Host [00:00:01]: You are listening to Make Change Happen, the podcast from IIED, the International Institute for Environment and Development. In today's episode we’ll be exploring why is it important for countries to include nature in their Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs for climate action. And what it means for the COP26 conference the challenges and opportunities that lie beyond.
Liz Carlile [00:00:27]: Hello, this is Liz Carlile welcoming you all once again to Make Change Happen. And today sees the opening of COP26 and this is the much-awaited next meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There is a growing focus on what decisions will be made there and these decisions will shape the next decade and beyond. They’ll determine the key actions that we take globally, not only on climate but on nature and development. And today I’m talking with our guests about NDCs, Nationally Determined Contributions, and we’ll explain a bit about those in due course. But we will be looking at why they’re important to both climate but also nature.
We’ll be looking at how the crises of climate change, nature loss, the rising inequality demonstrated through the COVID-19 pandemic, are deeply interconnected. And in May next year, in Kunming in China, the 15th meeting on the Convention of Biological Diversity, COP15, presents possibly a huge opportunity to land a strong new framework for delivering a sustainable relationship between people and nature. And all of this we believe to be critically important to our futures. So I’m going to start by asking our guests to introduce themselves. Sarshen, would we like to start with you?
Sarshen Scorgie [00:01:54]: Hello everyone. This is Sarshen Scorgie. I work at Conservation South Africa based in Cape Town, South Africa, and I am the director for climate strategy.
Liz Carlile [00:02:05]: Welcome, Sarshen. Harriet, can you say a little bit about yourself?
Harriet Drani [00:02:09]: Hello everyone. My name is Harriet Drani and I work at IUCN as a programme officer, specifically leading on ecosystem-based adaptation in Uganda. Thanks for having me here.
Liz Carlile [00:02:25]: It’s great to have you with us, Harriet. So, Bob, over to you.
Bob Natifu [00:02:30]: Thanks very much, Liz. Bob Natifu is my name and I work as the acting commissioner on climate change in the climate change department, the Ministry of Water and Environment. So what we essentially do is coordinate national climate and response in Uganda. Thank you.
Liz Carlile [00:02:50]: And Maria?
Maria Caballero-Espejo [00:02:51]: So hello. My name is Maria Cabellero-Espejo. I’m a climate adaptation specialist from the Ministry of Environment of Peru. And I’m happy to join this podcast.
Liz Carlile [00:03:05]: Great to have you with us, Maria. Nathalie?
Nathalie Seddon [00:03:08]: Hello, it’s great to be here. I am Nathalie Seddon, I work at the University of Oxford where I am a professor of biodiversity and director of the Nature Based Solutions Initiative.
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Liz Carlile [00:03:21]: Perhaps we could start with you answering the question for our listeners: what is an NDC?
Nathalie Seddon [00:03:29]: Great question. So [laughs] an NDC is, um, basically a Nationally Determined Contribution. That’s what the letters stand for. Now these are the non-binding national plans that form the basis for countries to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement. They contain key information on targets, action plans and policies and measures for reducing national emissions and also around adapting to climate change impacts.
These Nationally Determined Contributions also contain information on the needs for the provision of finance technology and capacity building for these actions. One of the key things about these NDCs is that countries communicate newer updated versions every five years, starting in 2020. And in signing the Paris Agreement, nations have committed to increasing ambition described within those NDCs every five years.
Liz Carlile [00:04:22]: So we’ve got a lot of work to do.
Nathalie Seddon [00:04:23]: We have.
Liz Carlile [00:04:25]: And what I, what I also understand is that these NDCs can be important for thinking about nature-based solutions? So I wonder, could you say a little bit about, again for our audience, what is a nature-based solution and why are they so critical right now?
Nathalie Seddon [00:04:42]: OK. Well put very simply, nature-based solutions are ways of working with nature to support societal goals. And the evidence is very clear now that we cannot meet the goals of the Paris Agreement unless we work with nature. So in other words, to keep warming to within 1.5 °C and to reduce vulnerability to climate impacts, we need to massively scale up the restoration, connection and protection of our natural and semi-natural ecosystems, not only land but also in the sea.
