Repair Cafe East Linton's regular blogger, Brian McClelland, attended (online) a 'One Planet Summit' for biodiversity, held in Paris on 12th January 2021.
We hope you enjoy his informative and entertaining summary of the event:
"This was a full dress spectacular in a gilded salon in the Elysée, chaired and contributed to by President Macron. There was a closed working session in the morning. I followed the afternoon session. The programme for it is at the end of this note.
Impressions
Notable absences: The USA, Russia, India, Brazil. Britain was represented by Prince Charles and, Boris Johnson. Technology wasn't its strong point. I booked in advance, but the supplied link told me the proceedings were not public, although there was a Twitter icon which took me to the live show. Also a little light relief from various Zoom problems. M Le President Macron had to advise World Bank President “David, your microphone is on mute”. Ursula van der Leyen gave half her talk on mute, with panic breaking out on the top table and a loud stage whisper “Call Brussels, call Brussels NOW. I can see from the picture behind her she's in Brussels”. Homely, really.
No sign of Greta Thunberg. Maybe speaking truth like she does is too indigestible. For these guys.
Health Warning
I recorded it and have written these notes on some of the more interesting bits. I can't guarantee that I've captured it all entirely accurately. As I'm no expert on climate international bureaucracy, it was no surprise to find that there were many references to initiatives that I hadn't heard of.
I have put a few notes about these at the end. This made it a bit difficult to judge when several speakers were actually claiming ownership of the same funding and projects and, inevitably, the political dimension meant there was a fair bit of fine aspirational waffle.
Notes on some of the talks
David Malpass, President World Bank
The World Bank Group is the biggest multilateral funder of climate change in Developing Countries [DC].
35% of WB financing to have “climate co-benefits” over the next 5 years
Strong emphasis on climate adaptation, with this accounting for at least 50% of WB finance.
Over the past 2 years supported conservation of 100 million hectares of coastal protected areas and 10 million hectares of land in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In India, mapping entire coastline and planting 16000 hectares of mangroves, protecting 1.7 million people. Scaling up support to upgrade degraded land in Sahel, Horn of Africa. Supporting the One Health approach [see notes].
Han Zheng [China]
Platitudes little or nothing in the way facts or data.
HRH Prince Charles
Much the most substantial talk of the afternoon, alternating French and English. He used the meeting to launch his Terra Carta initiative:
'Goals and targets are fine but the next step, long overdue must be an extraordinary practical effort to mobilise the financial resources, technical ingenuity and institutional innovation required to pursue them. A year ago at Davos I launched my Sustainable Markets Initiative to put people and the planet at the heart of global value creation. My conviction is that the only solutions for our planet lie in working in harmony with nature rather than against it.
It's now clear [ref COVID] that human health and planetary health are inextricably linked.
Over the past year I have brought together a voluntary coalition representing almost every branch of industry and the economy. I challenged them to find a way to place our planet on a more sustainable trajectory, making an urgent appeal to leaders from all sectors around the world to join us in this endeavour and to support Terra Carta to bring prosperity into harmony with nature.
Those in industry and finance must provide practical leadership to the common project as only they are able to mobilise the innovation, scale and resources that are required to transform our global economy.
One of the ten critical areas in the Terra Carta is the investment in accelerating the transition from carbon intensive land use and scaling investment in the restoration of natural capital. Nature-based solutions such as: soil restoration and forest, grassland, wetland and agricultural land restoration. Improving diversity, cutting emissions: removing CO2 from the atmosphere by creating natural carbon sinks: carbon offset markets based on nature.
A growing number of companies are committing themselves to achieving carbon neutrality. With the support of President Macron, one development has been to create a global private sector alliance to develop natural capital as an investment theme, targeting $10 billion by 2022.
The time for acting is now. It's up to us to make sure that every day counts.'
Erna Solberg, Norwegian PM
'Forest preceded civilisation and desert followed civilisation. Halting tropical deforestation is a key element in controlling climate change and biodiversity loss. Together with the UK we are providing more than $5billion between 2015 and 2020 and Norway has pledged to continue its tropical forest initiative until 2030.
Norway has been for some years engaged in expanding land restoration and a reforestation project in Africa. We still have a huge challenge before us – 100 million hectares and 250 million tons of carbon to be sequestered.
There are several pillars to this work: redirect subsidies that are harmful to biodiversity: generate additional resources from both private and public sectors: extend public - private partnerships on a far wider scale: use our resources for conservation and sustainable use more effectively.
The Covid pandemic has shown that the global community can mobilise vast resources when faced with a crisis. So let us all show that we are ready to scale up action on biodiversity and climate change.'
Boris Johnson
It was as if he had speed read a pamphlet from the WWF while sitting on his bike waiting for the lights to change.
John Pascal, Tricoire Schneider CEO
'Schneider is a big international specialising in technologies to fight climate change and diversity and develop a global compact that gives us a framework and common vocabulary. We work with Act for Nature International in which a number of firms have made a joint commitment to make science based contributions. Two examples. 1 Develop metrics to compare the impact on biodiversity of our firm and compare with that of other comparable companies. Using the biodiversity score. 2 To get greater commitment from businesses to tackle climate change. We have committed our firm to demonstrating a zero net loss of biodiversity as a result of our operations across our 200 industrial sites. By 2025 we aim to achieve circularity in water resources and materials. We have undertaken to be carbon neutral by 2030 and also to help our clients using our technology to save 100 million tons of carbon per year. It is important to have people working with us at local level and the contribution of communities.
On innovation, companies with global resources in technology, finance and project management have an absolutely key role in finding innovative solutions. Many solutions already exist today but we need to adopt them, adapt them, integrate them and design and rethink tomorrows world which isn't going to be like todays. Different players from different origins need to work together to create a more sustainable world.'
