CIFOR-ICRAF at COP 26

When discussing gender issues, many development practitioners and social movement activists pay attention to the gaps that exist between men and women. Gaps in terms of rights; responsibilities; access and control over natural resources; and decision-making within the family, in the community and at the national level. Men and women often have different priorities and choices regarding development, which affect – and are affected by – development activities. Understanding gender issues enables activity organizers and intervention implementers to build capacity to deal with the impacts of inequality and ensure sustainable development.

Peatlands exist on every continent except Antarctica, and they form in a huge variety of conditions – from the warm tropics to cold circumpolar regions. Peatlands in the Northern Hemisphere cover around 3.6 million square kilometers and contain between 400 and 600 gigatons of carbon, while tropical peatlands cover around 0.4 million square kilometers,with a carbon pool of 80 to 90 gigatons.

As a country that is vulnerable to the impact of climate change and contributes to global greenhouse-gas emissions, Indonesia is highly committed to reduce its emissions. The Government of Indonesia has established a Long-Term Low Carbon and Climate Resilience Strategy through the LTS-LCCR 2050 document.

In line with the overall theme of Indonesia Pavilion for COP 26 “Leading climate actions together”, Directorate General of Watershed Management and Forest Rehabilitation will have a talk show session to discuss Indonesia FOLU Net Sink 2030.

Peatlands are highly diverse terrestrial wetland ecosystems that provide multiple ecosystem goods and services, and play a huge role in carbon sequestration, water storage and habitat provision for flora and fauna. They also provide tangible products – including food, medicine, and timber – that help to sustain human livelihoods.

Serbia, an EU candidate, seeks to reduce its reliance on coal for energy and heating. Massive emission reductions are sought through greater use of biomass, solar, wind and hydropower to improve air quality, restore land, and create green jobs. The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia is a regional breadbasket, with large tracts of fertile, flat land. However, rural poverty is increasing, soils often show signs of degradation, and agricultural production is deteriorating.

Combating transboundary haze pollution and peatland fires requires action by both government and non-state actors. Collaboration is critical in tackling the root causes of peatland fires; in ASEAN member states, non-state actors have made important contributions to tackling peatland fires as climate change mitigation measures.

This session hosted at the EU Pavilion at COP26 will present concrete experience from the field from EU GCCA+ and partners. It will explore evidence and experiences from the field on what nature-based solutions, notably restoration and Sustainable Integrated Land Management, bring as climate, environmental, economic and social benefits, and to whom.

Despite the multiple proven benefits that improved soil health provides – not only for food security and farmers´ livelihoods, but also for climate resilience and greenhouse gas mitigation – significant challenges remain to advancing action on the ground. Coordinated contributions from multiple stakeholders are vital for halting and reversing the degradation that is currently occurring on over a third of the Earth´s surface and affecting 3.2 billion people.

The cocoa sector faces a number of challenges related to climate change and sustainability. A changing climate means that given current trends, many cocoa-growing regions will be too hot for cocoa trees to survive by 2050. The cocoa sector is contributing to making this problem worse, through the ongoing challenges around deforestation in cocoa-growing areas.

Ecosystem-based adaptation is emerging as an inclusive and just approach to address adaptation needs, boost emission sinks and address the livelihood challenges of vulnerable communities. This session presents scaling and financing mechanisms based on experiences from Africa and India.

As part of the International Tropical Peatland Centre (ITPC)’s role as a centre of excellence for tropical peatland research to support policy, and a collaborative platform for studying and preserving tropical peatland ecosystems, the centre hosts a knowledge portal.

As developing countries come on the cross-roads of economic growth while attempting to mitigate climate change, it is important to note the co-benefits that can be achieved by implementing nature-based solutions that are scientifically vetted as well as socially appropriate. The panel presents such co-benefits to make a strong case to implement NbS for meeting NDCs targets.

The Congo Basin contains 10% of the world’s biodiversity and is one of the largest remaining areas of continuous tropical forest on the planet. Its resources enable it to store carbon, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. Reducing deforestation acts as a mitigation strategy, as forest conservation helps maintain precipitation and regulate local, regional, and global water flows and climates.

The event will be an exciting and interactive space to share innovations, best practices and lessons in nature-based solutions for climate resilience, including sustainable financing models and the role of South-South and Triangular Cooperations in the promotion of nature-based solutions.

The event will bring together the heads of the participating CPF member organizations to build momentum on forest-based climate actions and further explore options for a UN-system wide and CPF response to halt deforestation, building on the existing globally agreed strategies and goals on forests.

Carbon sequestration in soil offers both globally significant potential to reduce atmospheric carbon, and the opportunity to improve soil health to deliver additional water security and biodiversity benefits. This is within a context where, on current trajectories, up to 90% of the planet’s soil – upon which we rely for food production and water management – will be degraded by 2050.