We also need to sustainably manage our working land and seascapes, including with nature-based agricultural practices such as agroforestry. And we also – and this is critically important – we also need to bring nature or green infrastructure into our towns and cities. Now we know that such actions can overall help to cool the planet by drawing down carbon to the tune of about a third of a degree towards the end of the century and can also protect biodiversity within those ecosystems. But perhaps even more critical are the ways in which they can support human adaptation to climate change.
So ecosystems provide natural barriers that can reduce the exposure of infrastructure, agriculture and communities to extreme events such as flooding along our coasts, or heatwaves in cities. And properly protected and sustainably managed, they can also limit our sensitivity to climate impacts. For example by supporting diverse alternative sources of food and income during times of shortage.
And the third aspect of this is that they can also increase our ability, our capacity, to deal with future shocks and changes because social capital, as well as natural capital, is built through the process of protecting and restoring and sustainably managing the natural world. So sort of in recognition of these benefits, many signatories to the Paris Agreement – over two-thirds in fact – include nature or nature-based solutions in one form or another in their climate pledges, in their Nationally Determined Contributions. And we’ve found that more include them in their... in the new versions of the NDCs recently submitted. But interestingly, it is the world’s poorest nations that are leading the way, at least in terms of including nature-based solutions as a key adaptation tool in their NDCs.
Liz Carlile [00:06:53]: So what we’re hearing is that nature offers us rich potential if we play our cards right and we take the right actions now?
Nathalie Seddon [00:07:01]: Absolutely. There’s a lot of important things to talk about there – what does 'good' look like when it comes to nature-based solutions? And there’s certainly currently a lot of confusion about that. We can perhaps come back to that point later.
Liz Carlile [00:07:12]: Yes, no, that’s great. Thank you very much for those, for unwrapping those definitions for us.
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Liz Carlile [00:07:20]: So Bob, it’s really great to have you with us today to share the government perspective on this. And I know that you’ve been – right up until now at the start of this COP – you’ve been reviewing your NDCs in Uganda. And I wondered if you could give our listeners some thoughts on, you know, what have been the challenges or some of the lessons that you might wish to share to others doing the same task?
Bob Natifu [00:07:47]: Thanks very much again, Liz. The start of the discussions about INDC if you may remember – there’s been challenges right from the start when we were thrown into the deep end. First of all, we didn’t even know what an INDC or NDC looks like. Over time, I think we’ve had a series of learnings addressing challenges on learnings as we go along. The first understanding is that putting together an NDC is not only the responsibility of one entity. So what essentially that means is that we have a challenge of bringing all sectors together.
As we know too well, we are not so much comfortable working together because there’s always that kind of having... works in our different silos. So one of the challenges that we’re trying to correct – how do you ensure that you bring all sectors together on one hand. There’s also a challenge of ensuring that you have the credible data and information that we have to use within the NDCs. And then this whole idea of INDCs on climate change being a fairly new phenomenon within our different workings beyond merely the rainfall patterns that we are faced with but also bringing to the development perspective that we are supposed to to deal with. And the general understanding, and bringing together all other stakeholders, including state and non-state actors, because we think that climate change is a collective responsibility.
So that is some kind of summary, the kind of challenges that we’ve been faced with. And the lessons learned out of that is that there has to be continued persistence and engagement, stakeholder engagement, of all these actors if we are to walk the talk, well aware that this continued engagement what happens propels action and once action is under way, will propel more action.
Liz Carlile [00:09:55]: That’s really helpful, Bob. Thank you for that. I mean another thing that has been suggested is that NDCs are a really good vehicle for including nature-based solutions. Has that been a strong discussion in your efforts to review your NDC?
