Sharing experiences to bolster climate policy

Our senior consultant Soumik Biswas joins a technical adaptation meeting during the Asia Pacific Climate Week

Authors

Ahead of the Climate Action Summit and COP25, UNFCCC is organising various regional climate weeks to boost the momentum created by the climate agreement in Paris. Held in Bangkok, between 2 and 6 September, the Asia Pacific Climate Week aims to foster engagement between public and private sectors, academics and researchers, cities, and civil society to tackle the climate emergency.

Building on our extensive knowledge of mainstreaming climate reforms into policies across south Asia through our Action on Climate Today (ACT) programme, our senior climate consultant Soumik Biswas spoke at the technical expert meeting on adaptation, part of the Asia Pacific Climate Week, on 6 September.

Successful implementation of adaptation measures often requires large investments and technical support. Lack of financial resources and capacity to support adaptation initiatives and projects is a common challenge for many low- and middle-income countries, and especially for the least developed countries – posing a barrier to planning, integrating, implementing, and learning from adaptation efforts.

Soumik highlighted how aligning domestic expenditure with climate change action is an effective way to catalyse both domestic and international finance at the national and sub-national level. He also focused on how supporting multilateral finance with domestic expenditure can help advance government priorities and meet adaptation needs.

His presentations aimed to spotlight key questions that will inform policy guidelines at COP25, including:

  • What evidence, experience, and stories can bolster (or counter) the policy recommendation?
  • How this can be adopted in the Asia Pacific region?
  • What can be done (more at the regional, national, and sub-national levels) to scale up action in the Asia Pacific region?

The presentation is part of the Technical Examination Process on Adaptation, which was established at COP21 to promote enhanced climate action prior to 2020. At the core of this process are the technical meetings, which seek to identify concrete opportunities for strengthening climate resilience, reducing vulnerabilities, and increasing the understanding and implementation of adaptation actions.

Find out more information about the panel here

Area of expertise