Strengthening science policy interface between biodiversity and climate change in the Hindu Kush Himalaya

About the event

We are jointly organising this regional dialogue with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to discuss the commonalities of drivers that impact both climate change and biodiversity. Additionally, we will also explore commonalities in scientific approaches to understanding these issues, as well as policies and responses to address the problems, which would provide a comprehensive view of the interconnected challenges.

UNEP with a mandate to help strengthen science policy interfaces and support policy coherence for better environmental governance and management is partnering with ICIMOD, having a mandate and expertise on climate change and biodiversity. The purpose of the regional dialogue is to understand the state-of-play on the climate and biodiversity nexus in the HKH region. The dialogue will further explore commonalities in scientific and policy approaches to understanding responses contributing to the forthcoming Conference of Party (CoP) meetings of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It also envisaged to come up with actionable long-term priority areas focusing on strengthening regional/national science policy coherence to provide a collective view of the interconnected challenges.

Objectives

The specific objectives are to:

• Solicit ideas/ inputs to develop a long-term regional programme strategy aimed at enhancing science-policy interfaces to address biodiversity conservation and climate change nexus in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH)
• Identify and prioritise implementable actions at national and regional levels and strengthen existing instruments (NBSAP, NDC, NAPs etc.) to address the interconnected challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss in the HKH
• Explore options to establish a regional community of practice focused on the climate-biodiversity nexus and develop key messages to communicate to the global communities using platforms such as COP meetings and other platforms

Expected outcomes

The expectations from the consultative meeting will be a better understanding of potential interventions to strengthen science-policy interfaces and policy coherence and mapping of inputs for long-term programmes and explore collaborative options that can be used for national, regional and global advocacy including forthcoming CoP meetings.

Background

Climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss are arguably the greatest challenges impeding the progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – collectively known as triple planetary crises. Adapting to climate change, halting, and reversing biodiversity loss, minimising pollution and ensuring human prosperity and wellbeing are four interlinked goals that governments aim to achieve by the first half of this century. This means the triple planetary crisis objectives must be pursued jointly and coherently in science and decision-making, to minimise trade-offs, maximise the positive impact and potentially deliver additional societal benefits. Failing to meet any of the goals impacts severely at scales that range from global to local. The role of biodiversity in human development and addressing climate change, and the need for synergy has been realised and recognized as a major contemporary global need.

The HKH is the highest biodiverse region in the world. It is also one of the most vulnerable mountain regions to climate change and biodiversity loss. Recognised as the ‘Third Pole’ and ‘Water Tower of Asia’ due to the largest mass of glaciers outside the North Pole and South Pole, and the region with four out of 36 Global Biodiversity Hotspots, the HKH is the most vulnerable to both climate change and biodiversity loss. It is evident that, due to elevation dependent warming, the HKH is witnessing a higher rise in temperature compared to the other mountain ranges and the global average with cascading impacts on biodiversity, water, people’s livelihood, and food security among others.

CBD and UNFCCC are the two most important global Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) contributing to addressing climate change and biodiversity loss. There is a growing realisation that the contemporary twin challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss could be effectively overcome through synergy, using multipurpose solutions, which benefit both nature and people. The UNFCCC and the CBD, both agreed upon in Rio in 1992 and have considered biodiversity and climate change in their respective work programmes. There is a growing realisation that they can only be achieved through synergy, i.e., using solutions which benefit both nature and climate. The existing global mechanisms such as the Joint Liaison Group of UNFCCC, CBD and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and national mechanisms such as the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) guided by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), National Adaptation Plans (NAP) guided by the Paris Agreement could be instrumental in developing coherence among the two conventions to address the contemporary challenges faced by humanity.