Bob Natifu [00:10:17]: Well, addressing climate change requires two nuanced responses: the technological response on one part but also the conventional way of taking forward issues like tree-planting and so on and so forth. On our part, nature-based solutions are a low hanging fruit. They are central to our climate response. And then the question will be why is that? Our understanding is – and the strong conviction is – planting trees for example, or maintaining these open pool resources can help save the planet. But only if we put people first. And any proposed or planned afforestation activities or any activities that we’ll have to do, have to be subject to open, democratic decision making and relevant impact assessments first if they are to benefit our community.
So in trying to shape the narrative around our NDCs, we see nature-based solutions being... taking centre stage in trying to help us address the low-emission [telephone rings 00:11:26] and low-carbon development pathway that we envisage to achieve not only in the NDC, which is a short-term measure, but also ensuring that we move this forward into a vision for 2040 and all the long-term strategies and aspirations that we want to achieve. And in that regard we’ve made sure that forests, for example, take centre stage. And we’ve set particular targets of what we need to achieve between now and 2030.
The same applies to wetland conservation and this, by extension, this sustainable use of the wetlands to ensure that wetlands are conserved because we know the destruction of wetlands, just like it is for forestry, contributes to emissions. And we’ve tried to look at this in our greenhouse gas inventory and of the land use, land use change and forestry. So we see these as quick wins, hanging fruits that we can take advantage of to address the climate crisis that we are faced with.
Liz Carlile [00:12:35]: Thank you very much for that.
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Liz Carlile [00:12:42]: My question to you, Maria, is, is about the participatory approach that I know you took in Peru to developing your NDC. And we’re very lucky to have your government perspective on this and to tell us, you know, how did that work and why did you feel that that was the best way to go about it?
Maria Caballero-Espejo [00:13:03]: Actually, in the case of Peru, we had this talking about climate change for probably more than two decades. Peru had, has had, multi-stakeholder coordination space that deals with climate change even before the 1990s, probably. Later on we organised the COP20 before the Paris Agreement was signed and that kind of had been generated a lot of expectations in the public space. So after the Paris Agreement we decided that if you are going to go with our NDCS we needed to add these voices into the conversation, into the discussion and into the contributions that Peru was starting to develop.
And that is why we had the idea to create this space that was called in Spanish, Dialoguemos, that in English would be like 'Let’s Talk About Climate Change'. And this space was organised as a mutli-stakeholder space for participation for this permanent dialogue between different sectors, different climate actors, the public, the private sectors. And also indigenous People, the academia and so on. I guess that for us, that participatory process was really a way to connect with the whole country. And also to commit to a really ambitious climate deal, let’s say. And we try to address three different things with the Dialoguemos.
One is to address the NDCs on adaptation because we consider that adaptation is a key strategy to tackle climate change because, I mean, we are a highly vulnerable country. But also we want to talk about the NDCs on mitigation because we can see there also that we have a role on this problem and this global issue. So we put together different sectors and different actors, private, public, and they discuss about this and about probable, probable NDCs that we can implement in the country.
The second thing that we want to do with the Dialoguemos, is basically to have this multi-level space for talking. That, that means that not just the national officials will have these big decisions, but also the multi-, the sub-national leaders will have the opportunity to contribute and put their voices on these decisions and the NDCs basically. And the last thing is that with this kind of space, we try to compromise the implementation of all our NDCs at different levels in different territories and with the different participation of people. And I guess that, that is why this space, this platform, this initiative was a success.
Liz Carlile [00:16:28]: That’s a very impressive story, Maria. I think to see, to see such a wide participation and I think quite impressive because Peru has gone through considerable changes in administration, so I guess this process has continued regardless?
Maria Caballero-Espejo [00:16:45]: Yeah, exactly. I mean this process didn’t stop since it was established after the Paris Agreement. It continues even right now. We have like different 'Let’s Talk About Change' spaces in every single month, I will say, with different people, different actors, different sectors etc. So yeah, this process is permanent and it won’t stop unless we don’t care about climate change anymore. But that won’t happen for sure, so yeah.
