Parallel session at the 7th Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum: Linking adaptation and mitigation

Background

Research and assessment consistently show the increased vulnerability of local and rural communities to the impacts of climate change and associated human security and disasters. While local communities have adopted robust, traditional resilience practices over the years, greater resilience is needed to tackle the impacts of climate change. The Paris accord has room for ensuring this happens, but will the implementation of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) be sufficient to ensure adequate community resilience and adequate engagement? With this background, we will address the importance of community and local resilience and the role of NAP processes in NDC implementation towards climate action for enhanced local resilience in South and Southeast Asia.

Objectives and outcomes

Address the capacity building needs and priority issues in South and Southeast Asia to address NAP/NDC synergy to increase resilience and equip local communities with the capacity to address climate change impacts.
Both political will and lack of finance are two key barriers identified in the Pre-Forum Webinar on Community and Local Resilience. This, together with issues on local capacity needs, will be discussed to identify gaps, solutions and challenges in this area.
Address critical questions related to those posed under the enablers for this session, particularly
1. Are current planning and approval processes effective in delivering the desired resilience outcomes and responses?
2. How can just transition be ensured when developing INDCs/NAPs?
3. Are current governance structure and policies effective in delivering desired resilience outcomes and responses at local and community levels?

Key messages

While there are innumerable challenges for scaling up local and community resilience, effective best practices for adaptation-mitigation synergy drawing on NDCs/NAPs can be taken up by other stakeholders.
Strengthening science-policy-action interlinkages is vital for effective and improved local and community resilience to the impacts of climate change.
Local and community-level engagement is crucial in realising the Paris Agreement’s objectives, including just transition, adaptation, and resilience at local and community levels.