Building Water-wise NDCs and NAPs
Official side event at the UNFCCC Bonn Climate Conference (SB60)
Date & Time: Monday, 3 June 2024; 13:15-14:30 CEST
Room: Berlin (no livestreaming option)
As nations look across their climate goals and plans—including NDCs and NAPs—it is crucial to understand how water resource management (and the basic services dependent on drinking water supply and sanitation, energy and food production) can strengthen adaptive capacity and resilience, as well as is key to reducing CO2 emissions. Potential unintended consequences of climate planning choices will be discussed, particularly related to two barriers to planning and implementing transformative climate actions, namely (i) insufficient coordination and capacity for cross-sectoral planning and implementation that consider the reality of water management across sectors; and (ii) a low level of integration of NDC and NAP water management priorities into national planning and budgeting processes (climate financing needs to support the implementation of those solutions).
To address this, the event will look to create alignment between Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) by demonstrating how water connects to climate mitigation measures, reduces risks and climate impacts holistically through a systems approach. Countries with successful examples will be invited to provide the storytelling of how this is solved at the national level. The aim will be to convene national parties and a coalition of leading institutions on water and climate to answer the question - What is a water resilient and holistic NDC/NAP and how is it achieved? Answering this question will help countries and the water community to focus on strategic needs, providing adequate support and guidance.
The event will also present specific differences between traditional water indicators and resilience indicators, the session will provide examples of how to define and measure resilience. This to engage countries in a conversation of how they see resilience in their national context and how that can be translated into updated NDCs / NAPs.
Additionally, the event will share the results of the UN-Water Expert Group on Water and Climate Change’s Study on the Water Requirements of Climate Mitigation Measures co-coordinated by WMO, UNECE and UNESCO. The study highlights the critical links between water availability for the implementation of Paris Agreement climate mitigation measures. This will provide parties with the very latest estimates of the water requirements for different mitigation measures and show how climate targets are dependent on the sustainable management of water resources. At the national level, policymakers will need to assess the water requirements according to local conditions and regarding NDCs.
The goal of this session is, therefore, to offer solutions to the formulation and coherence of NDCs/NAPs by presenting how:
to integrate water resources management into NDCs/NAPs;
to integrate climate considerations into water policy;
to integrate water and climate considerations into other sector-related policies (e.g. energy, food, health)
This will contribute to the transformative shift needed to consider water as a resilience multiplier, rather than a climate risk or isolated sector.
Co-Convenors
The session is co-convened by SIWI, AGWA, IWMI, the co-coordinators of the UN-Water Expert Group on Water and Climate Change (UNECE, WMO, UNESCO), Sanitation and Water for All, GIZ and WaterAid, together with support from the Water for Climate Pavilion partners.