Liz Carlile [00:17:17]: That’s great. Thank you. Let me hear from Sarshen now. Why is nature important for South Africa, Sarshen? How is nature currently featured in your NDCs?
Sarshen Scorgie [00:17:30]: Thanks, Liz. So I wanted to talk a little bit about South Africa and our ecosystems and nature. So South Africa’s ecosystems are recognised globally for their biodiversity and high levels of endemism where basically species are only found in South Africa, not anywhere else in the world. But these same terrestrial ecosystems and species face pressures from a range of human activities which are now obviously further exacerbated by climate change. So we’ve heard already from Nathalie how important it is to protect, manage and restore these ecosystems. Plus also the livelihood benefits that nature-based solutions provide. Additionally, in South Africa we have one out of five people who are living in poverty but yet we know that nature can also support livelihoods and provide jobs, which is really important helping people to cope better in the face of climate change.
And then if I can touch on our current NDC, it’s very encouraging to see the inclusion of nature in our NDC, particularly around adaptation it focuses on nature through the implementation of our national climate change adaptation strategy which highlights the importance of the ecosystem-based adaptation, the role of nature, biodiversity and ecosystems. And the only area which is not so strong in terms of nature is really around oceans, and we’re really wanting to work on, on increasing the amount of the recognition of oceans within the national determined contributions.
Then on the mitigation side, of course South Africa being, having a high dependence on coal is obviously a huge, a big renewable energy focus in the NDC. But importantly, we have included nature in the AFOLU section in terms of the avoided deforestation and land use section, which is really important in terms of bringing nature out more strongly. But again, we would like to see much clearer targets being set for this sector. But this, and again the science is showing us the soil carbon potentials, particularly in rangelands, for example our savannahs and grasslands. So again there’s huge opportunity for not only adaptation benefits by restoring nature but also mitigation through soil carbon sequestration.
Liz Carlile [00:19:45]: So what I’m hearing is that there is a lot to think about, a lot of different communities involved, a lot of different environments, a lot of different landscapes, themes. So I wanted to ask you, Harriet, how’s this been in Uganda in terms of developing your NDC? How has the process been in terms of engaging different groups?
Harriet Drani [00:20:08]: Thanks, Liz. The process for updating Uganda’s NDC has been really good, I must say. Because this time round we’ve witnessed a very transparent process with a lot of vigilance and clear communication by the CSOs to the rest of the stakeholders about how the NDC will be updated, when the consultations will happen and how the different stakeholders can contribute. And so there’s been really strong participation from different groups at all levels, right from the grassroots at regional level and also to the national level. And for example, at the grassroots level this time we’ve had active participation from the Indigenous groups where they’ve had their say and given specific recommendations on what they really would want to see, especially in terms of how nature is integrated in Uganda’s NDC.
Liz Carlile [00:21:04]: And Harriet, I think you mentioned Indigenous groups. Have you got a couple of examples for our audience on how they are working with nature to manage the impacts of climate change?
Harriet Drani [00:21:16]: Yes. We have five different Indigenous groups in Uganda. For example, the Indigenous groups like the Benet in the Mount Elgon region in Eastern Uganda, are using agroforestry practices like establishing contours across their farmlands and planting agroforestry trees and shrub species like the calliandra, like the leucaena, to mention but a few, to significantly reduce water and soil movement and also help really to enrich the fertility of the soils in order to stabilise our crop yields, especially in the drier climate. And not only that, Liz, the calliandra most especially is also used by these groups as animal feeds which are really palatable and also to help to increase on milk production, which helps them in the long run for sustained household food security.
Liz Carlile [00:22:22]: Thank you, that’s really nice to have specific things for people to think about. So Nathalie, what are the risks around nature-based solutions that countries perceive? What are the things they’re thinking about?
Nathalie Seddon [00:22:27]: I think one of the major risks is that nature-based solutions are being seen as an alternative to keeping fossil fuels in the ground when they are not, and the science is very clear, that unless we rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels, nature won’t be able to provide any solutions at all because the warming that will result from not keeping fossil fuels in the ground will produce more intense, more frequent fires, diseases and so forth, all of which undermine that capacity of the biosphere to draw down and store carbon for the long term.
