CAN Submission: Adaptation and Loss & Damage Under the ADP, June 2014

The recently released installments of the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, the increasingly occurring extreme weather events and their devastating humanitarian impacts, and multiple studies clearly underline: the world community will fail in eliminating poverty and delivering on major sustainable development objectives without taking adequate action on all fronts – adaptation, mitigation, and increasingly loss and damage where mitigation and adaptation is not sufficient. We would like to remind governments that they agreed that “adaptation to climate change represents an immediate and urgent global priority.”

A 2015 deal, which governments are expected to agree as a landmark agreement, will fail in the eyes of the world public if it does not contribute in scaling up adaptation action for developing countries and the protection of the most vulnerable, often those who have contributed least to the growing threat of climate change. This is even more so the case in light of the continued lack of mitigation ambition required by science, with a world still on track into dangerous climate change, despite many positive developments in areas such as renewable energies and growing resistance against fossil fuel exploration and use. Reaffirmation and strengthening of the global goal in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius should guide Parties’ Nationally Determined Contributions on mitigation, and the support provided by developed countries to developing countries.

Against this background, this submission outlines the current views of Climate Action Network on the role of adaptation and loss and damage in the 2015 agreement, and provides input into the discussions under Workstream 1 of the ADP. These negotiations should be underpinned by a clear determination to implement existing commitments and obligations. In this context we would also like to note that significantly scaling up international financial support by developed countries to vulnerable communities and countries will be central, and without this, architectural advancements under the UNFCCC will have a rather miniscule and insufficient effect.

For practical reasons, this submission follows the section structuring applied by the co-chairs of the ADP in their “Reflections” document. CAN is looking forward to engaging further in discussions with Parties during the June 2014 ADP session.

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Download file: http://climate_action_network_adp_adaptationld_2june2014.pdf