Projects and programmes referred to during the conference
The Great Green Wall of Africa
The Great Green Wall is an African-led movement with an epic ambition to grow an 8,000km natural wonder of the world across the entire width of Africa. A decade in and roughly 15% underway, the initiative is already bringing life back to Africa’s degraded landscapes at an unprecedented scale, providing food security, jobs and a reason to stay for the millions who live along its path.
The Wall promises to be a compelling solution to the many urgent threats not only facing the African Continent, but the global community as a whole – notably climate change, drought, famine, conflict and migration. Once complete, the Great Green Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet, three times the size of the Great Barrier Reef.
The One Health Approach
WHO, FAO and other organisations. Collaboration for Animal Health https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/one-health
'One Health' is an approach to designing and implementing programmes, policies, legislation and research in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes. The areas of work in which a One Health approach is particularly relevant include food safety, the control of zoonoses (diseases that can spread between animals and humans, such as flu, rabies and Rift Valley Fever), and combatting antibiotic resistance (when bacteria change after being exposed to antibiotics and become more difficult to treat).
PREZODE
One Planet Summit: launch of PREZODE, a first-ever international initiative to prevent future pandemics 11/01/2021 - Press release: Under the aegis of France, and notably the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, PREZODE, an initiative to prevent emerging zoonotic risks and pandemics, was announced on the occasion of the One Planet Summit for biodiversity on 11 January. Three French research institutes – INRAE, CIRAD and IRD – have teamed up with around ten other research bodies* in France, Germany and the Netherlands to launch PREZODE, which has already mobilised more than 1000 researchers.
The High Ambition Coalition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Ambition_Coalition is an informal group of approximately 35 countries within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) committed to advancing progressive proposals on climate ambition. The HAC was founded by the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 2014 with the aim of ensuring the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, was as ambitious as possible. The group succeeded in securing the Paris Agreement's most ambitious provisions, including the five year ratchet-up cycles of nationally-determined contributions, as well as language in Article 2 related to pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The Republic of the Marshall Islands serves as the convener and secretariat of the HAC.
There is no official list of the group's members, but as of 2018, in addition to the European Union, countries in the HAC include Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Fiji, Jamaica, New Zealand, Mexico, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Saint Lucia among others.
One-planet summits convened by WB in Paris 2017 NY 2018 Nairobi 2019.
Sustainable Markets Initiative https://www.sustainable-markets.org/10-point-action-plan/
Research Program and Participants 14:00 - Overture Ouverture par les partenaires fondateurs de l’OPS • L’Ours, by Christophe MAE and Youssou N’DOUR • Emmanuel MACRON, Président de la République • António GUTERRES, Secrétaire général des Nations Unies • David MALPASS, Président de la Banque Mondiale • HAN Zheng, premier vice-Premier ministre de la République populaire de Chine • Son Altesse Royale le Prince de Galles - 14h30 - Session 1 - Protéger les espaces terrestres et marins • Cristián SAMPER, Président de la société de conservation de la faune sauvage Coalition de la haute ambition pour la nature et les peuples • Carlos ALVARADO QUESADA, Président de la République du Costa Rica • Giuseppe CONTE, Président du Conseil des ministres de la République italienne Table ronde relative à la Coalition Méditerranée exemplaires 2030 • S.A.S. Prince ALBERT II de Monaco • Pedro SANCHEZ, Président du Gouvernement du Royaume d’Espagne • Gilles SIMEONI, Président du Conseil exécutif de Corse, président de la Commission des îles CRPM - 15h00 - Session 2 - Promouvoir l’agro-écologie L’Europe face aux enjeux de l’agro-écologie • Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the European Commission Table ronde sur la Grande muraille verte de la bande sahélo-soudanaise • Mohamed OULD CHEIKH EL GHAZOUANI, Président de la République islamique de Mauritanie • David MALPASS, Président de la Banque mondiale • Gilbert HOUNGBO, President du FIDA • Témoignage de Mariam SOW, Fondatrice de 3AO Alliance Agro-écologie Afrique de l’Ouest • Karim AIT TALB, Directeur général de Geocoton - 15h35 - Session 3 - Mobiliser des financements pour la biodiversité Table ronde sur le financement pour la biodiversité • Erna SOLBERG, Première ministre du Royaume de Norvège • Justin TRUDEAU, Premier ministre du Canada • Boris JOHNSON, Premier ministre du Royaume de Grande-Bretagne et d’Irlande du Nord • Christine LAGARDE, Présidente de la Banque centrale européenne • Jean-Pascal TRICOIRE, Président-directeur-général de Schneider Electric - 16h10 - Session 4 - Protéger les forêts tropicales, les espèces et la santé humaine
Les forêts, la biodiversité et notre santé • Angela MERKEL, Chancelière fédérale de la République fédérale d’Allemagne Prévenir les pandémies – initiative PREZODE • Tedros Adhanom GHEBREYESUS, Directeur-Général de l’OMS • QU Dongyu, Directeur général de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’agriculture et l’alimentation Table ronde sur la déforestation • Mark RUTTE, Chef du Gouvernement du Royaume des Pays-Bas • Félix TSHISEKEDI, Président de la République démocratique du Congo • Pascal CANFIN, Président de la Commission environnement du Parlement européen • Marco LAMBERTINI, Président du WWF international - 16h45 - Conclusion • Emmanuel MACRON, Président de la République
18h00-19h30 - Réunion ministérielle - Coalition de la Haute Ambition pour la Nature et les Hommes
18h00 – 19h30 : Réunion ministérielle de la coalition de la Haute Ambition pour la Nature et les Hommes