So we absolutely have to scale up nature-based solutions at the same time as radically scaling back greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not an either or. We need to do both. That’s the one major risk. Another major risk is that when it comes to nature-based solutions, there is an over emphasis on forestry, particularly on commercial forestry plantations that involve one or two usually exotic tree species. While these are often labelled as a nature-based solutions, they don’t qualify as such. Such plantations often only offer very short-term high risk carbon stores and can have negative outcomes for biodiversity if they replace perfectly good intact biodiverse native ecosystems and they can also involve new transgressions of human rights, land grabs and so forth and can harm dispossessed local communities. So it’s critical to hold to account, or to ensure, that those claiming to invest in nature-based solutions have ambitious, credible and verifiable action plans to phase out fossil fuel use and only support those projects on the ground that are community-led and biodiversity based.
Liz Carlile [00:24:19]: Thank you. I was really struck by your comments around the relationship between fossil fuel and the success of nature-based solutions. And I think, you know, that does move us to thinking very much around what the possible hopes for in this next COP on climate change can possibly be. It really shows you the deep connection here, doesn’t it?
Nathalie Seddon [00:24:40]: It does, absolutely.
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Liz Carlile [00:24:46]: So Bob, what is your ambition for COP26?
Bob Natifu [00:24:52]: Ambition is always skewed around mitigation ambition, as I’ve said at the start and I’ll emphasise it even more emphatically, ambition for us goes beyond mitigation as it is, but also ambition in terms of adaptation, ambition in terms of finance, ambition in terms of technology transfer, ambition in terms of capacity building. As I’ve already enlisted, our NDCs are really ambitious in that. But to walk the talk of this ambition, the means of implementation that I have enlisted finance, adaptation elements, be it loss and damage, is central. Now, ambition on our part, when going into these discussions, should be in a conversation to unlock the vast amount of resources and other opportunities that there are to help us address, be it the nature-based solutions that we’ve put forward or be it the adaptation and mitigation actions that we’ve put forward, that will help us walk the talk.
Liz Carlile [00:25:59]: Great. Thank you. Maria, what would be your ambition for COP26, particularly in regards to, you know, this question around the relationship between climate and nature?
Maria Caballero-Espejo [00:26:14]: I guess that in the case of our country, we can see the nature as a great opportunity for tackling different challenges. Not just climate change but also other challenges that as a country we need to go for because, I mean, our... the lives of our people depend on that. Especially in the case of climate change, we see nature-based solutions especially as a way of giving back the value that our ancestral were given to the nature. I just remember, because I’m from the central Andes of Peru,when I was a kid my grandparents were always looking at the sky. They were always looking at animals and they were learning from, from them in order to do something. I mean, in order to have crops they were looking at these things, learning from them and then applying actions to tackle some hazards that could probably put in danger the production systems. And I guess that there was one thing that Peru with nature can really address climate change.
Because our country has a lot of diversity, not just in terms of ecosystems but also in terms of cultures, in terms of a climate, in terms of people’s mindset also. And the way that we address these global issues that affect the country needs to put again the value of the knowledge that people, I mean the Indigenous people, our ancestral knowledge, has in order to tackle, the big issue of climate change. And I guess nature there is the key element that we are using to do so. For, for Peru, nature-based solutions represent a good opportunity because we have a lot of biodiversity to protect, to conserve and also to use it as a way to address development issues that we have or to address poverty, biodiversity loss, social development in general and so on. So for that I guess that, in the case of our NDCs and, and in the case of this COP - this coming COP, we really need to put forward the agenda and nature-based solutions in adaptation in mitigation in order to have a more integral approach on the issue of climate change, basically.
Liz Carlile [00:29:20]: Thank you. Harriet, what, what’s your thought on ambition in Uganda’s NDCs?
