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Add to Preferred SourcesThe UN Development Programme (UNDP) is witnessing firsthand the ways that climate change drives insecurity and conflict around the world, but we have the data and the means to do what needs to be done, said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner to members of the UN Security Council.
Addressing the Council, Steiner warned of the increasingly threat to peace, security, and development posed by climate change.
“There will be more extreme weather events, droughts, floods, rising sea levels, diminishing polar ice, ecosystem collapse, and declining crop yields,” he said. “Each of these impacts will have untold effects on livelihoods and communities.”
Referring to a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Steiner warned that only 12 years remained if the world was to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“But we can do what needs to be done”, he said, adding that the world had both the “data and the means” to successfully tackle climate change.
Referring to the lessons that had emerged from UNDP’s work on sustainable development, including in collaboration with humanitarian and peacebuilding partners, Steiner focused on three themes that had emerged that were of critical importance.
First, countries’ climate action pledges needed to be ambitious and breakthrough economic, social and political hurdles, he said.
Second, Steiner emphasized the importance of reducing emissions, without which “we are only ever treating the symptoms of climate change.”
Lastly, conceding that even if emissions were curbed sufficiently for a 1.5-degree world, many of the world’s most vulnerable and exposed would still suffer the effects of climate change, Steiner called for increased investment in adaptation and resilience for people at risk.
“Climate change is not something that respects national sovereignty or geographic borders. It is not something anyone nation can tackle effectively by itself”, he concluded. “If we rise to this challenge, we will have demonstrated the purpose of multilateralism as it was originally conceived – to solve challenges that are bigger than ourselves.”
With a portfolio of more than US$3 billion, UNDP is the largest implementer of climate action in the UN System and works with countries to turn their climate goals into action.
It has been used not only in the context of social protection policy systems but also as a tool for disaster risk planning and disaster response.
Original source: UNDP
Published on 25 January 2019