunities in adaptation to climate change, as well as of the multiple tools and initiatives provided by the institutions associated with the United Nations, are focused by sectors on strengthening the mechanisms to anticipate hydrometeorological phenomena and communicate them in a timely manner to the populations and productive sectors. Likewise, building the capacities of communities and governments, concrete adaptation measures on the ground with local actors’ participation, and actions to support the generation and management of knowledge are the most recurrent strategies taken by the countries. More needs to be done to adapt but the uncertain climate, socioeconomic, and political scenarios complicate the decision making of the Latin American leaders.
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AGWA will be represented by Mr. Lopez at the LACCW session Innovation in Water: Showcasing the Adaptation Action Coalition’s Progress on Water Resilience in the LAC on 21 July 2022 from 1-2 p.m. Santo Domingo time (GMT-4).
For more information about #ClimateWeekLAC visit https://unfccc.int/LACCW2022
The next Regional Climate Week event is Africa Climate Week 2022. For more information about the UNFCCC Regional Climate Weeks visit https://unfccc.int/climate-action/regional-climate-weeks
[1] Corresponding to the needs of the countries and, on the other, carry out an articulated and coordinated work between all the parties involved to advance common goals of sustainable development and use its resources human, technical and financial in an efficient way.
[2] Latin America is not the main destination for climate finance because it has more emerging economies than regions like Africa or Southeast Asia. These emerging countries are the ones that receive the most money within the region, since they have more solid institutions that allow them to activate the necessary mechanisms to receive the money. Financing should be based on an analysis of the needs of developing countries (reflecting their vulnerability).
[3] Implement measures that promote infiltration and prevent deforestation, strengthen their early warning systems against extreme events or repair the damage they cause, among other things.