Harriet Drani [00:29:26]: The ambition we are seeing in Uganda’s NDC – and probably other NDCs from countries in the global South – is great, I must say. But one important thing, Liz, if you will notice that some of the ambitions are presented as conditional. Meaning they will largely be implemented if we get the right support and that includes the financial support, the technical support and whether we have the right technological capacity, even within our countries, really to deliver on them. And it’s good that at this COP26, there’s really going to be a big focus on the pledge to mobilise the US$100 billion per year.
The question that remains is are the developed nations really going to deliver on this? And the only way that we can turn these ambitions in our NDCs into action is only if we see some of these finances coming through. But Liz, it’s also not only about the finances but it’s also about having the right financial instruments and the mechanisms, I must say, to make sure that the finances is actually accessible to all. For instance, we would really want to see this time around that the flows of this climate finance is more in terms of grants than loans to ensure that there is equitable access to this finance by the developing countries.
Liz Carlile [00:30:52]: Thank you, Harriet. I mean we’re seeing that across so many of the pieces of work that we do and the partners that we work with. It is all about getting the right kind of money to the right people at the right time. And if we can’t do that, progress is hampered. But I’d like to come to you, again, Sarshen. How will we move this ambition from sort of COP26 to COP15? You know, moving from the end of this year to the middle of next, how can we keep the momentum behind this ambition and make the connection between the climate change convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity?
Sarshen Scorgie [00:31:30]: Thanks, Liz. Yes, you know, I think it’s really important to recognise this high level of ambition that is coming through. Of course there’s a lot more that we need to do but we need to recognise that these commitments, along with the financial support as Harriet was saying, also requires detailed implementation planning. So, you know, we need to recognise also the synergies and the trade-offs between climate action in the various sectors. So thinking about the positive and negative impacts of biodiversity and natural ecosystems have on the other sectors in terms of water, agriculture, transport infrastructure, etc.
So this really requires an integrated approach where we’re thinking about linking our adaptation planning as well as our mitigation plans and then very closely aligning that to our government service delivery and their implementation plans and approaches. So for this, we require a lot of cross-sectoral, inter-ministerial coordination and strategy development, and making sure that we’re also coordinating our commitments between the different conventions. As you were saying, we have the UNFCCC and the CBD. How do we make those connections strongly between the commitments and how do we also see that that filters down to what’s happening on the ground? So we need to ensure that we’re also able to demonstrate effective implementation models on the ground through these implementation plans.
Liz Carlile [00:33:00]: This is a question that I’m thinking about, Sarshen. You know it’s always very difficult to get a kind of cross-disciplinary approach to things. You know, we end up in our sort of ivory towers. How are you finding that the kind of conversation – either within communities or within your government – is opening out to embrace other disciplines in other areas? Is that beginning to happen?
Sarshen Scorgie [00:33:23]: Yes, exactly. So we’re definitely seeing a lot more cross-sectoral collaboration happening within government. I feel the, the processes like or being part of these conventions like the UNFCCC and the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as having national processes like recently developing our national climate change adaptation strategy, brought the sectors together as well as it fostered a lot of dialogue from local government as well as communities on the ground to contribute to what the adaptation strategy and planning would be. So we’re definitely seeing a lot more cross-sectoral coordination. But what we feel is important is to also now link particularly the adaptation and the mitigation benefits and coordinated planning together, including the trade-offs and synergies that I mentioned earlier. So it’s really important to get that integrated planning and continue this cross-sectoral integration and talking. But we should also think a lot more about nature’s contribution – both from an adaptation and mitigation point of view – in a much more integrated way.
Liz Carlile [00:34:30]: Thank you. So Nathalie, what are your hopes or expectations for COP26?
Nathalie Seddon [00:34:36]: Well I think whatever the sort of, the politics around emissions reductions and climate finances, there’s a good chance that this will be a successful COP for nature. But for it to be a successful COP for nature, we do need bold commitments backed up with actionable plans to stop investments into activities that lock in long-term damage to both the biosphere and the climate.