This event is a call to action to contribute to ongoing efforts to improve the recognition and realization of women’s land rights as fundamental to improve the wellbeing of women and children. Addressing existing barriers, will allow for positive synergies in achieving climate-land-gender outcomes that lead to effective implementation of key climate change policies for promoting gender equality and access to land.

Tropical peatlands are storehouse of terrestrial carbon currently under different levels of pressure depending on the drivers and policy environment. Evidence-based policies require information almost in real-time fashion. New knowledge should be communicated in timely manner to mitigate the impact. On the other hand, policy-relevant research agenda often either miss the challenges or too long to deliver. Therefore, continued dialogued across the regions and among stakeholders should be encouraged to support appropriate actions.

Although carbon cycle stability is crucial for soil fertility and biodiversity, between 20-60% of carbon stocks historically stored in soil organic matter as active components have been lost since soil cultivation began – mainly due to changes in land use and land management. With over 40% of the Earth’s surface degraded, impacting over 3.2 billion people (IPBES 2018), continuing with business-as-usual is not an option.

This session brings together work by CIFOR on criteria and indicators for peatland monitoring with work by the Global Peatlands Initiative to establish core outcomes that should be measured where possible for effective peatland monitoring and research. By standardizing what is measured across projects and countries for different types of peatlands, it will be possible to synthesis findings to develop more evidence-based policy and practice.

As changing climates affect farming conditions across the world, how can geospatial and remote sensing tools help IFAD and others decide on where adaptation investments are best needed and what impact these interventions will have? Considering such issues will be representatives from the Government of Indonesia and IFAD’s Senior Management; to be followed by a “ShareFair” – a virtual ideas marketplace – where participants will learn more about geospatial tools for targeting, assessing vulnerability, and accessing geodata; and their real life applications on, for example, pasture conditions in Kyrgyzstan, vulnerability assessments in Yemen, and soil erosion in Lesotho.

Tropical forests play critical role in global climate cycle. However, most of these forests have been degraded and deforested driven by the development of the agricultural sector that involving the drainage of peatlands, forest conversion, and burning for land clearing (Austin et al. 2019, Dohong et al. 2017). This often associated with oil palm plantation establishment (Glauber and Gunawan, 2016; Purnomo et al., 2019), in which its expansion is driven by the demand on local and global trade (Henders et al. 2015; Rulli et al. 2019). While win-win solutions are available to reconcile the development and make the palm oil sector more sustainable (Purnomo et al. 2020), impact associated with its practices on peatland, especially when involving peat drainage, has to be remediated to prevent further release of emission.

The general theme of this “4 per 1000” day will be the mobilization of actors (partners, members and supporters of the Initiative) through multi-stakeholder coalitions for the implementation of the 2050 Strategic Plan and its action plan.

The Cuvette Centrale peatlands of the Congo Basin have recently received international attention, as updated estimates of their expanse have seen them deemed the largest continuous area of tropical peatland in the world. They are located in the transboundary area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo.

The Commonwealth Secretariat’s approach on mainstreaming gender into climate change action, through its Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH), includes supporting member countries in the development of funding proposals which integrate youth analysis and gender action plans, aimed at delivering gender-responsive actions in their implementation. The CCFAH also provides technical assistance to support the accreditation process of eligible national entities to international climate financing institutions.

With over 15 million hectares of tropical peatlands, Indonesia has extensive experience and a multitude of lessons learned about the management of these critical ecosystems. Many mistakes have been made in the exploitation of Indonesia’s peatlands and forests. As such, the country’s history of peatlands management serves as an important cautionary tale for the governments of other peatland-rich countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, and Peru.

Multisector alliances are key in achieving resilient landscapes and livelihoods. We discuss the role and tools applied and challenges experienced by different stakeholders and bring examples from West Africa where these have been applied successfully in tandem and are now being scaled up.

The impacts of climate change on agriculture depend on local contexts and farmers’ conditions. Investing in communities’ own capacities to experiment with innovations and share knowledge can help the sector to address this complexity and respond to shocks. Parallel investments in grassroot capacities, partnership, knowledge networks, and digital innovations can also help to mitigate these impacts at scale.

Given the current emphasis on REDD+ results-based finance, transparency and accountability are particularly important. This event discusses opportunities and challenges that enable and hinder an effective, efficient and equitable implementation of REDD+, with particular focus on finance and benefit-sharing schemes.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement (PA) and Agenda 2030 were adopted to shape the global response to climate change and sustainable development. This event aims to demonstrate, and interactively discuss, the potential alignment of reporting on adaptation under the PA Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).