So, such as subsidies of high emitting agricultural commodities. We need that alongside equally bold actionable commitments to scale up investments in community-led, biodiversity-based projects to support adaptation and mitigation. And we would want the Parties to acknowledge the role of nature-based solutions in both climate change mitigation and adaptation plan within the COP26 decision text. And we want resource commitments to enhance ambition and to include nature-based solutions in the NDCs alongside increased targets on emissions reductions. So this would involve evidence-based targets, comprehensive plans from pro-protection restoration and management of a range of ecosystems. And as I say, we would need to see clear commitments to defund ecosystem loss and damage from supply chains.
Liz Carlile [00:35:53]: Do you think we’re likely to get this?
Nathalie Seddon [00:35:56]: Things are looking good for some aspects of that statement, for sure. But there’s still a lot of work to be done in mobilising support across, across, across all the Parties as...
Liz Carlile [00:36:05]: But in a way it’s not too late, so we can, we can hope that the discussions go the right way.
Nathalie Seddon [00:36:09]: Yes.
Liz Carlile [00:36:10]: Which is really good to hear.
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Liz Carlile [00:36:18]: So I think we, we perhaps need to wrap up now. And what I always ask our guests – because this is our Make Change Happen podcast – is what is one change you would like to see, or what do you think a change that’s really important that could help make that difference? Harriet, what’s your change?
Harriet Drani [00:36:39]: Yes. For me the change I really would want to see is finance, in order to help us to turn these ambitions into action.
Liz Carlile [00:36:48]: That’s nice and clear. Thank you. And very much appreciated by many of the partners and communities we work with. Very much their sentiment. Nathalie, what’s your big change?
Nathalie Seddon [00:37:00]: We need all the world’s wealthy nations to commit to increasing near term ambition on greenhouse gas emissions reductions. And to pin those pledges with actionable well-financed action plans, whilst also committing to eliminating deforestation from supply chains by 2025.
Liz Carlile [00:37:19]: Great. Thank you. Again, really nice clear message. Sarshen, what about you?
Sarshen Scorgie [00:37:26]: I really want to see action on the ground. So a translation of a lot of the policy and plans but seeing that on the ground, and particularly around increased action in the ocean-climate nexus, and then improving our target setting to actually achieve land-based targets.
Liz Carlile [00:37:44]: Maria, what’s a change that you would like to see right now?
Maria Caballero-Espejo [00:37:49]: The change that Peru in general I think wants to see in this upcoming COP is to implement the thing that we were basically trying to put in our national contributions. So it’s time to do more action and not just, you know, to have the ideas but to put it on the territories, to put it for people to use, to do and to benefit by.
Liz Carlile [00:38:25]: Thank you. So, Bob, what would your change be that you would like to see?
Bob Natifu [00:38:32]: Well time has come to walk the talk. We’ve had lots of talks and discussions around how to advance climate action, and central to this forthcoming COP, we so much look forward to ensure that countries put their best foot forward. But also consideration will be taken to those that really have challenges as enlisted to help all of us walk the same path together. So climate action will only succeed if we’re all trying to pull strings together collectively to address the global climate crisis that we are faced with.
Liz Carlile [00:39:20]: Brilliant. Well, as you’ve heard from all my guests this morning, there are very clear actions that can be taken. There’s huge progress that is being made. And that actually, with this COP that starts today, there is the potential to make those decisions that could really lead us into a more promising future. So finally, can I just say thank you to you all for your time and we will keep our fingers crossed for a positive meeting in Scotland over the next couple of weeks. Thank you.
[Music]
Host [00:39:59]: You can find out more about today's podcast, our guests, and their work, at IIED.org/podcast where you can also listen to more episodes.
You can leave us feedback, or follow the series at soundcloud.com/theiied. That’s soundcloud.com slash T H E I I E D. The podcast is produced by our in-house communications team. For more information about IIED’s work, please visit us online at www.iied.org.
[End of recording]
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